E-MAILS, TWEETS & LOVE Letters
BLACKBERRY SMOKE Michael, I wanted to thank you guys and Scott
Greene for the coverage of the annual Black- berry Smoke homecoming show. It was nice reading different peoples thoughts. It was al- most like being there. I still dream of one day attending the Homecoming, but at present we just can’t afford the trip. The articles and pic- tures were great. Greatest band of all!
Sincerely Hans J. Berlin, Germany
POCO, ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE Hi Michael, I am Richie Furay's manager and I re-
cently read your interview in the current issue with Rusty Young. With reading between the lines, it sounded to me that Rusty is a little bitter about people saying "it's not Poco with- out Richie," etc. Although Rusty has been the only member of POCO since 1968, it was Richie and his voice and songwriting that de- fined the band in their early years, and left a legacy and foundation for POCO with the fans for 50 years. Personally, I continued to be a fan after Richie's departure, after Timothy's departure, and even after Paul's departure. I'm still a fan today of their music. Rusty took the core sound of POCO completely into an- other direction after Paul was out of the band. Today, Rusty is trying to come full circle with POCO sounding more like they did in their earlier years with the addition of Lex Brown- ing on vocals, guitar & other string instru- ments. However, Rusty can't perform a concert without putting in 7-9 songs that Richie, Paul Cotton, and Timothy B. Schmit wrote or sang original lead vocals on, and 5 of those songs are Richie's. That's about half of
the setlist in concert. In contrast, Richie has the ability to
perform any of POCO's early albums in its en- tirety in concert, since the music was identifi- ably his voice and arrangements. Richie Recently in 2018 toured while performing the POCO Deliverin' album in its entirety, and sounding better than the original. We filmed and recorded the 50th an-
niversary return to the Troubadour in West Hollywood this past November. The first set and the second Deliverin' album set will be available as both video & audio later this year. There is also a documentary in production on Richie, "Through It All, The Life and Influ- ence of Richie Furay." Richie was Cameron Crowe's first professional interview for Rolling Stone magazine. It was Richie that was somewhat and loosely the influence for Cameron's movie Almost Famous. There is a still a huge demand for that
"original" voice of Poco, along with hearing Buffalo Springfield, Souther-Hillman-Furay, and acclaimed solo work of Richie's. He con- tinues to draw sold out audiences to his shows, and delivers close to 2 hours of music that would be exhausting to a performer a third of his age. While approaching 75 years old, Richie still has "got it.". Unlike many of his contemporaries, who's shows are on life support, Richie's performances are electrify- ing, even on the slower acoustic songs. Go figure!
Kind regards, David Stone
We love getting letters, e-mails and such. Write me at
kudzoomag@yahoo.com and give me your thoughts! Rock on!
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62
