Casual music fans may view Poco as an answer to the trivia question: What group did The Eagles raid for their bass players? In truth, Poco was a pioneering country rock band who flirted with crossover success twice, but never quite broke through.
Poco was formed in 1968 from the ashes of Buffalo Springfield, when Richie Furay and Jim Messina started the group. Rusty Young, Randy Meisner, and George Grantham rounded out the original lineup. Although their country rock sound was considered groundbreaking, the group had only modest success for much of the 70s. The act was also probably hurt by their significant turnover; by 1978 only Rusty Young remained from the original lineup.
Poco's first potential breakout came with the release of their Legend LP in 1978. The album went gold and generated two top 40 hits - "Crazy Love" (#17) and "Heart of the Night" (#20). Sadly, the group was unable to follow up that success and saw declining record sales in the 1980s. By the mid-80s, Poco had lost its recording contract and things looked bleak.
However, Poco caught its second big break when Richard Marx went to bat for the band, and had his manager (Allen Kovac) take them on as a client. This led to a reforming of the original lineup, a new recording contract, and a new album, 1989's Legacy. Surprisingly, this album was a hit, also going gold (and also with two top 40 hits - "Call It Love" (#18) and "Nothin' to Hide" (#39)). And once again, Poco was unable to capitalize on this success, although they remained a working band through 2013 (and sporadically since then).
Cool trivia fact: "Call It Love" was directed by Michael Bay (Transformers, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon) in one of his first directing jobs.
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