Part of the first wave of West Coast country-rock bands, imbued harmony-laden folk-rock with country twang. Jim Messina's "You Better Think Twice" is a perfectly constructed and arranged song, one that should have been a huge hit but mysteriously never found its place in the Top 40 pantheon. As it happened, Columbia Records was interested in the group -- and hovering somewhere around this situation was David Geffen, then a young talent agent who was fast on his feet and persuasive in his manner. At the time, they were using the name Pogo, but that didn't last. And just as it had happened when Meisner quit Poco in 1969, Schmit was offered his bassist/vocalist spot in the Eagles -- and not as a hired musician, which would have been the usual approach made to a potential replacement member, but with a full share in a group that was counting both its annual album sales and concert earnings in the millions. He, in turn, was trying to sort out the contractual situation surrounding ex-Springfield guitarist/singer Stephen Stills, and his new association with ex-Byrds singer/guitarist David Crosby, and Graham Nash, formerly of the Hollies, who wanted to record together but had the reverse problem; Stills was signed to Atlantic by way of Buffalo Springfield (which very much wanted Crosby, Stills & Nash), while Crosby and Nash, through their previous memberships in the Byrds and the Hollies, respectively, were both tied contractually to Columbia Records.
Studio albums were few and far between, as the changes in the music marketplace made Poco less appealing to record labels in the 1990s and beyond, but they did release a new record, Running Horse, through their website in 2002, and The Last Roundup followed two years later on Future Edge. The other members of Poco not only didn't try to dissuade him, but actively encouraged Schmit to accept the offer. Albums Studio albums. Not wanting to lose all of the recognition and goodwill they'd built up locally over the previous five months, the result was a change of just one consonant, to Poco. A copy of this album hangs in the Poco exhibit in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville along with the jacket Rusty Young wears on the back cover. He was happy in the group as anyone, and had been in there longer than anyone except Young and Grantham, and they were all having to work a little too hard to sell fewer records than their music merited, and definitely harder than they might have liked after a decade, just to sustain what momentum they had -- but he might well have stayed for the long haul. Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for Legacy - Poco on AllMusic - 1989 - The original 1968 lineup of Richie Furay, Jim…
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