Backtracking to card #89, here's Poco.
I can't imagine kids of the early 90s ripping packs of MusiCards, pulling this card, and finding it at all desirable in any way, no offense to the men of Poco. Just an awkward shot of four average-looking middle-aged men.
Ha, I gotta admit I'm not super familiar with Poco and I was kinda under the impression they had an 80s hit with a cover of "Puttin' On the Ritz"... but I was confused and that artist was actually Taco.
Poco? Taco? Falco? What's the difference!? lol
But no, it turns out Poco were a band known for helping pioneer the Southern California country rock sound.
After skimming their Wikipedia entry, seems this band had a lot of quality musicians pass through its ranks over the years, though commercial success was elusive, perhaps because they called themselves Poco instead of something cooler.
Their reunion album, Legacy (1989), contained two top-40 singles, "Call It Love" and "Nothin' to Hide", good enough to earn a MusiCard apparently, but the accompanying tour flopped and the band was dropped from their label by the time packs were on shelves.
Poco was inactive for most of the 90s before being revived in the new millennium, spearheaded by Rusty Young, the only original member remaining by that point. He passed away in 2021, which seems to have closed the book on Poco.
One "fun fact" I knew about Poco is that the late, great Phil Hartman did the artwork for a couple of their albums, including the horse illustration on the back of the MusiCard above. Doesn't that blow your mind a little? Phil Hartman from SNL, The Simpsons, NewsRadio, etc., cranking out album covers in his younger days. Heck, I should toss a dupe of this Poco card into my Pee-Wee Herman subcollection as a little tribute to the renaissance man behind the character of Captain Carl and co-writer of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. No fooling, he was my favorite actor back in the 90s. Him and Kurt Cobain were probably the celebrity deaths that rocked me the most while growing up.
Anyways, despite being half-tempted to do a Custom Corner for Taco, or even Falco, let's call the post good here with the Phil Hartman custom I whipped up a couple years back.
Do you readers have any thoughts to share about Poco? Listening to their top-rated tracks while drafting this post reminded me of hearing "Call it Love" on the radio here and there over the years. Nice song. Nothing else rang a bell with me, but they've got a few solid tunes reminiscent of easy listening stuff from the likes of The Eagles and America.
Thanks for reading. Since #90 was covered in the previous (Party) post, next up we jump to #91 for a double dose of Lionel Richie.
Fun fact about Poco: Randy Meisner, mentioned on the card as part of the reunion, left the group to become an original member of the Eagles. He was replaced by Timothy B. Schmit. Meisner later left the Eagles--and was again replaced by Timothy B. Schmit!
ReplyDeleteI never got all that into Poco, although Schmit doing "Keep On Tryin'" from his days in the group were a highlight of Ringo's second All-Starr Band tour. Besides the songs you mention that did have a big hit in 1979 with "Crazy Love" which is a very nice tune.
Poco reminds me of 1979, not 1991 or even 1989. Crazy Love and Heart of the Night were two hits in '79 for them. Nothing I was interested in much but since it was '79 I heard them plenty.
ReplyDeleteVery cool to learn Poco is in this set...i didn't remember that...funny a little too. thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you can find out some really interesting tidbits when taking a closer look at lesser known athletes (or in this case musicians). This is one of those times.
ReplyDeleteI recognize the band's name, but wouldn't be able to name any of their songs. I also recognized Call It Love as soon as I played it, but had it not been part of this post, I'd have no idea it was Poco.
As for the songs Night Owl commented on... I knew both of those songs too, but once again wouldn't have been able to tell anyone Poco was the artist.
I had a neighbor back in the mid 90's who seemingly spent almost every day working on his truck in the driveway. He always had music on in the garage while he was out there, but the funny thing was that the music that he liked didn't match what you'd think he'd be listening to if you just went by his appearance. He was probably in his early 30's and looked like he'd be a big hair-metal guy, but no, it was all Am Gold type stuff; including old Poco tracks (probably on cassette). That was the first that I had heard of them, and probably haven't heard them since he moved out.
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