EVERYHING about Poco screams “nearly men”. It’s not just that the guys were going to call themselves “Pogo” until the creator of the cartoon character Pogo (Walt Kelly) threatened to sue them. It’s not just that Poco’s greatest talent, Richie Furay, spent much of the late 1960s feeding off scraps left by the twin titans Neil Young and Stephen Stills in Buffalo Springfield. And it’s not just that Poco paradoxically enjoyed its greatest success after Furay left. 

What really hurts about the Poco story is its total eclipse by The Eagles, a group with which it is inextricably linked. While Poco began in the late 1960s as part of a pioneering group of country-rock artistes that also included The Byrds, and The Flying Burrito Brothers, its erstwhile opening act The Eagles polished up the formula just a little and enjoyed far greater recognition. To rub salt into the wounds, The Eagles did it with the help of not one, but two former Poco stalwarts in Randy Meisner and Timothy B. Schmit.