For the Poco reunion and Legacy album and tour, the original founding members of Poco from 1968 (Randy Meisner, Jim Messina, Rusty Young, Richie Furay, and George Grantham) reformed. From approx. 1989-1991 they toured and recorded an album called “Legacy”, which was released September 23, 1989 and is Poco’s 17th studio album. They received a gold album award for “Legacy”. When Richie had to leave the group to go back to his ministry at his church, Jack Sundrud filled in on tour.
Bill Lloyd and Radney Foster, along with Rusty Young, wrote Rough Edges for Randy to sing on the album. The story of Randy Meisner being invited to join Sky Kings by Bill and Radney in 1991 is below.
There is also a two-part audio interview on this page with Jim Messina, Rusty Young, and Randy Meisner where they talk about reforming and reuniting Poco and the making of “Legacy”. A Canadian radio personality hosts that interview. The Poco reunion was covered extensively in the press, and below is just a sampling of the newspaper articles about Poco reforming.
There are music videos from the album and other videos promoting the album with Poco appearances on various TV shows (Countdown in Holland, Arsenio Hall, Johnny Carson, Pat Sajak, Jay Leno, Farm Aid) throughout this page. Scroll down the page or click on the links below to go right to each Poco video. (All eight songs from the Bottom Line in Japan are below.)
To read about the connection between the reunited Poco and Richard Marx, check out this page on the website: Richard Marx and Randy Meisner and their music association – 1986-1993
The Poco reunion and Legacy album and tour audios & videos on this page:
- Two-part Canadian radio show interview with Jim Messina, Rusty Young, and Randy
- “Rough Edges”
- Rock History Music interview with Richie Furay
- “Sinners and Saints” at the Ritz in New York
- Legacy VH1 Special
- Countdown TV show in Holland – “Call It Love” Rusty Young
- Countdown TV show rehearsal in dressing room
- “Crazy Love” – Rusty Young
- “The Nature of Love” – Randy Meisner
- “Nothin’ To Hide” – Randy Meisner
- The Bottom Line in Japan – “Rough Edges” – Randy Meisner
- The Bottom Line in Japan – “The Nature of Love” – Randy Meisner
- The Bottom Line in Japan – “Follow Your Dreams” – Jim Messina
- The Bottom Line in Japan – “Take It To the Limit” – Randy Meisner
- The Bottom Line in Japan – “Call It Love” – Rusty Young
- The Bottom Line in Japan – “Legend” – Rusty Young
- Arsenio Hall Show – “Call It Love” Rusty Young
- Tonight Show with Johnny Carson – “Call It Love” Rusty Young
- Pat Sajak Show – Medley of hits including “Take It To the Limit”
- Tonight Show with Jay Leno – “Nothin’ To Hide” Randy Meisner
- Farm Aid at Hoosier Dome – Medley of hits including “Take It To the Limit”
Canadian radio show hosted by John Donabie
2-part show with Randy Meisner, Jim Messina, and Rusty Young
Part 1 of Poco Legacy Canadian radio interview:
Canadian radio personality John Donabie interviews Randy Meisner, Jim Messina, and Rusty Young about the Poco Legacy album in 1989.
Part 2 of the Poco Legacy Canadian radio interview:
Randy Meisner, Jim Messina, and Rusty Young respond to a set of 23 questions/topics.
These are the questions/topics that are being answered in the Part 2 audio above.
Poco reunion and Legacy album CD front
Poco reunion and Legacy album CD insert & back
with George Grantham, Rusty Young, Jim Messina, Richie Furay, and Randy Meisner
Jim Shea, photographer
George Grantham, Rusty Young, Jim Messina, Richie Furay, and Randy Meisner
George Grantham, Rusty Young, Jim Messina, Richie Furay, and Randy Meisner
Full-page magazine ad & poster
Full-page ad in Billboard Magazine – Oct. 7, 1989
Legacy poster
Poco reunion and Legacy album and tour publicity photos
Full-page ad in Radio and Records magazine – Nov. 10, 1989
Richard Marx and Poco in studio –
David Cole was the album’s producer, but Richard produced the one song “Nothin’ to Hide”, that he co-wrote along with Bruce Gaitsch.
Rusty Young, George Grantham, Richard Marx, Randy Meisner, and Richie Furay
Rusty Young, Radney Foster, and Bill Lloyd wrote “Rough Edges” that Randy sang on the “Legacy” album.
Rusty Young, Randy Meisner, Radney Foster, and Bill Lloyd
Annual RCA Records party on the General Jackson riverboat located at Opryland in 1989 or 1990
“This picture was taken on one of the Opryland boats that RCA Records rented for one of their corporate musical shindigs and we’re singing that song! We were floating on the Cumberland when this shot was taken.” per Bill Lloyd
Bill Lloyd (of Foster & Lloyd) on Randy Meisner being invited to join Sky Kings in 1991:
randymeisnerheartsonfire.com
Whatever success that afforded us, we still had to play rodeos … and that’s where I met Rusty Young. Rusty, steel guitarist/singer-songwriter and founding member of Poco, was playing in Vince Gill’s road band. Vince, our pal and a labelmate in those days, made the introduction and I was jazzed to meet Rusty as I was a longtime Poco fan. So there we all were sharing the bill amongst the cows, the cowboys, the bulls and the bullshit.
Radney, Rusty and I all agreed that we should do the Nashville kind of thing and write some songs together when we got back home. We eventually did, which led to Poco recording a Young /Foster/ Lloyd song called “Rough Edges” on their reunion album, “Legacy” in 1989.
In the search for other like-minded musicians, there were a couple of false starts. I called Gene Clark’s manager, Saul Davis, who I’d met a few years prior and asked him what Gene was up to. He gave me his number and I left a message on his machine but I never heard back. Gene, sadly, died only a couple of weeks later in May 1991. Ex-Eagle and Poco member Randy Meisner actually flew in to town to talk with us about joining but he had second thoughts once he considered the work schedule and time table we were talking about. Well, that’s what I remember anyway. He phoned in his change of heart once he got back to LA.
Rough Edges
(The Rough Edges live video of Randy Meisner and Poco at the Bottom Line in Japan on Oct. 21, 1990 is near the bottom of this page.)
Poco reunion and Legacy album and tour – 1989-1991
Poco was featured on the Nov. 3, 1989 cover of The Gavin Report with a 4-page article inside.
Jim Messina, George Grantham, Richie Furay, Randy Meisner, and Rusty Young
You can read the 4-page Poco reunion article below.
(Click on each image below to enlarge)
(pdf version of entire article)
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Relix magazine – December 1989
Interview with Mick Skidmore
about reuniting Poco for the Legacy album
“It turned out that Richard Marx had had a relationship with Randy Meisner by which Randy had brought him Joe Walsh and Tim Schmit and a few other people to help Richard Marx on his album.”
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DISCoveries magazine – January 1990
Interview with Cary Lane Freeny and Gary Strobl
A 6-page interview with Rusty Young and Jim Messina was published in the January 1990 issue of DISCoveries magazine. In the first paragraph on the first page it mentions that Randy left Poco to join the Eagles in 1969, but he actually helped form the Stone Canyon Band with Rick Nelson after leaving Poco. Randy then helped form the Eagles in mid 1971. The timeline on page 25 of this article shows the chronology.
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Musician magazine – February 1990
Interview with Stan Soocher and Bob Bilboa
about the Poco reunion
“Rusty admits, ‘There’s no getting around that there’s a bit of a payback there. Randy helped out on Richard’s first hit ‘Don’t Mean Nothin’,’ as did (former Eagle) Joe Walsh and (former Eagle and Poco member) Tim Schmit. The Marx connection probably helped us get signed to RCA and it was important to the record company that Marx be on the album.”
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Relix Magazine – June 1991
Interview with William Ruhlman
“For the bass spot, the group auditioned any number of available musicians, among them Gram Parsons, Timothy B. Schmit, and Gregg Allman, before settling on Randy Meisner, a Nebraska-born musician who had made a name for himself throughout the West.”
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John Beaudin talks briefly with Richie Furay about reuniting with Poco for the Legacy tour
“Following a 20-year separation, Randy Meisner and the original members of the rock group Poco are getting back together.”
“Meisner, who got his start in music when he was 14 by playing at the Little Moon Lake Supper Club near Henry, said he will put his current group (The Roberts-Meisner Band) on hold for awhile. He and Rick Roberts, a former member of Firefall, formed the group about two years ago.”
Star-Herald (Scottsbluff, NE) – Nov. 27, 1988
“The single’s credits revealed the reason for the tune’s Eagles-influenced sound — ‘Don’t Mean Nothing’ featured musical and vocal contributions from former Eagles Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit and Randy Meisner.”
“We just sat down and played a little bit, just to see if it felt right,” Meisner said. “We each had a song that we played, and everybody just sort of joined in. It sounded great. We decided, “Yeah, we should do this again.”
South Florida Sun Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale, FL) – Apr. 8, 1989
“Another Randy Meisner vocal, Rough Edges, is the album’s rumblin’ rocker. The song’s written by Foster & Lloyd along with Rusty Young.”
Richard Marx and Poco at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip
Cash Box – Sept. 16, 1989
Jim Messina said “I see Poco as five different individuals who were brought together for one reason or another and who separated, and who, in their time apart, grew into the people they are now. Whatever happened to us, it was that original idea of five different individuals playing together that has brought us back again.”
The Province (Vancouver, BC) – Sept. 17, 1989
“Poco was formed by Messina and Furay in 1968 after the demise of Buffalo Springfield, a year after Springfield’s only big hit, ‘For What It’s Worth’, made it to the charts.”
Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa, Ontario) – Sept. 18, 1989
“After years away from the spotlight, the 45-year-old Furay has reunited with Jimmy Messina, Rusty Young, George Grantham and Randy Meisner, his original bandmates in the seminal country-rock group Poco. It’s the first time Poco’s original lineup has been together in 20 years, and radio stations have enthusiastically embraced the reunited group’s new single, ‘Call It Love.’ Ironically, Poco’s reunion album, ‘Legacy’ (RCA), may turn out to be its biggest hit ever.”
“‘Call It Love’ is flirting with the top-40 of Billboard’s pop singles chart, and is also quickly ascending Billboard’s album-rock and adult-contemporary airplay charts. The video is in the VH1 cable video network’s highest rotation, and the ‘Legacy’ album is alsp expected to do well.”
Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph (Colorado Springs, CO) – Sept. 22, 1989
“Because everyone was really worried about whether we could write songs again. We had label people actually say, ‘Can they still sing’?”
Billboard magazine – Sept. 30, 1989
“‘It’s not going on forever. This is not a career move for any of us,’ band co-founder and multi-instrumentalist Rusty Young said during a recent phone conversation from New York.”
“With the album, Legacy, on the charts and its first single, Call It Love, a Top-40 hit, a 1990 summer tour looks promising.”
The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, FL) – Oct. 4, 1989
“As Meisner remembers, when the newly formed band was rehearsing in the summer of 1968 at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, the interested parties observing them in the audience included members of The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, Don Henley and Glenn Frey of the yet-to-be formed Eagles, as well as JD Souther and Neil Young.”
Edmonton Journal (Edmonton, Alberta) – Oct. 8, 1989
“Young had kept in touch with the other Poco founders, and by the mid-80s he had drummed up interest in the reunion. Messina and Furay — now a pastor in Boulder, CO — suggested re-forming the original quintet, and Meisner and Grantham readily agreed. Reunited, they formed a pact to not let the ego battles of the late 60s get in the way of this project.”
Detroit Free Press (Detroit, MI) – Jan. 24, 1990
“It was their first album – the album the original Poco should have made 20 years ago, but didn’t.”
“‘It was almost staggering for the five of us to stand there and hold that gold record,’ he began, as he spoke by telephone from California, where the band was rehearsing for its reunion tour. Poco is opening for Richard Marx at The Arena Jan. 30. ‘If we had known then that it was going to be 20 years before we got our first gold record, I don’t think any of us would have believed it’.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO) – Jan. 25, 1990
“When it formed in 1968, Poco was among the first bands to blend country harmonies with a driving rock beat. We used a steel guitar as the primary instrument, says Richie Furay, who plays guitar and sings. That was very innovative for a rock ‘n roll band in those days.”
The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA) – Feb. 1, 1990
“In the beginning, Messina recalled, we were too rock for country and too country for rock. It was a curse. It was too new. People were stuck in pigeonholes. If it wasn’t for the FM underground, we wouldn’t have gotten airplay at all.”
Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT) – Feb. 13, 1990
Poco received the gold album award for “Legacy”
Radio and Records magazine – Apr. 6, 1990
LA Times (Los Angeles, CA) – July 13, 1990
“It’s fun again, says Meisner, 44. It seems to be working out real well, as opposed to maybe 20 years ago, he says. Basically the music in the show will be what people remembered, only better. Our age has done us well. I’m thinking when we played 20 years ago, we were all young and wild. There’s something to say for that. Hopefully we’re older and wiser now and the music should be better.”
Lansing State Journal (Lansing, MI) – July 19, 1990
“In a recent phone interview, Young said that a hot new pop name, Richard Marx, helped Poco secure a record deal. Marx agreed to write and produce a song for the Poco project, a selling point that Young said nailed the RCA Records deal.”
The Journal News (White Plains, NY) – July 26, 1990
Poco was at the Ritz Aug. 8, 1990
“Sinners and Saints”
On Aug. 8, 1990 Peter van Leeuwen videotaped this show at the Ritz in NYC. Randy IS in this video (barely), but it features Jim Messina and Rusty Young performing the song “Sinners and Saints”. You can catch a glimpse of Randy sitting down on the left (our left) on the stage at about 8:12. Peter is responsible for the nice pics of Poco (see below) when they were in Holland in 1989.
“Dave Mason is also on the bill. Poco, the band that gave birth, or at least inspiration to groups like the Eagles and Loggins and Messina, was among the first to blend sweet country harmonies with a driving rock beat.”
Times Tribune (Scranton, PA) – July 29, 1990
Daily Press (Newport News, VA) – Aug. 10, 1990
Poco “Legacy” VH1 Special – 1989
Randy sings “Take It To the Limit”
Photos of Poco from the video of the VH1 Special
Countdown TV show in Holland – Oct. 24, 1989
Recorded in Holland Oct. 24, 1989 for the Dutch “Countdown” TV show while on tour.
“Call It Love” – Rusty Young
In October 1989 Peter van Leeuwen spent time with the band while they were in Holland. He photographed them, and he was in the studio for the Dutch TV show “Countdown”. The two photos below were taken in the TV studio just prior to the filming on Oct. 24, 1989 of them lip-syncing “Call It Love” in the video above.
Rusty Young, Randy Meisner, Jim Messina, and George Grantham
Rusty Young, Randy Meisner, Jim Messina, and George Grantham
Filmed by Peter van Leeuwen: A snippet of Poco rehearsing Rose of Cimarron in the dressing room just before they were to appear on “Countdown”, although Peter said this song was not actually performed on stage for the show.
In the video photo are Jim Messina, Rusty Young, and George Grantham.
The lady standing is the band’s road manager.
Randy & Rusty
Randy & Rusty
Jim, Randy, & Rusty
Photos and video by Peter van Leeuwen
“Crazy Love” – Rusty Young
Photos taken by Peter van Leeuwen in Holland – Oct. 1989
In the studio of Vara Radio 2 with the 2 Meter Sessions productions by Jan Douwe Kroeske
Randy Meisner, George Grantham, Peter van Leeuwen, Jim Messina, and Rusty Young
Randy Meisner, George Grantham, Jim Messina, anld Rusty Young
Jim Messina and Randy goofing around during the Legacy tour
Jim Messina, Peter van Leeuwen, Rusty Young, George Grantham, and Randy Meisner backstage at the 2 meter sessions radio show in the Netherlands in 1989
Official Poco Legacy Videos
“The Nature of Love” – Randy Meisner
“Nothin’ To Hide” – Randy Meisner
The Bottom Line in Nagoya, Japan – Oct. 21, 1990:
David Vanacore, Jack Sundrud, George Grantham, Randy Meisner, Rusty Young, and Jim Messina
“Rough Edges” – Randy Meisner
Written by Rusty Young, Radney Foster, and Bill Lloyd
Poco opened the Bottom Line show with this song.
“The Nature of Love” – Randy Meisner
“What Do People Know” – Rusty Young
“Lovin’ You Every Minute ” – Jim Messina
“Follow Your Dreams” – Jim Messina
“Take It To the Limit” – Randy Meisner
“Call It Love” – Rusty Young
“Legend” – Rusty Young
Encore song
Randy Meisner
Randy Meisner
Randy Meisner
TV shows that Poco appeared on to promote the Legacy album:
Arsenio Hall Show – Oct. 4, 1989:
“Call It Love” – Rusty Young
Tonight Show with Johnny Carson – Nov. 17, 1989:
“Call It Love” – Rusty Young
Randy Meisner
Rusty Young
Tonight Show schedule for Nov. 17, 1989
The Pat Sajak Show – 1989:
They played a medley of hits, including “Take It To the Limit”.
Randy Meisner
Randy, Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Rusty Young, and George Grantham
Randy Meisner
Tonight Show with Jay Leno – Jan. 22, 1990:
“Nothin’ To Hide” – Randy Meisner
Written by Richard Marx and Bruce Gaitsch
Randy Meisner
Richie Furay, Jim Messina, and Rusty Young
Randy Meisner
Farm Aid at Hoosier Dome (Indianapolis) – Apr. 7, 1990:
They played a medley of hits, including “Take It To the Limit”.
Randy and Richie Furay
Randy Meisner
Randy Meisner