Although the '90s saw no Poco albums, singer/songwriter/steel guitarist Rusty Young (the only remaining original member at the time) and singer/songwriter/guitarist Paul Cotton (now a 32-year veteran of the 34-year-old group) occasionally dusted off the name and went out on tour, using various backup musicians.
Poco's studio work was missing in action throughout that decade largely because Young took a detour with the Sky Kings, a supergroup he formed with Bill Lloyd (Foster & Lloyd), John Cowan (New Grass Revival) and Patrick Simmons (Doobie Brothers) that recorded two excellent albums: one in 1992 for RCA and another (minus Simmons) for Warner Bros. in 1996. Unfortunately, both were relegated to the labels' vaults -- the first a merger-and-acquisition victim, the second a casualty of country radio's increasing appetite for plain-vanilla product -- and the Sky Kings threw in the towel. The Warner record eventually saw a limited release of 5,000 copies a few years back by Rhino Handmade.
Cotton, meanwhile, bookended the decade with his only two solo efforts, Changing Horses (1990) and Firebird (2000), both fine records. Also in 2000, Young and Cotton welcomed original drummer George Grantham back and enlisted budding Nashville songwriter Jack Sundrud on bass. Last year the foursome finally went into the studio and came out with Running Horse, featuring five songs from Young and three apiece from Cotton and Sundrud.
The album opens with the only recycled Sky Kings song in the bunch: "One Tear at a Time." As the name suggests, it's a bona fide tearjerker, a song form that has become one of Young's specialties. "Everytime I Hear That Train" is an instant Cotton classic, in the vein of 1970's "Bad Weather" and made even more rustic by Young's banjo behind the writer's signature Stratocaster. Craig Fuller (Pure Prairie League, Little Feat) adds acoustic guitar and harmony vocals to Young's "If Your Heart Needs a Hand," which features bluesy pedal steel -- something only a master of the instrument like Young could pull off.
Young's rustic factor weighs in again via mandolin on Sundrud's "Never Loved ... Never Hurt Like This," a shining example of why the "new kid" has had his work performed by the likes of Ty Herndon, The Kendalls and The Judds. Former Sky King partner Lloyd drops in and adds his guitar to the mix for another Young composition, "Forever." Young's lap steel slides gracefully and effortlessly between words that profess an undying love, musically illustrating the euphoria of true romance. "Never Get Enough" is another number by Sundrud, whose voice is not unlike Don Henley's. It's a catchy song, with a little funk courtesy of Young's pedal steel filtered through a wah-wah. Sky King alumnus Cowan sings background on and co-wrote "If You Can't Stand to Lose" with Young. The aforementioned "One Tear at a Time" sounds upbeat next to this bittersweet piece of advice to anyone who can't seem to say those three little words to that special someone.
Lloyd makes another appearance for the second Cotton composition, "I Can Only Imagine." Memories of "Ride the Countryside," from Poco's landmark Good Feeling to Know, come rushing back as Cotton plants his trademark Strat all over the place. "Shake It," written by Sundrud, is a neo-Latin rocker that lets Grantham work out on percussion. Layered on top are some spaghetti Western riffs from Cotton, with Young's subtle, slinky, fuzzed-out pedal steel bubbling under the surface. Fuller returns to lend background vocals to a tune he wrote with Young, "That's What Love Is All About." Yep, it's another slow one; but that's okay, because Young makes up for his tendency to write such songs by rockin' out extra hard with his playing on the other members' material. Closing it out is Cotton's title track, which pays tribute to the horse that graces the cover of Legend, the album that gave Poco the Top 20 success the band never had in its early days when Richie Furay, Randy Meisner, Jim Messina and Timothy B. Schmidt were in the group.
Once again, Poco delivers. As Cotton says, "I'm betting on the horse that's running, same as before."
