Word: pedalers
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...Both he and bassist Timothy Schmit write songs of unrequited love of slightly less fervor than Tammy Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" (with similar arrangements.) Songs like "What If I Should Say I Love You," with very large organ sounds coming from Rusty Young's pedal steel guitar, and final choruses of shouting begin to combine elements of rhythm and blues with the country arrangements. But Poco wraps each song in its own harmonies; because it is one of the few groups with four blendable voices (nobody can deny Crosby, Stills, et al's problems with...
...Honky-Tonk Downstairs," and their medley of "Hard Luck," "Child's Claim to Fame," and "Pickin' up the Pieces." The acoustic songs, particularly "Honky-Tonk Downstairs," retain much more country feeling than the electric music. These songs are Rusty Young's, and he acknowledges his pedal steel predecessors with some of the purest country steel guitar outside Nashville on "Honky-Tonk," and his own instrumental "Grand Junction," with its simple progression, and Flatt and Scruggs pickin' and grinnin' overall feeling. Paul Cotton's filling lines were excellent, and once they played a short line in unison, so well, that...
...strength is his willingness to explore the rock possibilities of his country music instruments. From the steel, he pulls the Hammond organ sound vital to the ballads by playing through a Leslie tone cabinet, the standard Hammond amplifier. He's content to play the dobro through a wah-wah pedal, making "Good Feeling" sound like it's being played in a wind tunnel. Yet he can also provide country licks that would do the folks at the Grand Ole Opry proud...
...five minutes, which are his to do with as he pleases. At which point he goes completely crazy, as does the band, and rips off Hendrix acid guitar licks and glissandos, complete with hand gestures. He knocks over his chair, and plays on his knees, and then he plays pedal steel with the chair. More Hendrix; then feedback; and finally some Moog licks. The element of surprise is as effective as the sheer wildness of the music. The listener is utterly destroyed. And the song is over. Poco leaves in arm-wrestling, hugging disarray...
...tendency to choose one obscure Dylan song for each album. Each of them has had a wistfulness, a plaintiveness that is characteristic of neither man. "Mama," has a country sound, and an almost totally acoustic instrumentation. There's a very nice simultaneous solo between chest piano and pedal steel...