"I'm very blessed with this musical journey, to say the least; I mean, it certainly had its ups and downs and all but overall I look back on it and I say, man, I've been able to really do what I've wanted do over the years and the joy of just writing music and the joy of people actually wanting to hear some of the music that I've written, I can't believe it; you know?"
There was Buffalo Springfield, then there was Poco and the common denominator in both was Richie Furay. Recently, he discussed those iconic bands, touched on an upcoming documentary but most importantly talked about his June 12 appearance at The South Orange Performing Arts Center and his soon to be released new album titled "In The Country" due out July 8 on the BMG Record label.
"I'm going to be 78 next week and it's like I've got more things going on now than it seems like I did when I was 48," he said with a large laugh. "So yeah, it's amazing; Val Garay approached me about three years ago at a benefit concert that I was doing in Los Angeles, I'd worked with Val in 1979 on my "I Still Have Dreams" record I've known Val forever, we were friends back in in the early Buffalo Springfield days. I've known him forever and Val has had a great career; producer of the year for "Betty Davis Eyes" and he has worked a lot with James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt; with Peter Asher; so, yeah, he has just had a great career. So, when he came to me and said, "Hey, you wanna do another project together?" I said, well, yeah, what do you have in mind? He said, "What we were thinking about doing was some country classics" and I'm thinking, well, now how far back does that go? So, we started putting the songs together and he said, "Look, you make a list, I'll make a list and my partner Michael Miller will make a list and we'll just see what we come up with" and when Val's first song on his list was the first song on my list, I knew we were going to be heading in the right direction. There was a song by John Berry, "Your Love Amazes Me" and it was on top of both of our lists and from there, we just took off; so, it was more contemporary country music than it was, say, going way back to, you know, Porter Wagoner and people like Loretta Lynn"
Assembling a list of some of the biggest tunes from some of music's most legendary performers is not an easy task, let alone when you have three or more varying opinions but Furay is usually the one writing the songs that others perform or "Cover," so; was it easy for him to now cover other artist's material? I mean, Poco itself helped "Pioneer" an entire genre of music, the "California Country Rock Sound."
"You're absolutely right," he began, "We were definitely pioneers of that California country rock sound and sometimes I feel like Poco gets overlooked on that a little bit but you know, nevertheless we know what we did and we know what part we played in it and between The Birds and The Flying Burrito Brothers and Poco; we certainly were the ones that pioneered that whole genre of music way back when, which became probably some of the most popular American music ever. I mean, with The Eagles going on to really follow suit there; so yeah, it was great. So, no, this was not a leap for me to do this. These tunes were me, my whole heart and soul; I mean, after a certain amount of time, I left the rock and roll radio sound to go into more of the country sound and it was more of those songs that I've got on this new album. Songs that really touched my heart somewhere along the line and that's what we ended up recording. We recorded 14 songs in four days out of Blackbird Studio in Nashville and 12 on vinyl which is actually going to be released on June 18 on Record Store Day and then on July 8 the CD, digital and everything else comes out."
"I was open to suggestions," he continued. "I think out of the 14 songs; I'm looking at one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine of the 14 songs certainly were mine that I wanted to do. We actually recorded a new version of "Picking Up The Pieces," which has more of a Bakersfield sound to it than maybe when Poco recorded it 50 years ago. Other than that, they were pretty much all of my songs, the songs that I had on my list that everybody wanted to do. I acquiesced to Val, he wanted me to do "I Cross My Heart," a George Strait song and I'm glad that I did; I love that song. He wanted to do "The River" by Garth Brooks and "I'm In A Hurry" by Alabama, "Country Roads" was another one that he suggested but everything else on the album was pretty much songs that I wanted to do. You know, "Somebody Like You" by Keith Urban, "I Hope You Dance" by Lee Ann Womack, "She Don't Know She's Beautiful," "Lonesome Town;" we actually did a Ricky Nelson song 'cause Rick was such an influence on me, watching him on "Ozzie & Harriet," I mean it all worked out really well. When we finally settled on the 14 songs, you know, it all really just came down to these and these are definitely the songs that we should have done and we did do and I think we did a good job and you know damn; we didn't want to do karaoke. I mean, we wanted to make it so that people knew the songs but we put our own little niche touch to them and I think we did that; I think we did a good job. Now let's see what the folks do with it but you know the record business has changed so much in the last 10 to 15 years that I I'm not even sure what it all means anymore (laughs). I'm thankful that BMG picked up the record and that they're running with it and I'm all happy about it. So, let's just see what happens and see if we can touch some people's hearts with it."
OK, we have established that it was fairly easy for him to WANT to cover country artists, now; what about playing it for his audiences? Will it be weird? Different? Was it or will it be odd presenting essentially an entire set of someone else's music?
"I will say that I I never really looked at it as weird but it certainly was a challenge because the songs that we picked were all hits and big hits by other people but they were songs that were special to me; like when I heard "Your Love Amazes Me" I was fishing up in Montana and it was on the radio as we were driving. We were someplace up there, I don't know where it was, but it kept going in and out, in and out; this was back in the early '90s and the song just kept going in and out and I said, man, I gotta find out what this song is because I just loved the song so much. We did Collin Raye's "In This Life" and I I just love Collin Raye, I thought he was just a great, a great singer. So, for me, the challenge was not so much OK, here I am covering other people's songs, it's; can I cover these songs and make them stand up as if they were my own songs? We recorded this thing two- and one-half years ago and then COVID hit and that kind of threw a monkey wrench into the basic timing of the release of the thing but I remember taking it down; a friend of mine asked me if I'd come in and sing a few songs at a birthday party and do a little event down in South Denver. I had a demo of pretty much all of the songs and these people were some pretty big country fans. I took him out to the car because he didn't have anything in his restaurant; he had a restaurant downtown in Denver. I took him out to the car and put these songs on and I said, you got to be honest with me and after it was over, I said, these songs are all famous songs by other people; did they lose anything? Now these were friends to me, so, you know; what are they gonna tell me? To a person, they said not at all and that that was enough for me, you know? Hey, I'm not beyond that, I did a couple of Rascals songs years ago. I did Jay and The Americans "This Magic Moment" years ago; I have covered other people's songs and other people's hits but this is the first time I've done a complete recording of it but it wasn't anything that felt weird about it. I was just glad that I could make this my own and I did."
One may think that someone like Furay would put out an album such as this and perhaps see what sales are like or watch the radio stats while contemplating a next move but not Richie, he is hitting the road and after the NJ shows will stay busy through July after its release.
"I will be at the SOPAC on June 12 and the day before that have a little event for about 80 people that David from my management team is setting up at the soundstage in Whippany, NJ. I looked at my calendar in June and it looks nuts. I mean, I'm back in New Jersey on the tenth and the eleventh and then travel to Nashville on the fourteenth to do Nashville shows through June 17 and then come home. Then I come back to New York on June 23 and I think, wait a minute, I'm gonna retire here pretty soon; I think (laughs). I mean, July is booking up too but I've tried to spread it out a little bit more in July. We're going to be in Philadelphia, Washington DC and do a few other things as well in July but there's definitely shows that I signed on to do to support the record; especially with the marketing and BMG going out and picking the record up. So, I have said that I will do limited shows in support of the record and that's what I'm gonna do! I just hope I can hold up physically every day. I haven't done this really as an everyday thing for the last 15, 20, 25 years. I mean, it's just been, we'd go out every once in a while, with my band and play and I mean, I gotta build up the stamina (laughs). Like I said, I'm not. I'm not 20 years old anymore (Belly laughs). "We'll be at City Winery Philadelphia on July 8; we are doing City Winery shows. We are at the City Winery in Washington, DC on July 6, June 24 in New York City and August 12 in Boston, MA
So, tell us Richie; how long can we expect one of your shows to last?
"I just played up in California at a club called The Coach House and I played for about two and one-half hours and that was too much. I had a great band and the fact is they'll be with me in New Jersey but I have to pace myself because that was really just a little bit too much but we hadn't played for a while and we just went after it. So, you know, we'll probably play somewhere between 75 and 90 minutes."
Buffalo Springfield, as short-lived as their time together was; were and continue to be an influential force in rock music decades after they formed and split-up and Poco set the stage for the aforementioned "California Country Rock Sound;" Furay says that he occasionally talks with Stephen Stills and Neil Young but has done so recently more than normal.
"I haven't spoken to Neil verbally for a while now, but several months ago we did text back and forth as we're still doing interviews for a documentary that's coming out. Stephen and I just did an interview that Neil was going to be a part of and a certain situation came down where Neil just couldn't do it at the time but Cameron Crowe interviewed Stephen out in California and we kind of did a zoom thing together. So yeah, I've talked to Stephen in the last month or so. I mean, if there wasn't really something on the agenda, we probably wouldn't talk that much but because there's stuff on the agenda we do talk and we're still friends in that regard as well. Sadly though, we lost two members of Poco last year; we lost Rusty Young and Paul Cotton, both passed away. So, I haven't really spoken with Tim in a little while but I do see George, I will see George when we're in Nashville next month, he'll be coming out to the City Winery. I do see George quite frequently because I'm in Nashville but you know I see and contact him as much as I can and we stay in contact as much as anybody really wants to; we still keep busy which is amazing and people have their own stuff but we do keep in touch and everybody is doing great very well."
Furay says that the new album will be available everywhere on July 8 and he looks forward to reconnecting with his fanbase.
"Yeah, it will be available at my website which is, www.richiefuray.com . It'll be available there and it'll be under every format; Spotify, Apple too and in the record stores. I mean, they're doing it all out and it's an all-out thing; they really like the record at BMG and are very supportive of it and so it's gonna be everywhere you can buy fine records."
That's it for this week! Please continue to support live and original music and until next week....ROCK ON!
