![]() Their eponymous first album used a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover, showing a trail-worn cowboy, named Luke, who would appear on the cover of every Pure Prairie League recording thereafter. He then placed Pure Prairie League as an opening act with many of the concerts he produced at that time. Abramson was able to land a contract with RCA Records. At the behest of the group's roadie (who had also worked for the James Gang) Jim "Westy" Westermeyer, Abramson saw the band at New Dilly's Pub and later signed them to a management contract. Įarly on, the Pure Prairie League was looking for national artist representation and they made contact with a well-known Cleveland based rock and roll promoter, Roger Abramson. Jim Caughlan, who had played guitar and drums with Fuller, Call and McGrail in earlier bands, took over on drums and Jim Lanham from California, formerly of Country Funk, replaced Stokes on bass. In mid-1971, McGrail and Stokes left the band to rehearse with Bill Bartlett but were unable to put a viable band together. They rose to popularity as the house band at New Dilly's Pub in the Mt. Call's steel guitar added country credibility to the band's playlist and sparked guitar duels with Fuller that created the signature sound of the band. Blackfoot) and Robin Suskind (a popular guitar teacher in the University of Cincinnati neighborhood) on guitar and mandola, with John David Call joining the band later that year. ![]() In 1970 the first Pure Prairie League line-up was Fuller, McGrail, singer/songwriter/guitarist George Ed Powell (a popular Cincinnati folk singer), Phill Stokes (bassist in Columbus bands Sanhedrin Move and J.D. Craig Fuller, Tom McGrail, Jim Caughlan and John David Call had played together in various bands since high school, notably the Vikings, the Omars, the Sacred Turnips and the Swiss Navy. Among the other notable past musicians to have played with Pure Prairie League include guitarists Vince Gill, Gary Burr and Curtis Wright.Īlthough the band has its roots in Waverly, it was actually formed in Columbus, Ohio and had its first success in Cincinnati. The band's most recent line-up consists of Call, drummer Scott Thompson, keyboardist Randy Harper, guitarist Jeff Zona and bassist Jared Camic. The line-up has been fluid over the years, with no one member having served over the band's entire history. They disbanded in 1988 but regrouped in 1998 and continue to perform as of 2021. Pure Prairie League scored five consecutive Top 40 LPs in the 1970s and added a sixth in the 1980s. In 1975 the band scored its biggest hit with the single " Amie", a track that originally appeared on their 1972 album Bustin' Out. Fuller started the band in 1970 and McGrail named it after a fictional 19th century temperance union featured in the 1939 Errol Flynn cowboy film Dodge City. ![]() That hit status also led to a rediscovery of the merits of the rest of Bustin' Out, which is acknowledged to be one of the artistic high points in country-rock history.Pure Prairie League is an American country rock band whose origins go back to 1965 and Waverly, Ohio, with singer and guitarist Craig Fuller, drummer Tom McGrail, guitarist and drummer Jim Caughlan and steel guitarist John David Call. The revival of interest in Pure Prairie League led RCA to re-sign the group, alas without Craig Fuller. RCA re-released "Amie" as a single more than two years after the album came out, and it was a Top 30 hit. Nevertheless, the influence of Bustin' Out was profound, and one song in particular became a staple for bar bands everywhere. ![]() Despite the extraordinary beauty and intelligence of the music on this album, it was not immediately successful, and the already troubled band broke up after it was released. Both lyrical and musical themes carry over from song to song - "Falling in and Out of Love" and "Amie" are really two halves of one suite, and there are echoes of that suite throughout the rest of the album. These tunes are presented with grace and unusual taste, the country guitars and vocal harmonies backed with astonishingly sympathetic string arrangements by Mick Ronson. The songs are meditative portraits of relationships that aren't running smoothly but are still alive, and they sound autobiographical rather than something contrived to sell records. The songwriting team of Craig Fuller and George Powell was one of the finest in the business, and on Bustin' Out they made an album that is unequaled in country-rock. ![]()
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