Nice thread, THX ! nice tunes which reflect back. I could pick a whole bunch of other tunes LOL
From the Springfield days I too found " Do I have to come right out and say it " a favorite, we even covered it in the group I was playing in at the time. Along with several others from that 1st LP. A few years later we covered "Settlin' Down" I can tell ya right now those Poco songs were not easy to cover . but they were easy to cover poorly.
I always thought that Richie found his VOICE around the time of the 2nd Poco LP , and when he got to the Good Feelin To Know LP he was killin' it. We saw him a few times at that point and the vocals were just really amazing. When Richie sang that HIGH Tenor line in Pauls song, Bad Weather, it was iconic. I remember at a theater in Port Chester NY, when he did that the whole audience went into applause ! Everyone knew...
I was pretty shocked that the SHF song Fallin' In Love never really made it to the radio, I'm sure they all were. The SHF LP cover is interesting, Richie is the only one smiling and he's the one that was going thru a serious home issue that had him totally preoccupied and consumed . Listening to him talk about it, geesh its amazing he was even able to sing at all. One thing rings true , SHF was about Richie, as good as Chris and JD are, but the timing was wrong, it wasn't meant to be. But SHF was really a "Richie" group. For me ,even to this day the songs I listen to are Richie's. Its like two different groups on the same LP.
The new LP, I find it VERY interesting that the CMT website is promoting the video's . The latest song, a cover of Alabama's "I'm In a Hurray and Don't know Why" is up there right now. Is it possible that Richie , at 78, will hit a grand slam home run with this LP and become a household name ? And millions will say " Who is this guy , where did he come from " ? I sure hope so.
