First off a get well wish to regular Saturday blogger, our friend Mitch Tobol, who some of us fondly call by his nom de pen, webmaster.  A bit under the weather, we wish him to get well.  I am honored to be called in to pinch-blog.  Here goes:

Not much of a secret around Gotham when it comes to my fondness towards a certain band's music, and wearing that band's tee (example shown is from the LP cover) or the one of its founder's current band or the tee of the band in the Rock and Roll and Hall of Fame that spawned it (and some others).

Thursday eve I enjoyed an opportunity to see Poco founder Richie Furay (a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Buffalo Springfield) at the City Winery.  It's a very nice venue.  When I learned of the show, I endeavored to attend with Shelly and another couple who were game to be exposed to my fave.  Usually I know early about Richie's shows.  For weeks a fellow and and friend had been promoting a show at SOPAC last Saturday in South Orange.  There are other shows tonight in MA and tomorrow at Daryl's House (as in the Daryl from Hall & Oats) in Pawling, NY.  Somehow by the time I learned of the show, no opportunity to seat four people together existed and I just scored myself a lone ticket.  Even so, I expected to see a number of fellow "poconuts" as remaining original member Rusty Young coined us.  In fact, it turned out that I knew more of the folks on stage than in the audience.  Other than our friend, Claudia (see her pics of the show here.), I only knew Richie, his long-time sideman and lead guitarist (also on banjo) Scott Sellen, Scott's son Aaron who plays bass and drummer Alan Lemke.

On the way to be seated by the host, I ran into Richie who -- as he often does in smaller venues -- works the crowd.  At his last NYC appearance which a family obligation cause me to miss, at the very last table he worked, two men said they wanted to sign him and release his next album (they did), which became the about to be released Hand in Hand.  Richie greeted me warmly; later I thought I missed an opportunity to take a better photo with him than my friend Roy took with my iPhone two years back at BB Kings (Of course the shot I took of Roy was well lit.).  Claudia saved the day after the show when I chatted with Richie with this nice pic.

It was an excellent show. View the setlist.  I really enjoy his new song, We Were the Dreamers, also released as a single, about Poco's forming in 1968 and blazing trail to the sound that made Eagles popular, successful and wealthy and pretty much defines today's county music sound; I find the riff rather infectious.  After the first three songs, Richie joked that he could leave because the CityWinery promoted the show as Richie doing the songs of three former bands, Buffalo Springfield, Poco and the Souther Hillman Furay Band and he opened with songs from each in reverse order.  The last song (before encores) was my all-time Richie fave, Poco's A Good Feelin' To Know.

The music does not stop for me.  I get to serve a a judge tomorrow afternoon at Gotham's Third Annual Battle of the Bands at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Its a nice venue.  If you have no plans do come.  If you have plans do consider changing them and joining me and many other fellow members of our tribe.