Pure Prairie League
Pure Prairie League is an American country rock band which featured in its original lineup singer and guitarist Craig Fuller, drummer Tom McGrail and steel guitarist John David Call, all from Waverly, Ohio. 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. In 1975 the band scored its biggest hit with the single "Amie", a track that originally appeared on their 1972 album Bustin' Out. Pure Prairie League scored five consecutive Top 40 LPs in the 1970s and added a sixth in the 1980s. They disbanded in 1988 but regrouped in 1998 and continue to perform. The line-up has been fluid over the years, with no one member having served over the band's entire history. The band's most recent line-up consists of Call, drummer Scott Thompson, keyboardist/guitarist Randy Harper, guitarist Jeff Zona and bassist Jared Camic. Other notable musicians to have played with Pure Prairie League include guitarists Vince Gill, Gary Burr and Curtis Wright.
History
The band was formed in Columbus, Ohio in 1970 and had its first success in Cincinnati. 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.In 1970 the first Pure Prairie League line-up was Fuller, McGrail, singer/songwriter/guitarist George Ed Powell, Phill Stokes and Robin Suskind on guitar and mandola, with John David Call joining the band later that year. 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. They rose to popularity as the house band at New Dilly's Pub in the Mt. Adams section of Cincinnati.
In mid-1971, McGrail and Stokes left the band to rehearse with, but were unable to put a viable band together. 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 The Yellow Payges and Country Funk, replaced Stokes on bass. Suskind departed as well, soon after the arrival of Caughlan and Lanham.
Early on, Pure Prairie League was looking for national artist representation and made contact with rock promoter Roger Abramson, who was based in Cleveland. At the behest of the group's roadie Jim Westermeyer, Abramson saw the band at New Dilly's Pub and later signed them to a management contract. Abramson was able to land them a contract with RCA Records. He then placed Pure Prairie League as an opening act on many of the concerts he produced at that time.
Their self-titled first album used a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover, showing a trail-worn cowboy named Sad Luke, who would appear on the cover of every Pure Prairie League recording thereafter. After releasing their debut album in March 1972 and embarking on a nationwide tour, Call, Caughlan and Lanham all left the band.
At that point, Pure Prairie League owed RCA another album and Craig Fuller agreed to make the second record in RCA's Toronto studio with the help of George Ed Powell and Bob Ringe. Al Brisco played pedal steel guitar on the session. Bustin' Out was produced by Ringe and featured the songs of Fuller and Powell. Billy Hinds from Cincinnati joined the band on drums and Hinds's friend, Michael Connor, played piano on most of the sessions and would become a regular in the Pure Prairie League line-up for years to come. Mick Ronson added string arrangements to several tracks, most notably "Boulder Skies" and "Call Me Tell Me". Michael Reilly, who would become the longtime bass player and front man for the band, joined in early September 1972, soon after the record was completed. Bustin' Out was released in October 1972.
Reilly explains how he came to be involved with PPL:
"I was from Fort Thomas, Kentucky, right near the Ohio border. When I was 14 I went out to Sears and bought a Danelectro Silvertone bass, learned how to play it, got a couple of guys together and we formed a band called the Marc IV. We played swim clubs and sock hops and stuff like that back in 1964. Eventually I joined the last incarnation of The Lemon Pipers. I wasn’t on the original recordings and I wasn’t touring with the original band, but they were from the same area I was from: Oxford, Ohio. As a teenager, I used to play the bars in Oxford every weekend and I knew all the guys who had been in that band. Bill Bartlett was a great guitar player and Dale Brown was the lead singer. I eventually moved to Woodstock, New York and was in a band called the Robert Lee Band with this singer/songwriter from Florida named Robert Lee. Michael Conner and Billy Hinds — the piano player and drummer from Pure Prairie League — were living in Woodstock as well, and we got a chance to record an album in London. “Amie” was recorded in the summer of 1972 and was released around Christmas of ’72 or January of ’73. But we had started touring for that album in September of 1972. The first show I ever played with Pure Prairie League was on Labor Day of ’72 and that was at the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival in Bull Island, Illinois. Most of the Woodstock lineup, along with 300,000 people, were there, so it was quite a way to start! We signed with a booking agency in Minneapolis called Variety Artists International, and they were one of the biggest college booking agents in the country. So we went out and we started touring at different colleges doing 250–275 shows a year for eight years in a row, or so. That was it — pretty much, it was us jamming “Amie” down every college student’s throat. Plus, lots of kids in college at that time wanted to learn how to play guitar and “Amie” was a pretty easy song for them to learn on, so it became a popular college hit. All the college radio stations started playing it, and then other radio stations were picking it up, too, and then RCA finally perked up and said, “We gotta find these guys and see what’s going on."
Shortly after touring behind Bustin Out, the group returned to Ohio and Fuller had to face trial for charges of draft evasion in Kentucky. But before conscientious objector status could be arranged, he was sentenced to six months in jail and forced to leave Pure Prairie League in February 1973. At this point, RCA dropped the band and their future looked bleak.
By August 1973, the band members were in Cincinnati and managed to persuade Call to return. Fuller, though out of prison by now, was working the late shift in a community hospital to satisfy his C.O. requirements, and was not inclined to rejoin at that time. Reilly took over as the band's leader and front man and brought in his friend Larry Goshorn to replace Fuller in November 1973. Goshorn had played in a popular Ohio band called the Sacred Mushroom.
Pure Prairie League hit the road and began playing gigs constantly, mostly in the Northeast, Midwest, and Southeast. As Reilly related above, as a result of their heavy schedule, particularly at colleges, their songs became well known; "Amie", from the second album, became a particular favorite.
Success
As "Amie" grew in popularity, radio stations began receiving requests for it. As a result, RCA re-released the Bustin' Out and Pure Prairie League albums and re-issued "Amie" as a single. It peaked at No. 27 on April 26, 1975, just as a minor bluegrass revival was underway on mid-western college campuses.RCA re-signed Pure Prairie League, who relocated to Los Angeles and recorded their third album, Two Lane Highway, which was released in June 1975. It featured guest appearances by Chet Atkins, fiddler Johnny Gimble, Don Felder from The Eagles and Emmylou Harris, who dueted with the band on the song "Just Can't Believe It", which received much airplay on country stations. Highway was the band's highest 'charter' at No. 24, and Bustin' Out reached gold status. And "That'll Be The Day", a cover of the 1957 Buddy Holly & the Crickets hit, was their lone appearance on the Country charts at No. 96 in 1976. This began a string of five consecutive Top 40 album releases, as If the Shoe Fits, Dance and Live, Takin' the Stage all made the Top 40.
In 1977 Call left due to health issues. Larry Goshorn's brother, Tim, joined in time to record Just Fly. But in 1978 there was a mass exodus as the Goshorns left to form the Goshorn Brothers, and Powell, the last remaining original member, retired from the road to run his farm in Ohio. However, the group soldiered on, as Reilly quickly brought in temporary members, California country rocker Chris Peterson and the group's soundman, Jeff Redefer, to play a few shows until new, permanent players could be located.
In September 1978 auditions led to the hiring of Vince Gill. Further auditions brought in Steven Patrick Bolin in January 1979. This revamped line-up recorded Can't Hold Back, which turned out to be their last for RCA. Sax player Jeff Kirk accompanied the band on some of their dates during the 1979 tour.
Casablanca Records, who at this time was trying to play down its reputation as primarily a disco label, signed Pure Prairie League and other non-dance acts to its roster in 1980. In January, guitarist Jeff Wilson came in to replace Bolin, and the band's next release, Firin' Up spawned the hits "Let Me Love You Tonight" and "I'm Almost Ready", both sung by Gill, with saxophone accompaniment by David Sanborn. A second Casablanca release, Something in the Night, kept Pure Prairie League on the charts with "Still Right Here in My Heart". However, as fate would have it, Casablanca ultimately went bankrupt and was sold to Polygram Records. Polygram then dropped most of Casablanca's roster, including Pure Prairie League.
Both Gill and Wilson left in early 1982, and Gill pursued a successful solo career before joining The Eagles.