RICHIE FURAY
Interviewed by Andy Bassett via email in May 1998
Richie Furay was a founder member of two legendary American bands - Buffalo Springfield (along with Neil Young and Stephen Stills) and Poco. In 1973, he quit Poco for a solo career and went on to form the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, with JD Souther and Chris Hillman. In a dramatic career change, he is now a minister at the Calvary Chapel in Boulder Colorado.
AB: Legend has it that when you and Stephen Stills went to LA in 1966 to form a band, you spotted a car with Ontario plates in a traffic jam and figured, correctly, that the driver must be Neil Young. How much truth is there to this?
Furay: The car was a '53 hearse, so it was a conspicuous "car". We were heading in different directions on Sunset Boulevard in traffic. We went just slow enough to catch a glimpse of the driver. We somehow maneuvered through the traffic, turned around and caught up to them - the rest is history!
"Kind Woman" was recorded just before Buffalo Springfield broke up and became more of a Poco song - in fact it was the first Poco song I ever heard. 30 years on, you're still playing it and dedicating it to your wife. I've never tired of it and obviously you haven't. What is it about that song?
Several things come to mind. 1. It is a very simplistic song, the melody is easy to remember and hum along to.
2. Lyrically, it is based upon the foundations of moral values that I grew up with. I want to pass that along to my kids and any who hear it today. Far too often we're just too superficial in relationships. There's no depth and no commitment to the relationship. Although I wasn't a Christian at the time with the foundation of Biblical values, I could still see from my home life and growing up, the importance of commitment. Nancy and I have been married 31 years, not without difficulties, but we made the vow and commitment to be faithful to each other and worked through any time we thought about giving upon the relationship. Today, having gone through those tough times have only made us stronger and more deeply committed to each other. So many give up and miss out on the best part of the marriage relationship!
The song rests upon those two simple truths and has given it life even today!
That hesitation-waltz style became something of a Richie Furay trademark - "Anyway Bye Bye," "What Am I Gonna Do." How did you first latch onto it?
That was something I certainly didn't think about, it was something that just happened in the way the music was structured or because of the flow of the lyric.
The title song of Poco's Crazy Eyes album was obviously about Gram Parsons, yet I read somewhere that you wrote it years before. The album also contained your version of "Brass Buttons" - released before the Parsons version. Was it just a coincidence that he died around that time or were these tracks intended as a tribute?
Gram was an interesting influence and intriguing guy. ( I just wrote to Roger McGuinn and told him it was because Gram brought me the first Byrds record while I was working at Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut that really inspired me to get in touch with Stephen in California - the music was so awesome I couldn't continue to hand out tools in a tool crib in a factory.) Our lives continued to cross for many years. He taught me "Brass Buttons" while in NYC, I thought how could a guy this young write a song like that? Gram had a mystique about him, you could see it in his eyes - I really liked him. You might say the song was my "tribute" to him. I had the melody "kickin'" around for some time with just bits and pieces of lyric - somehow it all came together around the time of his death!
There aren't many popular singers who went on to become church ministers - I think there's you and Al Green! How did your congregation first react to you?
I really down-played my R&R past for a long time, but with the Poco reunion in '89 and the Hall of Fame induction (for Buffalo Springfield in 1997) it has kinda surfaced again and they are very supportive now, although at first - (in '89) they were a little apprehensive.
You seem pretty pleased with Torbjorn Orrgard's Poco Home Page. Were you surprised to find it had been set up in, of all places, Sweden?
Tobbe has put his heart and soul in the Web-Page and deserves our support and recognition. Yes I was surprised to find out he is from Sweden - but makes no difference. I hope to meet him someday!
Can you tell us about your recent album?
In My Father's House is a devotional record of songs and worship songs my partner Scott Sellen and I have been writing for years. We finally had the opportunity to record them and it was a real special time. I met some new friends and hooked up again with some old ones and the music is great and I couldn't be happier with it. It has opened up the doors for me to put together a group who supports me and we're doing what we can to travel around and play 30 years of my musical history. It's a very exciting time for me right now. I have the music to record a new secular release (no label as of yet) but we're working on the "shopping demos". We've been playing five of the songs in the live shows we've been doing and they stand right up to all of the old songs. We'll just have to see how things go.
Any chance of some gigs in New Zealand?
Are you kidding? It would be wonderful, but only time will tell!