Your country-rock big 3 bands

Great choices in this thread and a tough call.........
Pure Prairie League
Poco
New Riders

Present day........
Jayhawks
Blackberry Smoke
Chris Knight

 

Creedence Clearwater Revival
Michael Nesmith and the First National Band

 

The biggies:
- Byrds
- Neil Young & whatever
- Creedence

The also rans:
-Dillard & Clark
- Marshall Tucker Band
- Outlaws

 

Those are my almost perfect top 3. Would include the following 3 as my top 6
Son Volt (& Jay Farrar solo)
The Bottle Rockets
Whiskeytown

And 3 more
The Gourds
Charlie Robison
Jeffrey Foucault

Bravo for the Chris Knight mention

 

People here are lumping together several different genres.

Country-rock was in the late '60s-early '70s

Cowpunk was in the '80s, led by The Blasters and later The Long Ryders, The Beat Farmers, Jason and The Scorchers, Rank and File, The True Believers (these latter two featuring Alejandro Escovedo), among others.

This was followed by alt.country, the important transitional act being the criminally underappreciated Silos, whose 1987 debut album Cuba was Uncle Tupelo before Uncle Tupelo was Uncle Tupelo.

As for country-rock, I'll start with the act I can't stand: The Eagles. It's sadly ironic that they made all the money Gram Parsons deserved.

I know little about Poco, but apparently they sound a lot like the Eagles, so I won't worry about them too much. I generally despise that entire El Lay Hollywood David Geffen Irving Azoff scene of the '70s, with a handful of exceptions (Judee Sill, Zevon).

I'm a big Sir Doug fan, though I don't know if I'd classify him as country-rock. I'd put him more in the quite arbitrary "Roots" category, along with the Band.

And that reminds me of another country-rock pioneer that's too often ignored. The Everly Bros' album Roots was one of the key release in that year of '68.

And let's not forget Steve Young, whose band Stone Country also put out an album in '68, before he went on to an artistically distinguished if commercially obscure solo career.

 

Well said!

However, while I'm with you 100% on the Eagles, let's leave Poco out of it, K?

Thanks for the nod to WZ. Great, great writer & musician, sorely missed.

 

1. Poco
2. Eagles
3. Outlaws

 

International Submarine Band
Flying Burrito Brothers
New Riders

 

Burrito's
Poco
Gene Clark/ Dillard & Clark

 

I have to name five ;-)

Flying Burrito Brothers
Gene Clark & The Gosdin Brothers
Gene Clark
Gram Parsons
The Jayhawks

 

Well, these aren't really "country rock" but the rock bands I love most that have some sort of influence of country are Blue Rodeo and Lone Justice.

 

Flying Burrito Brothers
Commander Cody + His Lost Planet Airmen
New Riders Of The Purple Sage

I really love Doug Sahm too but to me his music is so wide ranging that I have a hard time pigeon holing him as just Country Rock (although he recorded lots of it. "Texas Me" is one of my faves),

 

Long before the Eagles formed there was this great band; Poco.
So good in fact, Henley and Frey learned much from Poco as well as recruiting two members from them.

+ Richie Furay is a great guy and one of the nicest legends you can ever meet.

 

For those who don't know, Linda Ronstadt's first backing band when she went solo around 1969 contained future members of the Eagles and Nesmith's First National Band. Linda knew great pickers and singers when she heard them! For those who love early Eagles check out the bands that they came from: Longbranch Pennywhistle and Shiloh. Some nice countryish rock to be found there too. A one more plug for Mason Proffit.. amazing CR band.

 

Michael Nesmith (Monkees and solo)

Rick Nelson & The Stone Canyon Band

The Byrds



..........and many more.

 

The Jayhawks
The Byrds Gram Parsons-era
The Long Ryders

 

I think you named my favorites; I'll add:
Byrds
Flying Burrito Brothers
Gram Parsons
Gene Clark (all)
The Jayhawks

IMHO, since I think this thread is asking for personal favorites of a certain genre, it's tough for me to split hairs and disqualify a band if they're too "alt" "country" "rock" "cow-punk" or "whatever"...

All the bands mentioned are too talented, skilled and inventive to just, "ride down the same ol' dusty trail"...of strictly country-rock.
They're all branches on the same musical tree. Just my two copper pennies.

 

Great Speckled Bird
New Riders of the Purple Sage
Dillard and Clark

4th: Area Code 615

 

right now it's
The Grateful Dead
Poco
The Stray Gators

 

Mason Proffitt
Cowboy
Home(first two)

 

Poco
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Emmylou Harris & The Hot Band
Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen
The Mavericks

 

Couldn't have put it better myself!

 

Flying Burrito Brothers
The Byrds - Sweetheart era
Buffalo Springfield - some cuts

 

Jason And The Scorchers
Thirty Eight Special
Poco

 

Amen Brother. Love the Silos. Have lots of their stuff and particularly liked "The Silos" album that came out in 1990 just after Cuba. Those two albums together should have made The Silos big stars. Walter Salas-Humera is still playing around with a newer version of The Silos. Saw him in NYC a few years ago and had a nice talk with him. Nice guy and still great.

That's a shame about Poco. The Eagles got most of their good stuff from Poco. Poco *should* have been the bigger act. And it is criminal that Poco is not in the R&R Hall of Fame. They were an important band in the late 60s/early 70s in terms of what they influenced. Go back and check out their first 3 or 4 albums. If you were a Buffalo Springfield fan, you'll appreciate them. And they don't have the ego of some of the Eagles folks. Ritchie and Rusty are two of the nicest guys in the music business.

Another smear against the R&R Hall of Fame. Doug should be there. What a talent across many genres. I think I have more albums by Doug and variations of his bands than any other single artist. I used to love seeing him play in Austin at the Soap Creek Saloon in the early to mid 1970s.