I've just come home from seeing Poco play. They were terrific, significantly better than the last few times I heard them in concert. On those occasions I was impressed by the effortless way the group reconciled the seemingly antithetical virtues of high spiritedness and discipline. But Poco has now added still another dimension to its performance: The group is playing rock & roll now, and doing it in a broad, sweeping style that's new for them. When they finish the verses and chorus of each tune, distinguished as always by the traditional high, pure harmonies, they roll into high gear instrumentally, developing the song dynamically with three guitars (Richie Furay is really playing his guitar now, rather than just wearing it), bass and drums. In these moments, they wind out with the torque of a country-tuned Derek and the Dominos. I've always enjoyed Poco, but I didn't think they were capable of putting out this kind of power or intensity.

The group has been able to capture this new dimension during the best moments of A Good Feelin' to Know, although, as is traditional with Poco, the recorded sound only approximates the live experience. From the noticeably modified style the band displays here, it would seem that Poco has finally made a definite commitment to achieving a hit-record sound. The group has always considered the hit single the ultimate form of tangible recognition, but in four years of trying, they've never even come close; they're confident enough to feel they'd have a bunch of them by now if justice was served. It's not hard to guess how they felt when the Eagles and Doobie Brothers, groups with similar musical values but much shorter life-spans than Poco, cracked the elusive Top 40 with ease. Here's their answer; it's as full of self-confidence as ever, and it's also full of steam, some of it generated no doubt by frustration but quite effective nevertheless.

Style has never been Poco's problem—substance has. They've managed to make good albums without the benefit of much distinguished material, and on A Good Feelin' to Know, as on its four predecessors, the least remarkable aspect is the music itself. Poco's songs have always had a way of running together in the mind, even to the zealous listener, with titles, phrases and riffs all bouncing around in an appealing but vague heap. Since there's been a change of direction on the new album, these tunes won't be so easily mistaken for songs from the country-oriented period, but there are still some problems. Newest member Paul Cotton supplied Poco with two of its best songs on the group's last album, but none of his three tunes here does much for the album or for the group's new style. Two of them try to be ominous in much the same way as the Eagles hit "Witchy Woman" does, but they seem rather forced and silly (so does "Witchy Woman," for that matter, but it still sounds good on the radio).

But this time, there are also some real self-contained songs, with melodies and phrases that are hard to forget rather than being hard to remember. Tim Schmit tries for a darker, hotter tone in "Restrain," and he succeeds where Cotton fails. Schmit's affectingly anguished singing over snarling guitars and piercing harmonies push the song to a temper verging on rage. This track is the most obvious example of Poco's shift of mood—it smolders.

The group hasn't traveled far afield for the one non-original—it's Stephen Stills' "Go and Say Goodbye," a bright tune from the first Buffalo Springfield album. While it doesn't actually improve on the original, the Poco rendition is a sensitive, brisk and high-powered treatment (developed by those standard high harmonies and newly adopted ringing guitar chords again) that adds a feeling of substantiality to the album and makes me wish they'd recorded a couple more songs from outside sources.

But it's Furay who makes the biggest plays and gives the album its primary reference points as well with his "And Settlin' Down" and the exhilarating title song. These two tracks beautifully integrate all the traditional Poco elements—the charm, the innocence, the spirit and the track is the most obvious underlying yearning—with the tougher, denser and more worldly approach the group has developed. These two songs are incredible live, and on record, with the volume up, they get closer to that live feeling than even the music on the group's fine live LP, Deliverin'. "Good Feelin' to Know" sounds right now like the best Furay song since he formed this band, and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes eventually the song most closely identified with Poco. (RS 124)

BUD SCOPPA