Customer Reviews

Cantamos

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In terms of the Country Rock genre, you simply need this album. The singing and playing on Cantamos makes all of Poco's previous albums, and future, pale into comparison, except perhaps "Seven." The major highlight is Rusty Young`s emergence as a song writer. His efforts are some of the strongest, on what is a very even, high quality album. "Sagebrush Serenade" which effectively marries, Bluegrass, High Harmonies and Country Rock together and High and Dry which is straight Country Rock, sung by Tim Schmit will leave you wanting more. Paul Cotton has major highlights, "Western Waterloo", Another Time Around, are lyrical improvements and really rock out. Tim Schmit has Bitter Blue which continues his growth as a songwriter and has the more commercial singalong "Whatever Happened to your smile?" The strongest song on the album is "All the Ways" which is quite simply a classic. Realistically this is as strong an album as Poco ever did and one which I would strongly recommend to all Eagles, JD Souther, James Taylor fans as an example of how good Country Rock did get in the early mid `70`s.

Sure, other albums that followed are good (Head Over Heels, Rose of Cimmaron and Legend), but Cantamos is the last all around "Great" Poco album with the classic Poco sound (Banjo pickin', superb pedal steel, breakdowns/hoe down feeling to some of the songs, and smooth vocalizing from Schmitt and Cotton)

Highlights for me are "Sagebrush Seranade", "High And Dry", "Another Time Around", and "Whatever Happened To Your Smile". But the whole album is superb.

Not a bad "Post Furay" Poco album.

One of the best! Get it!

On Cantamos, Poco shows that they did indeed have life after the departure of founder Richie Furay. Cantamos is significant in the history of Poco in that it signals the arrival of Rusty Young as a songwriter as he does an excellent job of filling the songwriting gap left by Furay. The strength of the new material by Young in conjunction with the contributions of Paul Cotton and Tim Schmit result in the strongest song set since the classic "A Good Feelin' to Know" album.

Cantamos provides a vehicle for Poco to show the full range of their talents. Cotton does what he does best, delivering rockers like "Western Waterloo" and "One Horse Blue." Schmit's "What Ever Happened to Your Smile" falls right in line with the relatively laid back acoustic tunes that he specializes in. But it is the great Rusty Young who provides the highlights on Cantamos. The album opens and closes with Young classics "Sagebrush Serenade" and "All the Ways" and his "High and Dry" provides both the literal and figurative centerpiece. "Sagebrush" and "High and Dry" also provide an opportunity for Young to blow us away with his superhuman skills on the pedal steel guitar.

Cantamos has a little bit of everything for Poco fans - great harmonies, lots of energy, and great guitar and pedal steel work. Most importantly, it offers us a peak at things to come; Grantham, Cotton, Schmit and Young were not finished with creating some great music and Poco was ready to carry on a great tradition and were still very much at home on the throne as the kings of country-rock.

When I borrowed the lps "A GOOD FEELING TO KNOW," "SEVEN" (my least favorite album), and this album from my oldest brother-in-law, I heard the best mixture of country, bluegrass, folk, and rock and roll on CANTAMOS. My only complaint is that if RUSTY YOUNG did not sing any lead vocal on the outstanding songs he wrote for this album, that was a major mistake because he had and has a much more calm and relaxing voice than bass guitarist TIM SCHMIT. Meanwhile, TIM'S BITTER BLUE is an excellent acoustic song with his low-pitch lead vocal, harmony vocals, steel and lead guitar riffs by RUSTY and PAUL COTTON, but his WHATEVER HAPPENED TO YOUR SMILE is the best song I have ever heard by TIM. Plus, it has an excellent tone of his lead vocal, dobro and steel guitar by RUSTY, the acoustic and lead guitar by PAUL, and harmony vocals by the band, and it even outdoes his future EAGLES hit "I CAN'T TELL YOU WHY." PAUL'S "ONE HORSE BLUE" is the best song he has written and sung for the band that features blasting banjo and steel guitar riffs by RUSTY, excellent guitar riffs lead vocal by PAUL, drums by GEORGE GRANTHAM, bass guitar by TIM, and harmony vocals by the band. His "SUSANNAH" is also an excellent acoustic ballad with the harmony vocals, dobro and steel guitar by RUSTY. His WESTERN WATERLOO is a excellent country/folk/rock song with his lead vocal and guitar riffs, RUSTY'S banjo and pedal steel guitar riffs, tim's bas guitar riffs, GEORGE'S drumming, and the band's harmony vocals. ANOTHER TIME AROUND is a excellent rock song with dobro and lead guitar riffs by RUSTY and PAUL. Now comes the best songs RUSTY has written. His "SAGEBRUSH SERENADE" is a outstanding beginning with the acoustic guitars, vocals, and pedal steel guitar at the beginning of the song, and then come the blasting banjo, dobro and pedal steel guitar by RUSTY, lead guitar by PAUL, drums by GEORGE GRANTHAM, and bass guitar by TIM that kick the song into high-gear overdrive ya truckers. His "HIGH AND DRY" is an excellent song with the harmony vocals, the acoustic electric, and bass guitar riffs, and the drums. "ALL THE WAY" is excellent too. It features laid-back vocals, crisp sounding acoustic guitar by RUSTY and PAUL'S lead guitar riffs. Furthermore, I once played my 12-string acoustic guitar while I listened to this album on my stereo. Overall, this is a must have for all the pre-LEGEND POCO fans.

I really don't know what Richie Furay was looking for when he left Poco.
Perhaps it was the commercial success that had eluded him with the band. Perhaps he wanted critical acclaim. Well, he had some of that with Poco, but maybe he wanted to be on the A list of musicians. If it can be said
that he was burned out then how do you explain Rusty Young's desire to continue ? After all, Rusty had been with Poco as long as Richie and was probably experiencing some of the same feelings of frustration, especially after the relative failure of the Good Feelin' To Know album.
And then there's Paul Cotton, who had been a working musician as long as Richie. Timothy B. Schmit had been with Poco since their 2nd. album, and was probably puzzled by the band's failure to get a big hit or a gold album. Concert attendance was always good, but that big hit was just out of reach. Then you have to consider George Grantham, the drummer who also sang and added so much to the Poco sound. Anyway, Furay quit and left Poco to the other four, and it can truely be said they carried on in an outstanding fashion. If anything, they got even tighter without him.
If you look at Poco's history, you'll see that they had thier greatest commercial sucess without Furay, Grantham, or Schmit with 1978's Legend album and the hit singles that album contained. But, getting back to Cantamos. It's an excellent album, with or without Richie Furay. The songs are overall consistantly good. The album is more satifying than Poco 7, the first album without Furay. Cantamos is where the four man Poco really began to shine. I suppose you can think of 7 as the foundation for this album. Anyhow, get Cantamos, give it a good listen, and watch the image of Richie Furay fade out of your mind. Richie was off trying to be a STAR when this album was released and was getting lost along the way. Poco stuck together and produced some really good albums
and Cantamos is one of the best.

This is without question the best Poco album out there. After thirty years it still sounds fresh. If your looking to get beyond your Poco's Greatest Hits collection start here.

Every genre has its Must-Have classics, and this album should be near the top of the list for Country Rock fans. Country Rock helped define the fabulous 70s music scene, and I can think of no better representative of the era than Poco's Cantamos.

I'm proud to say I bought the album (as in vinyl) when it was originally released, and have since replaced it several times, with cassette, then another LP, and now finally CD. It's one that I plan to -always- own, in one format or another. It sounds as fantastic today as it did 35 years ago. Amazing.

For true Country Rock fans, here's something else to hunt for: the two (and only two) albums by a group called Navarro -- "Listen" and "Straight to the Heart." Rare gems.

This is a very strong vocal album. Mellow yet rocking. One of the best Poco Albums, the last song "All the ways" is the best!

I remember when I purchased this as an LP a very long time ago. In those days I had almost everything published by those bands who had a "Western" sound, and even though times and tastes have changed I still enjoy them. This will be the last CD I buy, however; there are a couple of tracks that still cook the beans, but I think I'd have been better advised to get the downloads. Oh, wait ... I was unable to find anything from this album as a download. I guess that explains it.

This is one of POCO,s best album,s the song writeing on this cd is Great one of the things ,I like about Poco is the way they write like there back in the days of the civil war not like all the pop that you get now days if your a POCO fan you will love this cd!