Call It Love

Poco's "Call It Love": Country Rock Survivors Find a New Top 20 Moment in 1989

Poco's history is one of the more instructive stories in American rock, a tale of persistent excellence alongside chronic commercial frustration that finally yielded significant returns in the late 1980s. The band had been founded in Los Angeles in 1968 by Richie Furay and Jim Messina following the dissolution of Buffalo Springfield, and over the following two decades it had established itself as one of the primary architects of country rock while watching many of its alumni achieve far greater commercial success elsewhere. Eagles members Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner had both passed through Poco before helping form that more commercially dominant group. For Poco itself, genuine mainstream breakthrough had been elusive until the mid-1980s brought a personnel change that transformed the band's commercial fortunes.

The arrival of vocalist and guitarist Paul Cotton and, crucially, the addition of Rusty Young on steel guitar had long defined Poco's sound. But it was the joining of vocalist Kim Battey and, most consequentially, the recruitment of vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Richard Marx collaborator Paul Cotton alongside the reconstituted lineup that gave the late 1980s version of the band its commercial sharpness. The 1989 version of the group had stabilized around a lineup that included Young, Cotton, and newly prominent vocalist Jack Sundrud, whose smooth lead vocals provided a sound perfectly calibrated for adult contemporary and country crossover radio.

"Call It Love" was written by Richard Marx, who by 1989 was one of the most commercially successful songwriters and artists in pop music, having produced a string of top-ten hits from his debut album. Marx's songwriting carried a melodic directness and emotional accessibility that translated effectively across multiple formats, and his involvement with Poco gave "Call It Love" a professional polish that helped secure its radio placement. The song appeared on Poco's Legacy album, released on RCA Records in 1989, which represented a self-conscious bid for mainstream attention after years of critical appreciation without corresponding sales.

The single entered the Billboard Hot 100 on August 26, 1989, debuting at number 94. Its climb was one of the more impressive of that chart year in terms of sheer persistence. From 94 it moved to 68, then 56, then 48, crossing the 40-barrier by late September and continuing upward through October. It reached its peak of number 18 on November 4, 1989, spending a full 16 weeks on the Hot 100. The single performed even more strongly on the Adult Contemporary chart, where its production values and melodic directness earned it considerable airplay. On that format chart it reached the top five, a result that reflected where Poco's primary commercial audience was concentrated by that point in the band's career.

The success of "Call It Love" represented the most significant pop chart achievement in Poco's then-twenty-year history. The band had never previously placed a single in the top 20 of the Hot 100, making the November 1989 peak a genuine milestone. The Legacy album performed correspondingly well, producing further singles and establishing the late-period Poco lineup as a viable commercial entity rather than a legacy nostalgia act.

The music video received strong MTV and VH1 rotation, introducing the band to audiences who knew the Poco name but had not followed the group through its many personnel changes. The video's straightforward performance aesthetic suited both the song and the band's image as working musicians rather than MTV-era image constructors. The success also validated RCA's investment in the project and in the Richard Marx songwriting connection that had helped give the album its commercial orientation.

Poco continued recording and touring through the 1990s and beyond, with Rusty Young remaining the consistent thread connecting the band's various eras. "Call It Love" endured as a staple of adult contemporary oldies radio and as the moment when a historically overlooked band finally received the mainstream acknowledgment that decades of quality work had arguably earned much earlier.