As one reviewer recently wrote: “PPL’s sound combines sweet memories with edgy, contemporary muscle. Other stage acts will include Perpetual Groove, Orleans, The Grass Is Dead, Jeff Sipe Trio, Travers Brothership, Pink Beds, Taylor Martin, Snake Oil Medicine Show, Hard Rocket, Emisunshine & The Rain, and many more.įor more information and/or to purchase tickets, go to their beginnings in mid-Sixties Ohio as a group of friends playing cover tunes to the present-day unit featuring founding member/pedal-steel innovator John David Call, veteran bassist Mike Reilly, propulsive drummer Scott Thompson and guitar ace Donnie Clark, PURE PRAIRIE LEAGUE continues to embellish the rich 43-year history of one of Country-Rock’s pioneering forces. And I’m blown away and completely, totally blessed - nothing but gratitude.Īcclaimed country/rock act Pure Prairie League will perform at the AsheJam festival June 25-27 at the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center in Fletcher. Life is worthless if you just bitch about things. SMN: Well, I would guess that you probably are a big subscriber to the idea of “the now” and practicing gratitude. Jack was right, all the way along the line. And he always used that phrase, “the rich tapestry of life.” The more I look back on my life, the more I think, “wow, what a crazy quilt this is.”
was such a fountain of knowledge and experience for me. He managed Hopalong Cassidy, The Everly Brothers, people like that. He manage Judy Garland and Rita Hayworth, and he wrote “Amos ‘n’ Andy” radio shows. His mother was a burlesque singer and vaudeville dancer when he was growing up. He had a phrase called, “the rich tapestry of life.” He was an amazing man and one of my mentors. MR: There was an old manager of ours named Jack Daley. SMN: What has 50 years of touring and performing taught you about what it means to be a human being? We started writing our own tunes, and that became the driving force. We didn’t try to do anything or try to sound country or try to sound this way or that way, we just wanted to write our own songs. MR: We were rock-n-rollers playing with country instruments and singing with a country slang. SMN: That album being “Bustin’ Out,” which is such a wide palette of genres. Like Garcia said, “What a long strange trip it’s been.”. Can you guys come up?” And the rest is history. A couple of years later, when I got back from England with the piano player, they called us up and said, “Hey, we’re doing our second album at Toronto. Poco had just come out with its first album and I was wearing that out - definitely something that interested me.Īnd I became friends with.
These guys are really good and this is that I’d like to be in. I listened to them play and I was blown away. We were on the same bill as Pure Prairie League. MR: I was playing with The Lemon Pipers in Cincinnati at a place called the Ludlow Garage. SMN: How did you first cross paths with PPL? Good music is not bound by time and space - it’s always in fashion. Īnd it’s because they’re sort of transported back to their college days or whatever - that’s what we’re chasing after, for people to get that kind of experience that we can deliver to them. They know all the words, some of them with their eyes kind of rolled back in their head or squeeze onto their. MR: You know, we look at the people and we see them singing along to the songs. After all these years, what is it that you’re still chasing up there? SMN: PPL has played pretty much every stage and event out there. It’s a way to bring people together, and it’s a way for them to get into a place in their head where they have fond memories. Smoky Mountain News: With the shutdown, what it proved to me is what I’ve always felt, which is that music is more than just entertainment - it’s a healing force. He joined the band in 1972, right before the album was released, forever changing all involved, especially on the heels of “Amie” - an immortal song just as poignant and luminous as PPL itself these many decades later. Reilly was then called up by PPL to be a session musician for an upcoming album (the smash record “Bustin’ Out”).
The beauty of the blues is that it’s a style of music you grow up alongside, one where…įrom there, he took off to attend the Woodstock festival in 1969, ultimately relocating to New York and joining The Robert Lee Band, which left for England, opening shows for David Bowie.
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