The Norman Rockwell-originated cowboy character of Luke, with his handle-bar mustache, spurs and leather chaps, looking out somewhat mournfully from the cover of every Pure Prairie League album, was about the only predictable component of the group's rise to improbable — though deserved — success. Their breakthrough hit, "Amie," hit the charts nearly three years after it was recorded, and two years after the song's writer and singer, Craig Fuller, had left the band following a long legal battle to preserve his conscientious objector status during the Vietnam war.

PPL were among a wave of early '70s country-rock bands that were less self-conscious about their melding of the two forms. They were no Nudie suits and Opry trappings a la the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo or The Flying Burrito Brothers; instead the blend owed more to Crosby, Stills and Nash, a soft and harmonious rock in which songcraft took precedence over shotgun marriage.

The band had formed in southern Ohio at the tail of the '60s, with Craig Fuller and George Powell sharing vocal duties, and the Jims Lanham and Caughlan as the rhythm section, and was discovered by RCA A&R executive Bob Ringe in late 1971. Their first album… read more »