Richie Furay - Part 3

The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band (1974)
After leaving Poco, Furay didn't wait long to rejoin the fray; he teamed up John-David Souther (songwriter and associate of the Eagles) and Chris Hillman (ex-Byrds) to form the country-rock group. Elektra figured it had another CSN on its hands: take one part Springfield, one part Byrds, one part pop songwriter, and stir. So they hyped the record heavily, and indeed it went gold and produced a Top 40 hit (Richie's lively "Fallin' In Love"). They're just following the same old L.A. country-influenced pop formula, with the usual watertight tenor harmonies, super-professional musicianship, and mournful romance lyrics. All of the material is solid; Furay's is as good as ever ("The Flight Of The Dove"), and Souther provides audible sincerity (the epic "Deep, Dark And Dreamless") matched with creative, Eagles-style tunefulness - his "Border Town" even features that band's trademarked, sardonic commentary on the Me Decade's party scene. The band is pretty high-powered: Jim Gordon (drums), Paul Harris (keyboards), Joe Lala (percussion on two tracks), and Al Perkins (pedal steel; his dobro plays excellently off of Hillman's mandolin on "Rise And Fall").
Quality: 320 kb/s ripped from CD.

Trouble in Paradise was the second and last from this band (1975).
Check out the cover of the album. J.D. Souther stares towards the ground, Richie Furay has his hands in his pockets, shrugging - and Chris has a no-nonsense stance, as if he was fed up with the proceedings. They were unhappy because they were forced to sound like CSN and the Eagles. If Souther, Hillman and Furay had had time to coalesce, to jell, write songs together, be a band they would have knocked the Eagles on their asses. Souther did not want to be in a group, did not want to be a team player. And S-H-F fell apart at the seams. Souther preferred to fly solo. Furay's two efforts are satisfying but nothing like "Falling in Love" or "Believe Me" (a song he originally recorded for Poco) off the first album.
Quality: Sorry don't know, because I got this from a friend. If you've a better one please submit.

Firefall is a band from the Byrds family tree. Two of it's founders are Michael Clarke and Rick Roberts. On this 1994 album Richie do background vocals on two tracks.

Quality: 320 kb/s ripped from CD.