Pure Prairie League

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Pure Prairie League is a popular American soft rock and country rock band founded in 1969 in Waverly, Ohio by Craig Fuller, Tom McGrail, Jim Caughlan, and John David Call, and active in the 1970s and early 1980s. Their biggest hits include "Let Me Love You Tonight" and "Amie". Vince Gill, now a major country music star as a solo artist, sang and played guitar in later incarnations of the band.

The band was named for a fictional temperance organization formed in the late 19th century. There is debate over whether the organization existed or not.

Although the band has its roots in Waverly, it was actually formed in Columbus, Ohio (sixty miles north of Waverly), and had it first success in Cincinnati. Although Fuller, McGrail, Caughlan, and Call had played together off and on since high school, the first Pure Prairie League recording was a George Ed Powell composition, "Down to Pieces," with Powell (acoustic guitar and vocal), Fuller (lead guitar and vocal), McGrail (drums), Kenny May (bass) and David Workman (pedal steel guitar). The original stage band was Fuller, McGrail, Powell, Phil Stokes on bass, and Robin Suskind on guitar and mandola. Call just started showing up at the gigs. He did not get paid for the first one. Caughlan, who was always a string man and is still known in Waverly as the best bass player around, took over on drums when McGrail quit the band just before their first album. Over the years PPL has had 18 members in and out, not counting the new guys currently touring with Fuller.

Pure Prairie League's greatest hit was "Amie" from Bustin' Out.

[edit] Album discography

• Pure Prairie League (1972)
• Bustin' Out (1972)
• Two Lane Highway (1975)
• Dance (1976)
• If the Shoe Fits (1976)
• Takin' the Stage (live) 1977
• Just Fly (1978)
• Can't Hold Back (1979)
• Firin' Up (1980)
• Something in the Night (1981)
• Mementos 1985
• All In Good Time (2005)