Rusty Young (musician)

Norman Russell "Rusty" Young (born February 23, 1946, in Long Beach, California) is an American guitarist, vocalist and songwriter best known as one of the frontmen in the seminal country rock and Americana band Poco.

A virtuoso on pedal steel guitar, he is celebrated for the ability to get a Hammond B3 organ sound out of the instrument by playing it through a Leslie speaker cabinet and as an innovator of producing other rock sounds from the instrument.

Young was raised in Colorado. He began playing lap steel guitar at age 6, and taught guitar and steel guitar lessons during his high school years. During that time, he also played country music in late night bars. Rusty played in a well known Denver psychedelic rock band "Boenzee Cryque".

In the late 1960s, a former guitar student became the road manager for Buffalo Springfield (Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Jim Messina, Richie Furay, Dewey Martin, and Bruce Palmer). The band was looking for a steel guitarist for the Furay ballad "Kind Woman" and Young was hired. Befriending Furay and Messina while playing and recording with Buffalo Springfield, with them he became a founding member of Poco in 1968 upon the former band's demise. Drummer George Grantham rounded out the original Poco lineup. The band's membership fluctuated over the years. After founding guitarist Richie Furay left the group, Young took on more song writing responsibility, along with Paul Cotton and Timothy B. Schmit.

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