Richie Furay, born in Yellow Springs, Ohio may not be a familiar name to many of the younger members on Yappi, but
his influence on the genre of Country Rock is noteworthy. As a founder of the legendary band Buffalo Springfield, along with
Neil Young and Stephen Stills, for what it's worth, (vintage rockers will understand this pun), basically Buffalo Springfield can be
credited with creating Country Rock. For the record Dewey Martin and Bruce Palmer were the other two original members.
Jim Fielder, Doug Hastings and Jim Messina joined the band later. Buffalo Springfield only stayed together for a very brief time but the core of the group later emerged into Poco, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and the duo of Loggins and Messina.
The forming members of Buffalo Springfield had played as the house band at the famed Whiskey-a-GoGo and toured with the Byrds before releasing their first album in 1967, and by 1968 they had disbanded. So influential was this initial album that it resulted in Buffalo Springfield being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1997. I believe Tom Petty inducted them. An amazing honor considering the group never had an album make the Top 40 chart and only one single make the Top 40 with an entry reaching # 7. Not listing the title of the single, but I did provide a clue in this post. lol.
The influence of Ohio native Richie Furay to Country Rock was continued after Buffalo Springfield when he co-founded Poco with Jim Messina and future Eagle, Randy Meisner and later another future Eagle, Timothy B. Schmit. Richie Furay eventually got into Christian Rock and became a minister in Colorado. By this time The Eagles took Country Rock into new heights. At one time it was thought that Poco would become the big stars in this field, but it was not to be.
As a side note, no one has mentioned the group Brewer and Shipley, one hit wonders and were playing about the same time as some of the groups listed above. This duo took the song " One Toke Over The Line" all the way to # 10 in March of 1971.
Tom Shipley was born in Mineral Ridge, Ohio.