Poco - Crazy Love

"Crazy Love" is a 1979 hit single for the country rock group Poco introduced on the 1978 album Legend; written by founding group member Rusty Young, "Crazy Love" was the first single by Poco to reach the Top 40 and remained the group's biggest hit with especial impact as an Adult Contemporary hit being ranked by Billboard as the #1 Adult Contemporary hit for the year 1979. Issued as a single in January 1979, "Crazy Love" debuted at #72 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated 20 January 1979 and rose into the Top 40 within four weeks. Losing traction in the Top 30, "Crazy Love" would in March 1979 spend three weeks in the Top 20 peaking at #17 before beginning a rapid chart descent of the Hot 100. It has been alleged that the February 1979 takeover of ABC Records by MCA arrested the surge in Poco's popularity, MCA not being interested in the group: (LA Times 27 April 1979 quote from "a source close to ABC":) "[Poco]'s sales would be better now if that change [ie. ABC's takeover by MCA] hadn't happened. Poco's records really suffered. Those guys are hexed." ("Crazy Love"'s parent album Legend would still manage to reach #14 on the Billboard album chart in April 1979, being that month certified as a Gold record for sales of 500,000 units.) "Crazy Love" would spend seven weeks at the #1 position on the airplay-focused Adult Contemporary chart in Billboard, whose year-end tally would rank "Crazy Love" as the #1 Adult Contemporary hit for 1979. Grazing the Billboard C&W chart (#95), "Crazy Love" would have a Canadian hit parade tenure with a #15 peak, becoming Poco's second charting single in Australia with a #73 peak (leaving "Rose of Cimarron" -#49 in 1976 - as Poco's Australian chart best). Although Poco would have three subsequent Top 40 hits all of which reached the Adult Contemporary chart's Top Ten, "Crazy Love" remained the band's signature song: in a 2008 interview promoting an upcoming Poco gig, Rusty Young stated: "The only reason we're [ie. Young and the interviewer] talking now is 'Crazy Love'. That was our first hit single. It's a classic, and it still pays the mortgage."