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Paul Cotton is a country-rock guitarist and singer who enjoyed a five-decade career in music. Born in 1943, in Fort Rucker, Alabama, he reached his teens just as rock & roll was dominating the charts.
Cotton took up the guitar at age 13, influenced by the music of
Les Paul and
Duane Eddy, among others, and was good enough at it to aspire to play professionally. He joined his first band at 14, and by 16, living in Illinois, he'd become a member of a Chicago-based outfit called the Capitols. They became Mus Twangs at the start of the 1960s, and cut a surf-style version of the
Irving Berlin song "Marie" that was good enough to get picked up for national distribution by Mercury Records. By 1964, the Mus Twangs had started doing a mix of British Invasion and blue-eyed soul repertory, working under the name the Genrys and then the Rovin' Kind. By this time,
Cotton was a major influence within the group along with fellow guitarist
Kal David -- they complemented each other perfectly, one influenced by country music and early rock & roll, and the other R&B and soul, respectively, and developed a double-lead-guitar sound that made them increasingly popular in the Chicago area. They recorded on the Dunwich label, best remembered as the home of the
Shadows of Knight, and eventually evolved into the Illinois Speed Press. In the latter incarnation, managed by
James William Guercio,
Cotton and company landed a contract with
Columbia Records that yielded two albums and got them bookings on the West Coast as an opening act for the likes of
Chicago and
Steppenwolf. During this period, they also shared billing with a new country-rock quintet called
Poco on several occasions. The Speed Press broke up in 1970, owing to
Cotton and
David's differing musical interests, and it was then that fate took a hand --
Poco was going through one of what would become frequent personnel changes around the same time, with co-founder
Jim Messina announcing his plans to exit the lineup. Co-founder
Richie Furay remembered being impressed with
Cotton's playing as a member of the Speed Press and approached him, and
Cotton became a member of
Poco in short order. Most of his work since has been with
Poco, apart from a five-year hiatus at the end of the '80s, when the band became inactive.
Cotton recorded his first solo album, Changing Horses, during this period. But in the early '90s, he and
Rusty Young -- one of the group's co-founders -- reactivated
Poco as a working band, which was still going in 2009.
Cotton was known for his powerful sound on the guitar, while
Young usually handled the pedal steel and more exotic instruments such as the mandolin.
Cotton also wrote several songs that are longtime mainstays of the band's repertory.
Paul Cotton died on August 1, 2021; he was 78 years old. ~ Bruce Eder