Pure Prairie League

Pure Prairie League is one of the earliest and most successful country rock bands in history.Pure Prairie League and The Eagles are the two groups most often credited with bringing the country rock genre to a national music audience.

PPL’s roots can be found in Waverly ,Ohio from 1964-1969 where singer/guitarist/songwriter Craig Fuller, drummers Tom McGrail and Jim Caughlan, and pedal steel phenom John David Call all resided. The guys played in various bands together in their teen years, among them The Swiss Navy and The Omars.

The band ultimately located itself in Columbus, Ohio (sixty miles north of Waverly), and had it first success in Cincinnati. The original stage band was Fuller, McGrail, Powell, Phil Stokes on bass, and Robin Suskind on guitar and mandola. His steel guitar greatly improved the country songs and sparked hot guitar duels with Fuller that contributed greatly to the rock/country, signature sound of the band.

PPL’s biggest hits include Fuller’s country rock classic, “Amie”, “Two Lane Highway”, and the musically less-representative pop song, “Let Me Love You Tonight”, composed by Jeff Wilson, Dan Greer and Steve Woodard. Vince Gill, later to become one of Nashville’s biggest solo stars, sang and played guitar with the band in the early 1980s and recorded an updated version of “Amie” for their greatest hits album.

In the late 1990s PPL was back with a lineup of Fuller, Connor, Reilly, Burr, Fats Kaplin (pedal steel guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, accordion, washboard) and Rich Schell (vocals, drums, percussion).