Music Notes

At the end of the night, the beaming smile on Don David’s face told it all.

The superintendent of the 2003 Hebron, Connecticut Harvest Fair was posing for a photograph. But, it wasn’t just any photograph. On his left, with his arm around David, was country rock pioneer Poco founding member Rusty Young. To David’s right, longtime Poco guitarist Paul Cotton. Next to each of them was original drummer George Grantham and bassist Jack Sundrud.

“Hey, Don,” somebody yelled out. “You can stop smiling now.”

“Are you kidding me?” he said. ”No way.”

David’s had that smile on now for almost a year, or since he, as the head man at this year’s fair, had the opportunity to book Poco, his all time favorite group, as the musical headliner for the opening night of entertainment.

“This has been absolutely unbelievable,” he said. ”To be able to bring these guys, who have meant so much to me as a fan, to a fair that I’m so involved with, in this community, my community, is an absolute dream come true.”

Poco was one of a number of performers on a list provided by entertainment agents just about a year ago, as the music for this year’s fair was being discussed and determined by fair organizers, said David, a 49-year-old tax and investment advisor, who, as a member of the Hebron Lions Club, became involved with the fair several years ago. He’s been a big fan of the group, since his college days in 1972, when a roommate turned him onto them.

“I’ve been a fan ever since then,” he said. “So, I looked at the list, saw Poco was on it, and that was a no-brainer.”

“The thought of being able to book Poco, and work with them this closely, I never would have ever imagined it,” he added. “Then, I was worried a bit about ‘what if they can’t do it?’ So I went on line to see where else they were playing, and, you know, if you don’t see them coming to play shows in the Northeast area at the time of the fair, well, you start to get worried (that they won’t be able to play in Hebron).”

David didn’t need to fret, though, because Poco was already scheduled to play a show in Annapolis, Maryland, a mere hop and a skip from Connecticut for a seasoned touring band, the day after the date being held for them at the Hebron fair.

“If it didn’t work out,” he said, “it would have been ‘all right, let’s go to our second choice,’ but then, believe me, I would have been heartbroken.”

But, it soon worked out, and for David the fan it was pure ecstasy.

“Even getting the verbal commitment was nice,” he said, “but, let me tell you, when you get a written contract back, and your name is right there next to Rusty Young’s, then you think, ‘hey, this is really going to happen.’

“Then,” he remembered, “I started to call around for hotel rooms for them, using my own credit card, and when they asked who the rooms were for, and I said, ‘well, Rusty Young will have one, and Paul Cotton will have one,’ and so on, then it really hit me, that it was going to happen.”

David even got an extra bonus when, after the band arrived for it’s mid-afternoon sound check before its’ performance at the fair, a reporter from a local cable television station had David interview Young, on camera.

“I could have asked about a hundred questions, but I tried to keep it short,” David said, chuckling.

And, as a fan, it will be admittedly hard for him not to try to book them for the fair again next year.

“For that, I have to put my being a fan aside, and just think about the club (which utilizes the fair as its major annual fundraiser for non-profit and other groups in Hebron),” he said. ”We’ve only had one artist back a second time, and we found that it wasn’t as good, so, no, we probably wouldn’t do that, even though, as a fan, I’d like to do it.

“But, in a couple of years…..” he added, laughing.