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Get instant early access to the advance screening of “Rusty Young - A Tribute to a Life in Song,” a full video recording of the tribute concert, along with documentary interviews.
Cimarron 615 honors Rusty Young, the guitarist, songwriter and Poco co-founder, with a live tribute album and film recorded June 18, 2021, at Rimrock Ranch in Pioneertown, just outside Joshua Tree National Park, two months after Young’s passing. The album and a full video recording of the concert, along with documentary interviews, will be released on Rusty’s birthday, February 23, 2027.
Young helped define California country-rock, and his songwriting and pedal steel playing remain central to that legacy. This collection brings together his songs and Poco favorites, performed by Cimarron 615 with friends and fellow Blue Élan labelmates, including Chelsea Williams, Janiva Magness, Sam Morrow, Colin Devlin, Bob Gentry and Mary Scholz.
Cimarron 615 grew out of the musical connections forged during the tribute concert and the recording projects that followed. The band’s original lineup included Jack Sundrud, Michael Webb, Rick Lonow, Bill Lloyd and Tom Hampton, bringing together musicians with deep ties to Poco and the California country-rock scene. Sundrud, Lonow and Hampton were members of Poco at the time, while Webb had previously spent eight years with the band. Lloyd also shared a history with Young and Sundrud as a member of the Sky Kings, the group they formed in the 1990s following a Poco hiatus.
Following the tribute concert, Cimarron 615 continued as a band, eventually settling into its current four-piece lineup of Sundrud, Webb, Lonow and Ronnie Guilbeau. The group has since released three albums, building on the shared musical history and California country-rock roots that brought them together in the first place.
With Circle of Friends – A Rusty Young Tribute, Cimarron 615 returns to the music and friendship that started it all, celebrating the songs, spirit and legacy of a musician whose influence continues to resonate.
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For Same Sky, their third Blue Élan Records album, the veteran Nashville-based musicians who formed Cimarron 615 after the death of their Poco bandmate Rusty Young have fully come into their own. The living, breathing definition of Americana, the group—named after the 1976 Poco hit “Rose of Cimarron” and their home city’s area code—is equally steeped in any number of roots genres. That approach can be heard on their first two releases, *Brand New Distance* (2023) and their self-titled sophomore effort, both showcasing their expert ensemble playing and patented lush three- and four-part harmonies.
Produced by the band and recorded at Treasure Island Recorders in Nashville with engineer Brandon Epps, Same Sky offers a wide variety of musical styles, from revved-up country twang (Guilbeau and Jon McElroy’s “Praying to Saint Rita”) to bluesy rock riffs (Sundrud and Craig Bickhardt’s apocalyptic “World Slidin’ Down”), along with everything in between.
There are forays into spirited bluegrass (native son Webb’s “Kentucky Callin’”), soulful Memphis R&B (Sundrud’s Al Green-flavored “The Intention of Your Touch”), breezy, horn-driven reggae-ska (Sundrud and Charles Frank Glass’ “Aruba”), and even a spicy crawfish Cajun zydeco stomp—a cover of “River Road,” written by Ronnie’s dad, fiddler “Gib” Guilbeau, with whom he played in the Burrito Brothers.
Speaking on the album title’s significance, Sundrud explained, “For me, it’s like we’re all one in this world, we’re all under the Same Sky.”
Other Same Sky highlights include “Broken and Blue,” a sprawling love ballad in waltz time, and Tim Krekel’s “California,” an epic suite that struts their jam-band bona fides as both an answer song to “Hotel California” and a nod to “Surf’s Up,” with “a bit of the Grateful Dead thrown in” for good measure.
“Your Turn Now,” co-written by all four, opens the album with a “Take It Easy” vibe that acknowledges the one-time sidemen are now in the driver’s seat, ready to take control of their musical destiny by accepting the torch from those who came before and preparing to pass it on to all who follow.
Webb’s “Comet in the Sky” offers an elegy for their late Poco bandmate Young, with an evocative pedal steel solo by Mike Daly.
“This is an acknowledgement of those who came before, who are no longer with us, particularly Rusty,” added Webb. “It’s saying, we’re going to miss you.”
Cimarron 615 is a hall of fame-caliber assemblage, with credits that look like a who's-who of Americana, country and rock history. "We've all been around a long time and done a lot of work -- and a lot of it together," notes drummer Rick Lonow. "There's history here." Where the four musicians intersect is via the famed country-rock band Poco. Lonow and Jack Sundrud were its longtime rhythm section until the band ceased when co-founder Rusty Young died in 2021. Michael Webb played in the band for eight years, while Ronnie Guilbeau co-wrote Poco's 1989 Top 20 single "Call It Love" with Lonow. Webb and Sundrud co-produced Poco’s All Fired Up album in 2013, and Lonow, Webb and Sundrud played on Young's 2017 solo album, Waitin' For the Sun. Cimarron 615 came to be after Young's death, when Blue Elan Records chief Kirk Pasich organized a tribute concert and album and brought Sundrud, Webb and Lonow together in Los Angeles as part of a house band for several projects - and heard the potential for more. Guilbeau rounded out the line-up in 2023.
"To me, personally, California country-rock is an actual genre. Rusty used to say it was rock musicians playing country instruments," says Lonow. "And the (vocal) harmonies are always a big part of it. That's the common thread with all of us -- it gives you country music, rock music and vocal harmonies all in one package. That's our DNA."
It's certainly an apt description of the 12 original tracks on CIMARRON 615, an album that finds the quartet fully forged as a band. "After doing that (first album) it's a different palette now," Lonow explains. "I think it rocks a little harder. I think the band is streamlined. We have more of an identity now." Sundrud concurs that, "We've been working a lot, and I think it's really solidified as a band with the four of us. It really is a good fit."
Brand New Distance is a 10-song record channeling a collective heritage that combines Poco and the Flying Burrito Brothers into a refreshingly contemporary take on harmony-laden, narrative country rock. The album oozes world-class songcraft and musicality enhanced with achingly nuanced harmonies, poignant lyrics, and sinewy solos. Marrying bluegrass instrumentation to breezy California country rock, authentically gritty blues, and pop sensibilities, Cimarron 615 spans everything from stripped-down acoustic arrangements to full-on three-guitar rock, with an unpredictable live show noted for rare on-stage chemistry.
Cimarron 615 is a vibrant new voice with rich Nashville roots comprised of Tom Hampton (Poco), Bill Lloyd (Foster & Lloyd, Sky Kings), Rick Lonow (Poco, Flying Burrito Brothers), Jack Sundrud (Poco, Great Plains), and Michael Webb (Poco).
