Drummer/singer George Grantham is best known as one of the founding members of the band Poco, although he has also played on a good share of major albums by other artists. Born in Cordell, OK, in 1947, he discovered while growing up that he had abilities both as a singer and a drummer. In 1966, at age 18, he entered professional music by joining the Denver-based folk-rock band Boenzee Cryque, succeeding their original drummer, Tad Collier. He and guitarist Rusty Young became close friends as part of the group's second-generation lineup, which had more of a psychedelic sound. The group released a single, Sky Gone Grey b/w Still in Love with You Baby, that was a big enough regional hit to get picked up by the Los Angeles-based Uni label for national distribution -- and it did well enough, in turn, to justify Uni issuing the band's follow-up, Watch the Time. All of that activity led to the group's participation on the soundtrack of the movie #Psych-Out. By the time the movie was out, however, Young had left the band and moved to Los Angeles, and Boenzee Cryque was history by the middle of 1968. Meanwhile, Young fell in with Richie Furay and Jim Messina in working on the final recordings of the Buffalo Springfield, whose own membership -- including Stephen Stills and Neil Young -- was in the process of splintering. Out of those sessions, a new band -- initially called "Pogo" and later rechristened Poco -- was formed.

Grantham was brought aboard at Young's urging and attracted a lot of attention with his harmony singing as well as his drumming. In contrast to Young, Furay, and Messina, however, he didn't make any significant contributions as a songwriter (apart from the group-credited extended piece Nobody's Fool/El Tonto de Nadie, Regressa from their second album). But his singing and playing were enough to keep him in the spotlight across a dozen albums. Grantham also found time to play most of the drums on Neil Young's self-titled 1969 debut solo album, and later worked on recordings by Rick Roberts and the self-titled album by Gunhill Road, as well as on Furay's first solo album after his exit from the group in the mid-'70s. Poco's constant near-misses with success wore the membership down across a decade of hard work, however, and Grantham left the band in 1978. He subsequently played and sang on a string of Ricky Skaggs releases, as well as recording with Richie Furay, Ronnie McDowell, and Steve Wariner. He returned to Poco as a guest musician in the early '80s, and as a full member of the band for the reunion of the 1968 lineup on Legacy (1989), and the tour that followed. He later resumed working alongside Young and Paul Cotton in a revived version of Poco, which included the album Running Horse (2002). On July 29, 2004, however, Grantham suffered a crippling stroke in the middle of a show. He was forced to leave the group and give up performing. He has since made major strides to recovery, and in a statement in 2007, said that he hopes someday to resume performing. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi