TMS Muse of the Week: Nancy Furay

(eOne Music / Entertainment One)

Very few couples in the music community seem to make it in the long haul, especially classic rock. There’s Bruce & Patti, Roger & Heather Daltrey, Charlie & Shirley Watts, Ringo & Barbara, etc. The standards are so low in showbusiness that it’s always a pleasant surprise when you learn of a famous person staying with their first or sometimes second spouse. One couple who are a bit under the radar in this realm are Richie & Nancy Furay. Richie was a member of the popular folk-rock bands Buffalo Springfield and Poco in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nancy is his wife of almost 60 years. Richie was born and raised in Ohio before moving to New York City and later Los Angeles to get his music career going. Nancy is a SoCal native from a suburban family. Like a lot of the ladies I cover on my MOTW series, Nancy [née Jennings] was yet another ordinary girl who spent her free time at the beach and in the city when she wasn’t dancing, modeling or working retail while dating within the Hollywood music scene. In fact, when the pair first met in early 1966, the young lady was actually dating another musician, lead guitarist Bill Rinehart of the rock group the Leaves.

According to Nancy, she was getting ready to let Bill know she was losing interest when he invited her over to the Whisky a Go-Go to see a new band, Buffalo Springfield, who were supposed to be good. At the end of the night, Nancy and Richie were introduced by a mutual acquaintance after quickly grabbing each other’s attention, and that was the last time she went out with Bill. Though it might sound like love at first sight, Richie was actually seeing someone else at the time [and someone who Nancy even knew], so she chose to move to Hawaii for the summer. By the time she was back in California, Richie was single and asked the pretty blonde out after noticing her in the crowd of a couple of local Buffalo shows. Only a few months later, the two married in March 1967, with all of the Springfield bandmates in attendance, including an irreverent Neil Young dressed in a Confederate soldier costume. In John Einarson’s 2004 book For What It’s Worth: The Story of Buffalo Springfield, Nancy revealed the only reason she kept going to BS concerts was to see Richie.

(via blogspot.com)

This might sound like the beginning of a true happily-ever-after, but since this is both reality and rock & roll, there were some bumps along the way for the Furays. Such as the usual wild and crazy antics of being young in the ‘60s and ‘70s regarding free love and recreational drugs, as well as band drama. By 1973, Poco disbanded after some turbulent success, and Richie and Nancy very nearly divorced that same year when the former found out her husband gave into rockstar cliché and invited a ‘road wife’ for the band’s final tour. Luckily for Richie, who had sunken to his lowest and unhappiest at this point, not all was lost. The story goes that while forming the supergroup Souther-Hillman-Furay Band with fellow folk/country/rock vets JD Souther and Chris Hillman in 1974, Richie and Chris were introduced to Christianity through the band’s pedal-steel guitarist Al Perkins; and the discovery of faith inspired Richie to return to Nancy and their growing family. But then sources have popped up over the years suggesting Nancy actually became Christian before Richie, and that was a growing difference between them along with the musician’s infidelity, tension with his bandmates, and dissatisfaction with his craft.

Whatever the case, Nancy eventually forgave Richie, and the couple have remained together and spiritually active since 1975—with four daughters and many grandchildren. Nancy has been more present at Richie’s concerts and tours since the 1970s as well. Unsurprisingly, she’s also the songwriter’s biggest and longest lasting muse, inspiring one of his most popular songs, ‘Kind Woman;’ which is the closing track off the final Buffalo Springfield album, ‘Last Time Around’ (1968) too. The song later made an appearance on Poco’s 1971 live LP ‘Deliverin’’ to boot. Five decades later, Richie’s solo record ‘Hand in Hand’ (2015) featured an ode to their lasting love with the title track, and a portrait of the two early in their relationship was chosen for the cover art. The road to happiness can be rocky sometimes. But like most things, the result is worth it.