After releasing their self-titled debut album in the spring of 1972, the members of Pure Prairie League spent the summer at a horse farm north of Toronto to record their second album “Bustin’ Out”. Summer’s a beautiful time to be in Southern Ontario but the main reason they were there was because lead singer and co-founder Craig Fuller was dodging the draft.

Formed in Columbus, Ohio and with some success in Cincinnati prior to landing that record deal, Pure Prairie League (PPL) got its name from a 19th Century Temperance Union mentioned in the (coincidentally titled) 1939 film, “Dodge City”.  That debut album featured a Norman Rockwell drawing of an old cowboy that had first been featured on a 1927 cover of the “Saturday Evening Post” a concept so agreeable that “Luke” as the cowboy came to be known, was featured on every PPL album from then on.

Shortly after “Bustin’ Out” was released in October of ’72, the group returned to Ohio and Craig Fuller was tried for draft evasion.  Although he would eventually receive conscientious objector status and a full pardon by President Gerald Ford, he was sentenced to six months in jail in early ’73 and was forced to quit the band.  In the years ahead he would come to re-kindle his music career but would miss out on the national prominence that Pure Prairie League would soon come to enjoy…national prominence that was mainly due to a girl named Amie.

Included as a track on “Bustin Out” and preceded by the accompanying “Falling in and Out of Love” as a doublet of sorts,  “Amie” was written and sung by Fuller about an on-again/off-again relationship he’d once had. Although it initially received little airplay it became a college tour favorite for PPL after Fuller’s departure, with radio stations receiving an increasing number of requests for the song. Finally released as a single in late 1974 it peaked at Number 27 on the Billboard charts in the spring of ’75, nearly three years after it was recorded.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Tuesday 24 July

Amie

I can see why you think you belong to me

I never tried to make you think or let you see one thing for yourself

But now you’re off with someone else and I’m alone

You see I thought that I might keep you for my own

Amie, what you wanna’ do

I think I could stay with you

For a while maybe longer if I do

 Don’t you think the time is right for us to find

All the things we thought weren’t proper could be right in time

And can you see which way we should turn together or alone

I can never see what’s right or what is wrong

Will it take too long to see

 Amie, what you wanna’ do

I think I could stay with you

For a while maybe longer if I do

 Amie, what you wanna’ do

I think I could stay with you

For a while maybe longer if I do

Now it’s come to what you want you’ve had your way

And all the things you thought before just faded into gray

And can you see that I don’t know if it’s you or if it’s me

If it’s one of us I’m sure we both will see

Won’t you look at me and tell me

 Amie, what you wanna’ do

I think I could stay with you

For a while maybe longer if I, longer if I do

Yeah, now

 Amie, what you wanna’ do

I think I could stay with you

For a while maybe longer if I do

 I keep falling in and out of love with you

Falling in and out of love with you

Don’t know what I’m going to do

I keep falling in and out of love with you