A Horse with a Name: Frank "Poncho" Sampedro Tells the Crazy Horse Story

Poncho & Neil Young, Melbourne 13 March 2013
Photo Gallery by Sten Thorborg | Flickr
(Click photo to enlarge)
Here's an interview from last Fall, A Horse with a Name: Frank Sampedro Tells the Crazy Horse Story by John Swenson:

Offbeat: Your ability to look at it all as music is part of your singular genius. You guys appeal to people who don’t like rock made after 1982, yet you also appeal to people who don’t like rock made before 1982. Not sure anyone else on the touring circuit can say that.

Frank "Poncho" Sampedro: It amazes me when I look out into the crowd and I can see someone younger than one of my kids singing the words. I can see his lips moving. I don’t even know all the words to “Powderfinger,” a song I’ve played a million times, and here’s this young kid singing along.

I always felt that music is something that should bring people together. When I first got in the band in ’75, you could turn on the radio and hear a rock tune, then a gospel tune, folk music, bluegrass, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Bob Dylan, and Aretha Franklin all in one station. That’s gone. They use music now to separate people: “I’m a hip-hop guy,” “I’m a blues guy,” “I’m a jazz guy,” “I hate rock ’n’ roll.” In my vision that’s not what music is.

Music should be something that we can all hear and enjoy with each other no matter what it is instead of being separated like it is today.

More of interview A Horse with a Name: Frank Sampedro Tells the Crazy Horse Story by John Swenson.

---