[3][4] In 2012, Young would thus recall his writing "Crazy Love": "I was living in Los Angeles, working on my house one day"[5] - "I was paneling a wall and looking out over the valley in L.A. and the chorus came into my head"[6] - "I always had a guitar close at hand.

Having played steel guitar on the track "Kind Woman" on the final Buffalo Springfield album Last Time Around (1968), Rusty Young was invited by Buffalo Springfield departing members Richie Furay and Jim Messina to join them along with George Grantham and Randy Meisner in forming Poco.

After earning only three writing credits over the course of the band's first six albums, Young first raised his songwriting profile on the eighth Poco release Cantamos in 1974.

The ninth Poco album release Head Over Heels (1975) marked Young's debut as a lead vocalist on the song "Us."

By the time of the May 1977 release of the album Indian Summer Timothy B. Schmit had been recruited to join the Eagles: Schmit remained with Poco for their Indian Summer tour whose Santa Monica Civic Auditorium edition in July 1977 was recorded as The Last Roundup, intended to be released as Poco's final album.

[7] Recorded at Crystal City Studios (Los Angeles) between April and August 1978, the resultant project was intended to be credited to the Cotton-Young Band: however ABC Records elected to have Young and Cotton along with two sidemen who'd backed them at Crystal City - drummer Steve Chapman and bassist Charlie Harrison - continue as Poco (keyboardist Kim Bullard joined Poco by the year's end), with The Last Roundup being shelved and the Crystal City tracks issued as the twelfth album release from Poco in November 1978, under the title Legend.