By Brent Thompson

With a career spanning more than 50 years and radio staple hits including “Amie,” “Let Me Love You Tonight” and “Still Right Here in My Heart,” Pure Prairie League is more than just a band – it is an enduring treasure that helped pioneer the country-rock movement. Currently, the band is on tour in support of its latest release, Back on Track. On Saturday, September 27, Pure Prairie League will return to Birmingham to perform at WORKPLAY Theatre. Recently, we spoke with bassist and founding member Mike Reilly by phone.

Southern Stages: Mike, thanks for your time today. Where is Pure Prairie League based these days?

Mike Reilly: We base out of Nashville, although I live in Long Island, New York.

Southern Stages: We are looking forward to having you back in Birmingham.

Reilly: It’s going to be nice to get back to Birmingham. We’ve got a lot of friends down there and a couple of our old roadies are in the area. It’ll be nice to see some old faces and some new faces – it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Southern Stages: We are really enjoying Back on Track. Are the album’s songs newer compositions, some older ideas or a mixture of both?

Reilly: The songs that Jared [Camic] wrote are new songs. The ones that Jeff [Zona] wrote – he had demos from a while back. Once I heard the demos, I said, “This sounds like Pure Prairie League” and we did a little work on the arrangements. Once we got into the studio, it just came together – it was magic. Once again, it’s gratifying to know that after five and half decades we can still put together a good product.

Southern Stages: Over what period of time was the album recorded?

Reilly: July 2023 to July 2024. We recorded it in Madison, Tennessee – right outside of Nashville. A friend has a studio in his house right on the Cumberland River. We spent a week a month for 12 months doing the record.

Southern Stages: Given your large catalog of songs, how does your band comprise set lists for live shows?

Reilly: The set list is different from night to night. We like to throw stuff in because it keeps the band fresh and it’s interesting. We’ve got 200 songs in our catalog and you can’t play more than about 20 in a 90-minute show. So, we mix things up and in the last few years we’ve been looking back through our catalog and dusting off a few songs we did in the early ’70s and haven’t played since the early ’70s. It’s very exciting to play songs like “Woman,” “Angel #9,” “Call Me, Tell Me” and things like that – it’s a blast.

Southern Stages: A few songs songs certainly fall into the set list every night. How do songs stay fresh and relevant to you after you’ve played them literally thousands of times by now?

Reilly: It’s a different crowd every night, so the energy is different. There are really good musicians in this band and we don’t do the same solos unless it’s a signature lick. John Heinrich is playing the David Sanborn sax on “Let Me Love You Tonight” pretty much note-for-note because that’s a signature lick and the “Two Lane Highway” intro is a signature lick. But when you get down to the solos, everybody has free reign to add their personality in there and so it’s different every night.

Southern Stages: I assume you are seeing a wide cross-section of ages in your audience these days.

Reilly: When you’re around for 55 years, you’ve got a lot of people that have listened to your songs since the ’70s and ’80s and they’re excited to hear the songs. It’s great to see three generations of people out there in the audience.

Southern Stages: Are you a gearhead? When you’re on tour, are you combing through music stores?

Reilly: A couple of months ago we were in the Chicago area and we went into a great music store – we were like kids in a candy store [laughs]. We’re always looking for that rare find if we’ve got the time to get out there and scope around.

Southern Stages: When did you join the band?

Reilly: I joined in the summer of 1972 during the Bustin’ Out album.

Southern Stages: You have an interesting perspective on the music business given the length of your career. How do you feel about the current climate which includes Internet, streaming, satellite radio and other outlets? Some artists say it’s a great time and others say it’s difficult to sift through the noise.

Reilly: There’s such an oversaturation of product – I’m not going to say good and bad music because that’s an individual taste decision. But the fact that it’s so readily available works in our favor because people can go back through the years and find some stuff that they haven’t had access to. On the new album, we had our publicist do a campaign in Europe and there were songs charting and the reviews from Europe have been fantastic. I will give credit to the technology age for helping us get the word out.

Southern Stages: Pure Prairie League has now become included in the Yacht Rock format – how do you feel about your association with it?

Reilly: People have always had the need to categorize and we’ve always tried to defy categorization. We’re too rock for country and too country for rock and now it’s Yacht Rock. We started playing country-rock music in the early ’70s and now it’s called Americana. Once again, any generation needs to categorize and we’re fine with that. You want call us Yacht Rock, that’s great – I just wish there was enough money going around to to buy that damn yacht [laughs].

Southern Stages: Though your band has seen personnel changes throughout the years, the music has maintained a consistent sound and quality.

Reilly: Everybody that’s ever been in the band has brought something to the table that ups the game a little bit. Through all the years, the musicians that joined have been fans of the band, great players and they’re great people. We’ve never thrown a punch in 55 years of this band [laughs]. It’s very important that musically and personally we get along – the band is like a family more than anything. It’s certainly not just a business venture and everyone’s heavily invested in making this thing a success.

On Saturday, September 27, Pure Prairie League will perform in the WORKPLAY Theatre. Advance tickets to the 7 p.m. show are $35-$60 and can be purchased at www.workplay.com.