Before there was Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum and Keith Urban, there were the Legends of Country Rock. These pioneers developed a unique sound in the 1970s that fused elements of traditional country music with homegrown West Coast rock. On March 14 at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, these legends will perform at the inaugural Wormstock. Firefall; Pure Prairie League; Rusty Young, of Poco; and Craig Fuller, of Little Feat, will hit the Great Hall stage at Mechanics Hall.

Firefall’s roots can be directly traced back to the mid-60s ~ to The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, who were themselves influenced by folk luminaries like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. In late l967, country rock godfather, Gram Parsons, left his International Submarine Band and took off with Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, Michael Clarke and The Byrds. At around the same time, Richie Furay broke away from Stephen Stills, Neil Young and The Buffalo Springfield to form Poco with Jim Mesina, Rusty Young, Randy Meisner and George Grantham. These two groups gave birth to the musical genre that would soon be called “country rock.”

The first Firefall album, engineered by Karl Richardson (Bee Gees), took one month to record and mix and was made on 16-track tape. It was released by Atlantic Records in the spring of 1976 and became Atlantic’s quickest album to sell Gold status (500,000). Over the years, hits included “Livin’ Ain’t Livin’,” “Strange Way” and “Sweet and Sour.”

RCA signed Pure Prairie League after seeing the group play in Cleveland. Member Phil Stokes said, “The Cleveland concert (booked by our manager at the time Rodger Abramson) that got us signed to RCA included Jon Call playing steel on that date because I can remember that long drive from Cincy to Cleveland in his Mercury Cougar. Also, I was the original bass player when the band was first formed. Craig Fuller and I had just left the JD Blackfoot band (Mercury Records) in September 1970.”

The first album was released the following year. “The most memorable thing about it was the Norman Rockwell cover from a 1927 Saturday Evening Post cover,” recalls member Mike Reilly.

Reilly’s first gig with the band was on Labor Day, 1972, thanks to member Mike Connor, with whom he had worked previously. PPL’s second album, Bustin’ Out, was finished, and the band hit the road to promote the music. In February, 1973, Craig Fuller received Uncle Sam’s summons to go to Vietnam. He applied for conscientious objector status and ended up doing alternative service in a hospital in Covington, Ky. The band was dropped from RCA soon after.

“The band was struggling at that point, and we eventually parted ways,” Fuller recalled. Incredibly, college stations continued to play cuts from Bustin’ Out until RCA was forced to seek out the group’s whereabouts. Re-signed in 1975, the band recorded Two Lane Highway. While they were in the studio, RCA released “Amie” from Bustin’ Out as a single which has endured as a classic.

The changing musical times made it difficult for PPL to continue creating its same sound. As disco dominated the airwaves, the band became aware that it, too, had to make some alterations.

Someone auditioning for a spot with the band brought along a young man named Vince Gill. He hadn’t intended on trying out for the band, but after jamming for the band, he was offered the job on the spot.

“We had seen him play in 1976 when the band he was playing with opened up for us in Oklahoma City,” Reilly said. “We offered him the gig then, but he said, ‘Oh no, I’m playing bluegrass.’ Two years later, he came to Los Angeles with Byron Berline and Sundance, and after we jammed again for a few hours, we offered him the job again and he accepted”.

Tickets to Wormstock are $39. For more information, visit symplyfargone.com.