An artist who is sometimes unnecessarily maligned, especially by younger music critics, is Stephen Stills. Judged more by his age, hairline, and waistline, Stills often gets more flack than praise for having played at Woodstock. In an era the number of MySpace friends one has seem to hold more prestige, Stephen Stills made it in the music business the old-fashioned way: he had talent.
Additionally, while artists such as Paul Butterfield, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, John Hammond, and others have been rightly given their due as white artists who have successfully played and honored the great tradition of the blues, Stills has never been given the credit he deserves as one of the greatest white blues artists of all time. His identification as part of the West Coast country-rock scene of the ‘70s has obscured his place as a passionate blues vocalist and a student of rural acoustic blues guitar music. It is not so much his limitations as a blues artist (he has none) or his being overshadowed by other white blues artists (he is the equal of any of the aforementioned as a blues practitioner), but instead his place as one of the defining purveyors of the best of ‘60s and ‘70s country-rock with the monumentally seminal Buffalo Springfield and the wildly popular ‘60s hippie touchstone band Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young), that has kept him out of the exclusive blues club he so rightly belongs in. Of course, the two grossly underrated albums he did with Manassas, one of the first rock bands to successfully assimilate Latin-rock into its sound, contributed to the phenomenon as well. On his often overlooked solo albums Stills has been able to take the time to more fully explore his love of blues, although many have even pigeonholed his solo sound as country-rock or folk-rock.
To be fair, Stills has spent considerable time in his post-heyday years in the wilderness, either making the occasional middle-of-the-road CSN album or battling with the demons that have plagued too many of his contemporaries. However, anyone who has seen CSN&Y on any of their recent reunion tours knows, it is the evenings when Stills brings his A-game to the group’s performances that have made for the best shows. While Nash, Crosby, and especially Neil Young have been consistently good on these tours, it’s when Stills has played and sung his best (which has been more often the case than not) that the four really soar. Even his harshest critics had to sit up and take notice when he released his superb solo album Man Alive! in 2005, his first in many years. One person who took notice was Ray LaMontagne, who heard a version of “Treetop Flyer” that appeared on the album. He has said that the song virtually propelled his career in music.
What we now have from Stills is an album in the tradition of great lost albums and essentially an authorized bootleg that sounds better, has more going for it, and will have more staying power than 95% of what’s currently on the charts.
As can be deduced from the album title, this is a studio session much in the tradition of a collection of songs, recorded with only an acoustic guitar that would serve as somewhat of a demo. As Stills has told the story himself, after a recording session by Judy Collins (whom he was dating at the time), he greased the palm of a recording engineer and asked him to just roll tape. Twelve of the songs here are from that one day, with “Treetop Flyer” recorded at a later date.
“Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, “Helplessly Hoping”, and “Wooden Ships” would go on to be staples of the debut CSN album, while “So Begins the Task” originally debuted on the first Manassas album. “Change Partners” and “Know You Got to Run” originally appeared on the second Stills solo album, while “Black Queen” was first heard on his solo debut. “All I Know Is What You Tell Me”, “The Doctor Will See You Now”, “Bumblebee (Do You Need A Place to Hide?)”, and “Dreaming of Snakes” appear on record here for the first time.
It’s amazing how Stills had so many great songs written at that point and in almost near complete form, with no flubbed vocals or false starts and stops. Recorded around the time of his Super Sessions album with Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield and just prior to the recording of the debut CSN album, these songs can stand alone with just acoustic guitar.
It’s great hearing “Suite: Judy Blues Eyes” presented here as almost three separate songs, although the famous ending is missing. “Dreaming of Snakes” almost has a latter Crosby-era Byrds feel, while songs like “Wooden Ships” and “So Begin the Task” sound more like solo Stills than the final group renditions we’ve all come to know and love.
This is a superb addition to the Stills canon, and it’s great that they were found after being lost for nearly 40 years. Here’s to hoping there are more lost gems like this in Stills’ closet.
