My Uncle Marc loves to tell me about the first and last time he saw Stephen
Stills perform without Crosby, Nash or Young. I forget now if it was at a
dusty bar in Dallas or some joint in San Francisco, but the recounting
always ends the same: "Worst concert I ever saw." Sometimes, in fact,
that'll be the entire story, though usually he'll toss in that Stills was
"so out of his gourd he could barely stay on his stool."
He wasn't at all out of his gourd during his well-attended gig Wednesday
night at House of Blues in Anaheim, and the only stool in sight was the one
his drummer perched upon. Nonetheless, I now have a deeper sense of what my
uncle experienced all those years ago. This wasn't the worst concert I've
ever seen – but it has instantly earned a spot in my Top 10.
What could be so bad? How could Stills be so engaging as part of CSN&Y's
protest-heavy tour last year and be so woefully lousy here?
Well, for starters, he's losing his voice – lost most of it already, in
fact, his ability to succinctly phrase his words either eluding him or made
glaringly poor from laziness. His guitar playing – that remains exceptional,
even stinging, if no longer inventive; his sky-high six-string wailing was
the only saving grace of an otherwise geriatric rendition of "For What It's
Worth" during the electric second half. At that point, however, with the
crowd's singing-along on that tune and "Southern Cross" drowning out the
star's meager mumbling, I gave up on Stills recovering enough to provide
anything here other than some fine fretwork. In no mood to hear him
eviscerate "Wooden Ships" or slow "Love the One You're With" to a crawl, I
split before I grew enraged.
The 45-minute acoustic portion that began this sloppy performance is really
what did this legend in – yet it's precisely what I was hoping would be
reason to have bothered to come. See, Rhino Records just released an
interesting curio from Stills' past: Dubbed "Just Roll Tape," the intriguing
collection captures an April 1968 solo session during which the future Hall
of Famer laid down the basics for classics ("Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Wooden
Ships") that would later form the backbone of CS&N's cherished debut
alongside other tunes ("Change Partners," the much-loved but previously
hard-to-find smuggler's saga "Treetop Flyer") that would become staples of
his solo sets.
Yet, though he did tackle much of that material – including the most
excruciatingly drawn-out and awful version of "Judy" imaginable – Stills
made no attempt to address its release. Instead he clumsily huffed through
hits (along with some misses from 2005's justifiably ignored "Man Alive!")
while cracking hackneyed jokes only a boomer audience would still find
funny. (Example: "Between the '60s and my 60s, I remember less … and less …
and less." Ho, ho, Steve-o: Never heard a line like that one before.)
One condescending story he shared dealt with an interviewer from the
Southeast, who dared ask, "Y'know all those songs you have with harmony?
What happens to 'em when the other two aren't there?" Stills laughed
incredulously retelling this, explaining that he told the sweet girl, "Well,
dear, the songs came first – it's not a chicken-or-the-egg thing."
That's exactly what "Just Roll Tape" proves. But blueprints are just that –
plans to build on, to form greater recordings that might not benefit from
deconstruction. The inescapable truth I've come away with after this
experience is that, at this point in his lengthy career (Stills is 62 now),
Crosby and Nash are crucial allies who have long been covering for their
partner's weaknesses. Always in need of a Neil Young or some other figure to
spur his songwriting and guitar playing on to greater heights, he now
requires his closest compadres' still-shining singing to compensate for his
own croaky abilities.
I know this sounds harsh, and I despise it when people use this term
blithely or for cheap humor, but it's the most literal way to put it: Very
often Wednesday night Stills sounded retarded, or like a still-recovering
stroke patient, his phrasing jumbled, his lyrics increasingly difficult to
decipher. Yes, every now and then while straining for a soulful high note,
he'd hit it – but that was one in every 10 attempts, at best. Most of the
time he was unintelligible; Johnny Cash in his final days sang with more
clarity than Stills did here.
It took me four choruses to realize he was singing the old Manassas tune
"Johnny's Garden," though the line about "watching my head unravel" sounded
more like "watching my head unraggagelled." Meanwhile, a revamped blues had
me completely stupefied: Was Stills singing about a "black peddler," as my
friend Helayne still insists? I could never hear it, though I did make out
"diddler," "diggler," "desert" and "bedlam."
"That made CS&N's Woodstock performance look brilliant," she whispered to me
after Stills gratefully brought "Judy" to a close, to inexplicable cheers.
(You might recall how courageous but harmonically rocky that second-ever
performance from the trio was.) Here and there I picked up unsatisfied
murmurings: "His voice is kinda weak, isn't it?" Mostly, though, the
reaction around me was strangely glowing, sincerely encouraging – a throng
of middle-age folk letting the fog of their nostalgia blot out their better
judgment, perhaps in an effort to leave feeling they got something of value
for their $32.50.
Which only proves P.T. Barnum had it wrong: Suckers aren't born every minute
– they're the byproduct of de-evolution on the way to old age.
