Listening briefly to WUMB’s Highway 61 Revisited yesterday morning, I learned that Stephen Stills turned 81 yesterday. I celebated when he turned 80 last year, but it seems a waste to leave this retrospective behind. Let us continue to celebrate him while he is alive and kicking. I’m limiting myself to ten mostly lesser known Stills favorites of mine from early on to salute him here this morning. He deserves more and better, but this is what I’ve got.
Stills was born in Dallas but came up in the folk scene in New York, where he met Richie Furay and formed the bond that later led to Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield. With Stills, Furay, and Young, Buffalo Springfield had talent and ego to burn. Indeed, the group burned out before Last Time Around (1968), their final album.
Stills’s work with the Springfield led him to the party in Laurel Canyon where he met and fell in love with Judy Collins. He wrote “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” for her when they were breaking up. What a way to go.
Judy titled her generous memoir Sweet Judy Blue Eyes after the song. Drawing on the lyrics, she titled the first chapter “Ruby Throated Sparrow.” The chapter begins: “Nineteen sixty-eight, the year I met and fell in love with Stephen Stills, was a leap year.” She describes him when they met at a party that year: “He was possibly the most attractive man I had ever seen.”
Stills was of course a talented instrumentalist and songwriter at the time as well. I love his unmistakable chiming rhythm guitar on “Hello, Hooray,” track 1 of Judy’s Who Knows Where the Time Goes (1968). Michael Sahl is on organ, Jim Gordon on drums. Rolf Kempf wrote the song and played it for Judy just after he wrote it. She declares in her memoir, “I fell in love with it the moment I heard it.” With a little help from the band, Judy turned it into an exuberant expression of the joy of performance. You can hear her love for the song.
Stills played both acoustic and electric guitars on the album’s title track. Michael Sahl is on piano, Chris Ethridge on bass. The song was written by Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny, who died, way too young, at age 31. Late in life, we can’t help but hear this song differently than we did then. Compare it with Yeats’s “The Wild Swans at Coole.” Incidentally, I’m not counting these two against my ten tracks. This is just background!
Judy met Stills at the party Elektra producer David Anderle threw for her at engineer John Haeny’s house when she came out to Los Angeles to record Who Knows Where the Time Goes. Anderle had hired Stills to play on it.
In her memoir Judy acknowledges her awareness of Stills’s gifts as a songwriter and musician at the time. She was familiar with his contributions to Buffalo Springfield. The Springfield’s self-titled debut on Atlantic (1966) led off with Stills’s “For What It’s Worth.” It was the best song on the album. Stills’s evocative lyrics, chiming lead, and resonant vocal carried the track.
Judy notes her admiration of Stills’s “Bluebird” from Buffalo Springfield Again (1967). You can easily find the extended version on YouTube, but this is what Judy heard and loved.
Last Time Around might have been the Springfield’s best album. Stills’s “Pretty Girl Why” still sounds more than pretty good to me.
I love Stills’s “Questions.” He must have liked it too. He recycled it on “Carry On/Questions” for Déjà Vu with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. On the Sprinfield track Stills sings and plays the organ, piano, clavinet, guitar, and bass. This track is a monster.
Everybody knows the self-titled Crosby, Stills and Nash debut album of 1969. “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” led off the album. Stills’s “You Don’t Have to Cry” is the fourth track on side one, but is also one of the album’s highlights. It’s certainly one of my favorites. I think Stills plays acoustic guitar parts that you can hear in stereo on both the left and right.
“Wooden Ships” led off side 2. It’s another stellar track. Stills is all over it — on guitar, on bass, on percussion, on organ, and on one of the vocals. He is also credited with writing the song along with David Crosby and Paul Kantner.
“4 + 20” comes from Déjà Vu (1970), the follow-up album that added Young to the mix, but it’s pure Stills. The rest of the gang had the good sense to leave this one alone. “A different kind of poverty now upsets my soul…” He’s not talking about the cardboard fake leatherette of the album cover either.
Stills must have been writing at a furious pace. He had enough songs for the double album Manassas (1972). “It Doesn’t Matter” is one of the double album’s many highlights. Stills wrote the song with Chris Hillman, who also contributes vocals, guitar, and mandolin to the backing. I think Joe Lala is on the vibes.
“Johnny” was the gardener of the mansion Stills bought to get away from it all for a while in England. Stills paid tribute to him in “Johnny’s Garden.”
Stills and Collins reunited musically on the 2017 album Everybody Knows. For an old couple in the senior demographic, they sound pretty good together on Bob Dylan’s “Girl From the North Country” with Stills’s backing on guitar. Judy contributes a beautiful harmony part to their duet.
