One of the most talented musicians and songwriters of the late 1960s and early ’70s, Stephen Stills is also a confounding one.
It’s hard to think of an artist who had a better streak of songwriting from 1966-73 while playing with Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills & Nash and CSN & Young, followed by a stunning first solo album, an almost-as-good second and a year-and-a-half with the eclectic rock-country-Latin mix of Manassas.
Then decades of ups and downs, a few hints to rival past triumphs but mostly downs. Unfulfilled promise? Perhaps that’s a little harsh. Stills did give us a wealth of creativity during that roughly seven-year span.
Since 2007, Stills has released three albums from his vault, most recordings about 40 years old. And all three are better than anything he’s produced since. First Just Roll Tape, an extraordinary demo of songs he dashed off following a Judy Collins session in New York, several to appear on the first CS&N album.
Then Demos, in a similar vein, from CS&N, with his contributions undoubtedly the highlights. And now Pieces, early Manassas tapes, with some solo work and early jams with members of The Flying Burrito Brothers mixed in, a collection so good it makes one wonder why it’s taken so long for this material to see the light of day.
The group Manassas grew out of Stills’ frustration with CSN&Y and his contacting ultimate rock ‘n roll sidekick Chris Hillman (Byrds, Burritos) to get together and jam in Miami with members of the Burritos post-Gram Parsons.
The tracks from these sessions are mostly at the tail end of Pieces, Panhandle Rag, which shows off Byron Berline on fiddle and Hillman’s blazing mandolin, Uncle Pen — a Bill Monro tune on which Berline takes the vocals — Do You Remember The Americans and Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud, Loud Music), a Burritos live staple. Continue reading Pieces of Stephen Stills
Larsen and Feiten had first teamed on the seminal jazz-blues-soul album 
I don’t recall anyone buying the mono version. Perhaps if you couldn’t afford the $1 extra for stereo, because that’s all it was. But that’s not the point. The way to listen to Sgt. Pepper’s back then, as it is now, was in stereo.
The second time was in the spring of 1969 at the improbable club in New Haven, the Stone Balloon, fashioned after Greenwich’s Village’s 
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She came clearly into the public conscience after her recording of Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono’s Needles and Pins in 1963 and followed it with her own When You Walk In The Room. In 1964, both songs became hits for the English band The Searchers.
An interesting hard-edged, lyrically dark album, Horehound combines elements of Zeppelin-inspired hard rock with modern takes on alternative and blues themes. The group is at its best when Alison Mosshart, of The Kills, takes lead vocal duties as she does on nine of the 11 tracks.
With a five-piece band that includes multi-instrumentalist Scott Sellen and Furay’s daughter Jesse Lynch, Furay played a set that traveled from his past to the present, playing many songs that helped lay down the country-rock tradition, leaning heavily on rock, and are rarely played by any band today.
I lived on upper Commonwealth Avenue, not far from the dorm I had lived in when I was at Boston University, with two female roommates: Julie and Betty. They had a small two-room apartment. When you entered there was a living room to the right, a bedroom to the left and a small kitchen and bath in the center of the apartment.
Miles is credited with bringing jazz into the fusion era when he started experimenting in the late 1960s with rock and funk influences as well as a number of players from various backgrounds and styles. He was a leader in the fusion movement, but he was also influenced by what was going on around him, as he had always been, while jazz and rock began to merge in various forms.