Legendary guitarist/singer-songwriter Stephen Stills is one of the most influential and enduring figures in rock and roll. The only artist ever to be inducted twice in the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - for The Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash - Stills' work spans five decades, four iconic groups (Manassas and CSN&Y in addition to the two already mentioned), two era-defining anthems - "For What It's Worth" and "Love The One You're With" - and a rich canon of solo material. Ranked 28 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, Stills also has a trio of album masterpieces on their compendium of The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time: Buffalo Springfield Again, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Deja Vu.
Still recording and touring as a solo artist and with CSN and CSN&Y, Stills' landmark career hits another amazing milestone in 2007 with the historic collection Just Roll Tape - April 26th 1968. The date references a long-gone day when Stills was in a NYC recording studio with then-girlfriend Judy Collins. When her session wrapped, Stills wandered the halls with engineer John Haney, an acoustic guitar and a couple of hundred dollar bills, which he handed to Haney with the request, "Just roll tape."
What was then captured at Elektra Studios were the first-ever takes of 12 songs that later became Stills solo hits and classics by CSN, CSN&Y and Manassas, including the recording debuts of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Wooden Ships" and "Helplessly Hoping." Acoustic, elemental and intimate, the remastered versions of the dozen demos unveiled on Rhino Records' Just Roll Tape are an illuminating glimpse into Still's songwriting brilliance, guitar prowess and vocal agility.
The long road to their release is as miraculous as the master tapes themselves, which gathered dust in the studio for a decade before fate intervened. In '78, musician Joe Colasurdo was involved with a band that was rehearsing there shortly before the facility was to close its doors forever. The owner told Joe he could take whatever tapes he wanted before they all hit the trash heap. "I inadvertently grabbed one of maybe a dozen milk crates filled with 10-1/2" x 1/4" reel-to-reel tapes, thinking I'd use them to re-record over...Most of the tapes were used and labeled with unfamiliar names. However, after thumbing through the box, I realized that a few were labeled with some very familiar names. 'Steve Stills' was listed on 3 of them and one had 'Judy Collins' written on it. After 6 months of trying to find a tape deck that would play 10-1/2" reels...they turned out to be Stephen, by himself, laying down scratch tracks of many of his most popular songs."
Joe hung on to the tapes until he could securely return them to Stephen. Several attempts over the years proved unsuccessful, however, until finally, in 2003, by chance he met a record store owner who was a close friend of Graham Nash. Colasurdo soon found himself handing the tapes off to Graham, a quarter century after he'd rescued them from oblivion. After being "lost to the wind for almost forty years," says Stills, "these songs now feel like great old friends when they were really young." In addition to the twelve tracks from 1968, Just Roll Tape also features the first demo of the fan favorite "Treetop Flyer," from 1991's Stills Alone, featuring Stills singing and playing dobro.
The compilation is Stills' first release since 2006's Man Alive! (Titan/Pyramid/UMD). Rolling Stone's David Wild called that disc, "the sort of assured album that can stand alongside Stills' best early solo albums and his work with Manassas." Highlights include the rousing opener "Ain't It Always" and "Wounded World," which features Graham Nash on harmony vocals, as does the anti-war anthem "Feed The People," now a CSN concert highlight. Man Alive! also features Neil Young, who co-wrote the rocker "Drivin' Thunder" with Stills. Young strums along as well to the wistful strains of Stills' sublime acoustic rendition of "Different Man," and they trade riffs on "Round The Bend," an autobiographical musical recounting of their original meeting in the 1960s. The BBC's Chris Jones commented, "Man Alive! runs the spectrum from full-on rock to mellow acoustics with ease and energy to spare...It's this diversity that's always set Stills apart from his comrades."
Stills launched his illustrious solo career with 1970's Stephen Stills, of which allmusic.com's Bruce Eder wrote, "listening to this album three decades on, it's still a jaw-dropping experience, the musical equal to Crosby, Stills & Nash or Deja Vu." Featuring all-star musical friends Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Rita Coolidge and others, the disc delivered the stone-cold Stills classic "Love The One You're With," one of the most important solo hits from any CSN&Y member. It was around this time that Stills auditioned for the bassist slot in the Jimi Hendrix Experience - Hendrix wanted him, but Stephen was unavailable, and Noel Redding got the gig.
Solo highlights also include 1971's Stephen Stills 2, adding the classics "Change Partners," "Marianne" and "Know You Got To Run" to Stills' catalogue. Billboard Magazine wrote, "His spectacular vocal style coupled with outstanding lyrics and music make this a must for every pop music fan." 1975's Stills introduced "As I Come Of Age," a poetic mid-tempo groove boasting harmonies from David Crosby and Graham Nash and Ringo Starr on drums, and '78's Thoroughfare Gap added another fan favorite with its title track. 1991's exquisitely spare Stills Alone prompted allmusic.com to write, "Stills has put out a spectacular solo effort in the true sense of the word."
As a group member, Stephen Stills' exploits are the stuff of legend. Born in Texas, Stills grew up in Louisiana, Texas, Florida and Central America, all locales that developed his love for roots and Latin music idioms. His musical yearnings led him to New Orleans and ultimately, New York City, where Greenwich Village icon Fred Neil became his mentor, introducing him to folk rock and the 12-string guitar. Stills joined the Au Go Go Singers, whose line-up also included Richie Furay. On a Canadian tour, they shared a bill with Neil Young, then fronting his band the Squires; Stills and Young connected and talked of playing together, but lost touch before their plans were realized.
Then, as the lore goes, Stills and Furay were driving in L.A. one day when, as recounted by Stephen for Rhino's 2001 Buffalo Springfield Box Set, "I was on Sunset Boulevard, and I pulled up behind a hearse that had Ontario plates on it. I knew exactly who it was before I even saw who was driving." It was Young and bassist Bruce Palmer; with one cosmic road encounter, a seminal band was born. Active from '66-'68, the Springfield's vast influence far outweighs their time together, with classic songs including the Stills-penned gems "Rock And Roll Woman," "Sit Down, I think I Love You" and "For What It's Worth," perhaps the greatest rock anthem of the 1960s.
After they disbanded, Stephen began collaborating with David Crosby, recently departed from The Byrds. They were laying down vocals in a Laurel Canyon studio when they were visited by Graham Nash, then looking for a creative challenge beyond The Hollies. As Crosby has famously said, "When we heard him put on that third harmony...It was about the rightest thing I ever heard." Crosby, Stills & Nash's legendary '69 self-titled debut LP featured the Stills-penned smashes "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "Helplessly Hoping," and earned CSN the GRAMMY(R) for Best New Artist. Stills' old bandmate Young came on board for the trio's CSN&Y configuration, and their spellbinding performance at the original Woodstock festival - only their second live gig together as a quartet - made them known as "the voice of a generation." CSN&Y's 1970 album masterpiece Deja Vu, which included Stills' "Carry On," "4 +20" and a co-write with Young, "Everybody I Love You," hit 1. Other Stills-composed classics in the CSN canon also include "Carry On," "Find The Cost Of Freedom" and "Dark Star." In 2006, the group was inducted into the elite ranks of BMI Music's Icons.
An uncommonly prolific artist, Stephen Stills also collaborated with Michael Bloomfield and Al Kooper for 1969's electric blues-rock tour de force Super Session. In the early '70s, he led the short-lived but revered Manassas, teaming with ex-Byrd/Flying Burrito Brother Chris Hillman and other ace players, and delivered compositions including "Johnny's Garden," "It Doesn't Matter" and "So Begins The Task." The latter is among the tracks featured on Just Roll Tape - April 26th 1968, an extraordinarily powerful, and personal, portrait of one of rock music's most legendary singer songwriters, captured in the act of creation.
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