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On which the band plough full steam ahead on their debut…
The
Album:
All aboard! The train to
Manassas is now boarding and it's one of the best journeys that you will ever
take (well for now anyway, ahead of destinations down the road and - much later
- in pieces where the whole exercise
comes off the rails). While Manassas are now best known by CSNY fans and those
lucky enough to catch the band at various festivals around the world between
1972 and 1973 at the time they were big news: this album peaked at an
impressive #4 in America and gained a couple of big-name fans. After a CSNY
reunion seemed unimaginable in 1972 Rolling Stone Bill Wyman seriously tried to
get out of his day job and join this band instead (alas the band will break up
before he can, although he does co-write and plays bass on this album's 'Love
Gangster' song which Stills had been kicking round since 1968), the Grateful
Dead's Jerry Garcia always claimed that he played the pedal steel solo on
'Jesus Gave Love Away For Free' un-credited and I'm not about to argue (Garcia
played on everything and it does sound more like his work than Al's, being
somehow sadder and lonelier then the other Manassas recordings), while Ringo Starr
rented out his Surrey-based house to the band so they could rehearse (Stills ended
up buying it later – Peter Sellers had been an even earlier owner; 'Johnny's
Garden' is about the staff gardener who worked until all three celebrity names).
For now, though, this day trip is thrilling stuff, amongst the best CSN-themed
albums out there and easily Stephen Stills' masterpiece. Let loose from CSNY, Stills'
ever overworked brain was truly let loose across this album which is easily the
most eclectic in the CSNY canon and covers more ground in one double album than
most careers. Divided into four 'loose' structures (a Latin/bluegrass upbeat first
side with a hint of blues, a second more worried country side, a pretty folky
third side is more concerned with beauty and a fourth side is three slabs of triumphant
rock and a melancholy blues finale), it continues the expansion of Stills'
musical horizons that have been growing ever since 'Buffalo Springfield Again'
in 1967 and proves once and for all the sheer amount of thinking that goes on
in Stills' songs, with several philosophical lyrics about love, loss and life.
For once there is no real 'theme' to an Alan's Album Archives record (although
we'll be looking a bit more at the four smaller ones across the four sides)
because there isn't much ground that Manassas doesn't already cover (indeed,
I've often wondered if Stills late-70s-plus creative slump came because this
album covered so much ground it left him nowhere to go- but that's another
review for another time..)
Yet while Stills is very
much in the (train) driver's seat, he's not the whole band - instead Manassas
are a tight seven piece set made up of musicians who'd either worked with
Stills or helped him out (for all his brash arrogance at times, Stills was
always deeply loyal to his friends). For instance, he owed Chris Hillman big
time, the Byrd who more than anyone outside the band helped to shape the
Buffalo Springfield's career, spotting them playing a gig at the Byrds' favourite haunt 'Whiskey-A-Go-Go' and
praising them to the hilt for anyone who would listen (Hillman also introduced
Stills to Crosby, although back in 1972 with the band a sore point he probably
wasn't too thankful for that!) Chris, the bass player in the Byrds before founding
The Flying Burrito Brothers was at a loose end after the band lost co-founder
Gram Parsons in a blaze of missed dates, laziness and betrayals. Hillman plays
guitar and a bit of mandolin here but is clearly so much to the group,
co-writing two of the album's better songs with Stills and enjoying his 'number
two role' across this record (compared to how Hillman talks about past
experiences with the likes of Roger McGuinn, Crosby and Gram Parsons in later
interviews, he very nearly makes Stills out to be a saint by comparison!) A
fascinating mix of rebel and peacemaker, Hillman sounds really at home here and
able to let his bluegrass background show for the first real time, whilst smoothing
Stephen’s rougher edges down but still ready to follow him in his more
‘out-there’ moments (heck he'd played with Crosby - Stills' songs were straightforward
by comparison, even the ones debating the meaning of life and exploring
American history with an Eagle as a metaphor). They're joined by new Flying
Burrito pedal steel player Al Perkins, who'll become a good friend of Hillman's
and whose Christian earthiness is a strong 'root' for the band across the
record. CSN's drummer Dallas Taylor and CSNY's live percussionist Joe Lala gives this
album a crisp bite and sparkle that many releases of this era lack. Under-rated
CSNY live bassist Calvin 'Fuzzy' Samuels' gives the songs a real groove and
soul, adding his own Motown background to the eclectic mix. Finally, Paul
Harris provides some truly inspired piano-playing across the album - the odd
one out in the sense that nobody really knew him and he was hired in a hurry,
he more than holds his own with the older, more experienced Manassas set.
While never quite brothers
or equals the same way that CSNY this is an impressively tightknit band and the
performances they play across this album (recorded relatively quickly, even for
Stills) and in live concert are a match for even the best of CSNY (yes, they
were that good!) Caught in that interesting thin line between being a plain
back-up band as used by Stills on his earlier solo records and a fully fledged
band in their own right, the band members are clearly all subservient to Stills
and yet they get plenty of solos, songwriting credits and even a vocal or three
to themselves. Stills is always the leader of the band – all the songs are his
barring one cover, although most group members do end up co-writing with him at
one point or another - but he’s more than ably supported by his backing crew of
six. Curiously enough, none of the band
actually came from the town of Manassas, Virginia, which American Civil War
Buff Stills came up with when scouting dusty-looking railway stations for a
front cover (most are from California with a handful from Nashville) but
somehow the name still suits them with its sense of cohesion, history and glue
and 'it doesn't matter' anyway: Manassas are a 'world' band with a scope much
wider than one town.
For all their efforts, though, no one can touch Stills on this album.
He’s on fire, even compared to his other great efforts of the early 70s,
turning in some of his greatest guitar solos, grittiest vocals and some truly
jaw-droppingly beautiful songs. His singing and his guitar playing are rarely
better, coming at the point when an inspired Stills was still trying his
absolute hardest to be the master of everything. We'd known about Stills the
pop, rock and occasionally blues singer before but Stills' versatility is what
makes this album, being equally at home in folk, country and Latin settings,
all styles which will become key to his writing but are really being heard here
for the first time. In fact, this album wasn’t meant to be a double album at
all originally – after all, how many other unknown bands are allowed to release
double-albums for their first record? - but so much good material was flowing
from Stills’ writing veins that he just couldn’t stop and, rather than cut the
magic in half, somebody at Atlantic saw sense and let the band release it in
its current state. What's truly impressive, though, is that this isn't a
sprawling bit-of-everything set a la 'The White Album' with as many genres as
possible heard once across the course of the set, but a fairly cohesive
sounding whole which takes the Stills/Coolidge love affair as it's cornerstone
and where the genres overlap from song to song, to the point where - on the
first side - the band pass through genres in the blink of an eye, as if there's
ultimately no difference between them. Simply overflowing with talent, this set
is astoundingly light on filler for a double LP and nearly every song is a
winner. Manassas = Magic, nearly all the way through.
This double set is divided up into four quite distinctive styles
(although sides three and four are pretty much interchangeable) and each given
an ‘umbrella’ title to sum them up. The first side is The Raven, a
common Stills metaphor for his troubled relationship with the singer Rita
Cootlidge (his past girlfriends were ‘bluebirds’ and ‘sparrows’, especially
those like Judy Collins who were songbirds in real life). Coolidge surely
deserved a co-credit on this album: she might not play on it and she and Stills
may have broken up before a note of it was recorded but she plays a huge role
as Stills' muse and it's no coincidence that his songwriting slowed down once
he knew he'd lost her for good. The tale is a sad one, which will cause ructions
within CSNY for years to come: originally Stills' girlfriend and a desperately
needed crutch for Stephen after Judy Collins made it clear their on-off
relationship was off for good, Nash fell for her when he and Joni Mitchell
split up (what is it with CSNY and singers? At least Neil sticks to
actresses...) the two fell into a whirlwind romance. Stills, already butting
heads with his CSNY colleagues, was furious - not just for the act but the way
it was done (Nash's comment was that he thought she didn't really love Stills
but did genuinely love him). Cue one of the single biggest rows CSNY ever had
and a distrust that lingered for years. Stills was never one to do anything by
halves, whether that be recording sessions, songs or girlfriends and most of
this album sounds like one huge outpouring of grief, guilt and giving, as if
proving to both his comrade and his ex that he really did love her very very
much - and surely she loved him too? It is perhaps no coincidence that Stills nicknamed
his latest muse 'The Raven', continuing his bird imagery for Judy Collins (the
'ruby throated sparrow' of 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes') - a reference not only to
her Cherokee Indian ancestry and darker skin tone but the image of 'the raven'
as a symbol of 'doom' and 'disaster'. This album even ends with what is
effectively a strangled cry of 'never more' as Stills bids goodbye to three musician
friends who died too young, as if taken straight from Edgar Allan Poe.
However, this title of 'The Raven' doesn’t seem to fit side one as well
as the other monikers fit theirs; nearly all this album is about Rita, yet very
little of this first side is. It is a side-long medley without a pause, it’s
really just a chance to the band to showcase style after style after style,
with the music and general theme for once subservient to the music. The real
‘theme’ of this segment lies in the disillusionment with fame and stardom and
living up to your image, where the songs’ narrators ‘look in a mirror and
sigh’, where ‘the song of love is empty now’ and where we’re warned that being
a rock and roll star ‘makes you practice being shallow everyday’. Intriguingly
the music to this whole side is pretty upbeat despite these occasionally weary,
rather grumpy lyrics and a perfect Stills songwriting lesson in contrasts
(never has he written a jollier tune than on Both Of Us (Bound To Lose)
– never had he or co-writer Chris Hillman written more disgruntled, despairing
lyrics). Most of these songs were recorded in pairs, by the way, rather than
all the way through in one 20-minute burst as it sounds on record, but goodness
knows some of the segues between two of these tracks were complicated enough.
The highlight of these include the fiery 'Song Of Love', the album's one CSNY-style
political rant about fire-arm control ('Pick up a book - you don't have to pick
up a gun!'), Stills snarling gutbucket blues in which he takes out all his fury
at himself and the increasingly ugly image he sees in the mirror ('You stand
up! Look in a mirror! And sigh!') and the gorgeous 'Both Of Us (Bound To Lose)'
which features the best harmonies of the album and one of the definitive Stills
gonzo guitar solos, trying to physically shake up a relationship where both
halves have turned into 'statues making sounds' (clearly a song about Coolidge,
although only this and the pick-yourself-up 'Anyway' seem directly related to
the theme).
Second side The Wilderness shows off the band’s country leanings
and it may come as a bit of a surprise to Stills fans as you’d struggle to
point to even one other all-out country song in his back catalogue before this
(Stills' arrangement of 'Teach Your Children' is about it). Yet it may be that
Stills was just looking for a band able to perform such songs as the ones here
(the latter half of CSNY also recorded several country songs on their solo
records but never really with the band, suggesting that as a foursome they felt
the genre didn’t fit with their group sound) and Manassas do him proud,
covering everything from all out honky-tonk ballads and fiddle-dominated rockers
to songs that merely dip their toe in the genre. Hillman especially shines in
these new surroundings, although this isn't exactly a 'pure' country-rock album
the way that the Flying Burritos were, with slices of bluegrass and folk added
to the mix. ‘California dreaming nearly put me down for good, Colorado
mountains saved my senses’ sings Stills at one point, suggesting that he saw
country music as some sort of honest, earthy tonic to the dangers of rock and
roll excess visited on the first side of the album (Neil will say more or less
the same thing about country music during his time with the International
Harvesters band in 1985). This makes the side 'theme' of 'The Wilderness' all
the stranger, although it fits the American history story 'Fallen Eagle' and
Stills manages to equate hippiedom with Jesus just before the '40 days and 40
nights' adventures on 'Jesus Gave Love Away For Free'. However, Stills is not
as natural a country writer as he is a pop, rock or even blues one and many of
these songs fall between genuine emotion and gentle pastiche with one
exception: the wistful So Begins The Task, a stray song that had been
looking for a home for several years and is a career highlight, well suited to
the country/folk hybrid sound the band give it here.
Consider is the third
side but, even though the lyrics often fit the introspection suggested by the
title, the melodies are another generally upbeat and snappy bunch. This may
well be Stills’ greatest 20 minutes as a songwriter, taking in everything from
pop and basic rock to wordy philosophical ballads about the history of mankind
and ranging in production values from stomping basic riffs to hard-to-hear
everything-drenched-with-synthesisers abandon. Many of the lyrics again suggest
that Stills needs a break from music (delightfully, he tells us the garden and
gardener he inherited from Ringo is his only sojourn from his work), but the
last track on the side - Love Gangster – seems to refute all this, being
a wild and reckless rocker that seems to celebrate everything about being a
loveable rebel (the main part of the song dates back to 1968, which might
explain why the theme is so changed!) Practically everything here is first
class, from the almost-too-perfect pop song 'It Doesn't Matter' (where it
plainly does) and the delightfully trippy poem 'Move Around' (Stills' answer to
'what do humans do given life?')
Manassas then rounds
off with a fourth side fittingly titled Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay. In
truth, though, that moniker might have served the first side better as what we
get are actually another four slices of varying styles. Only the gritty Right
Now is really a rock song – What To Do is a curious blues-gospel-pop
hybrid, The Treasure a laidback prog rock seven-minute epic and Bluesman,
naturally, a blues. All four tracks are sensational stuff, with Manassas really
getting to the heart of each genre and being short and snappy and tight or
loose and grooving depending on the compactness or improvisational room of each
song. Three of them are clearly related to Stills' love life in some way too:
'I'm not the one to tell you what to do - I have no desire to run your life!'
Manassas and about half of California scream by the end, as if Stills is trying
to convince Rita Coolidge of his sincerity. 'Right Now' is the end of the relationship,
a drunk and bitter sounding Stills struggling to keep up with a frenetic
backing track and a lyric about how 'one of my best friends took her down with
her games for sure' - Graham Nash isn't mentioned by name in the song, but we
know it's him (this track is kinda Crosby's bemused 'Cowboy Movie' as written
from a character directly involved in the 'war'). 'The Treasure' is a reminder
of all he's lost: a song that had been kicking round for at least a year about
searching for buried treasure which never gets the happy ending it searches
for, stretched out to a seven minute magnum opus in which Stills' guitar
strings and his heart both seem to break, ending not in the expected discovery
but a stinging strangulated howl of rage. 'Blues Man' is similarly angry but
for entirely different reasons, Stills alone and even drunker, wailing in
tribute to 'three good men I knew well - never see again'(dedicated to 'Jimi
The Fox' aka Jimi Hendrix, The Owl aka Canned Heat's Al Wilson and Skydog aka
Duane Allman).
A marvellous concoction all round, its pleasing to hear Stills finally
return to this album’s eclectic mix in his music again (2005’s Man Alive might
be woefully rough most of the way through, but it’s the most adventurous we’ve
heard our favourite troubled troubadour be for many a long year). It’s this
album, however, that remains for many fans remains the guitarist’s high-water
point, with Stills surrounded by gifted players who allow his own talents to sound
even brighter than usual. Even in a remarkable period (June 1972 saw three separate
CSNY related albums in the top ten - this album, 'Graham Nash/David Crosby' and
Neil Young's 'Harvest') this is a special LP. There are so many great CSNY
related albums out there I'd hesitate to pick just one, but if you've collected
all the group albums from the 1970s and 1980s (the later ones are rather less
compulsory) and you have a soft spot for Stills' mixture of charming magnetism
and earthy grit then this first Manassas record is a great place to start.
Seventy minutes long without a single bad track on it (the anonymous 'Hide It
So Deep' is probably the worst and even that's a good song simply lost in a
crowd of great ones) this is a testament to the eclectic brilliance of Stills
and the eclectic brilliance of Manassas. The only negative point is that, like
the first CSN album, the production doesn't always match the songs and
performances: the CD sounds as if its improved things a bit to my ears but
still occasionally sounds flat and muddy, engineers and along with the band
Producers Ron and Howard Albert struggling to get seven very different sounds
onto one slab of vinyl (ironically they've fixed the problems by the time of
the sequel, although the songs have stopped coming by then)... Even so, that's
a small price to pay, a tiny cog missing from a stunning machine coughing smoke
and fire throughout. Stills will write plenty more classic songs over the years
including some true unsung masterpieces, but never again will any CSNY record
try to pull off something quite this ambitious ever again, the high-water mark
of Stills' brilliance and the bookend to a stunning run of form that dates back
right to 1967 and has taken in a total of seven sensational studio albums in
those years.
The
Songs:
As discussed, side one is a 20-minute medley of completely unrelated
songs played without a break the whole way through, rather as if Stills has got
so much inspiration pouring through his veins that he hasn’t got time for
ordinary things like two-second silences. [102] Song Of Love is the perfect opener,
upbeat shimmering rock with Stills doing his best off-key hollering over the
top of a song that leaves just enough room for each of the band members to
shine in turn. The presence of two drummers criss-crossing percussion patterns
between the speakers really suits this ever-shifting track about give and take
and its desperate plea to come over from our dark past into a bright future.
The words are, for once on this album, the weakest part of the track and seem
to have been deliberately mixed low so that you can’t hear them, being
uncharacteristically obscure for the usually forthright Stills. Strange, seeing
as how they deal with a typical Stills theme – politicians letting down the
people who put them in charge so that they can stay in power and whether there
can ever be a valid reason for going to war – ideas which goes back to Stills’
earliest songs, such as For What It’s Worth. Stills’ vocal is pretty
darn perfect however, hollering out each word with relish and having a great
time swooping around the unusually wide vocal range he’s written for himself.
vocal range with ease.
[103] Rock and Roll Crazies finds the band swinging
sideways into a mid-tempo bluesy groove without a pause, as Stills enjoys
himself telling us about how the draw of fame nearly caught him out and ‘how
its easy to lose your way’ being ‘hung up playing a rock and roll star’.
Getting back to basics like he does on this song is obviously a step in the
right direction for Stills, as he turns in one of his best vocals again on this
track, reaching down deep to drag out his words about finding new inspiration
and warning himself about taking the rich lifestyle to excess. One of Stills’
favourite tricks going back to this Buffalo Springfield days is to mask his
more nakedly honest songs with a Cuban segment – sung in an entirely new
language and thus covering up his feelings when they get too strong (see Suite:Judy
Blues for what seems like the hundredth time on this list, review no 29)–
so its no surprise that the band are heading full throttle into one of these
segments - Cuban Bluegrass - at the song’s end. With just two verses to tell us how he feels, Stills
re-iterates how he was ‘mistaken’ and ‘piece by piece he was shaken’, before
thanking someone – perhaps the rest of the band given how supportive they are
on this track and how many opportunities they all get to shine – for pulling
him out of his bad ways and giving him something to care about once more.
Determined to show off their skills, the whole band then turn things around 180 degrees by
slowing down to a plod for [104] Jet Set (Sigh). Perhaps the closest Stills ever actually
came to writing the traditional blues numbers he felt he did best (although
this song is lyrically more of a parody its performed pretty straight). Stills
has obviously been saving up his more complex material for Manassas in this
period and he again relies heavily on his backing musicians here, to get the
‘holes’ or the off-beats in the song just right. Of course they do, all coming
in together despite the complicated time signature and beat-splitting pauses.
The song deals with a similar theme to the last track, with a fading rock and
roll singer doing all his best to ‘get his feet wet with the jet set’ of A-list
celebbies, only to find himself doubting his own image and reputation when he
gets home, ‘looks in a mirror and sighs.’ Stills completes his great opening
trilogy of vocal performances here by belting out the words with such power
that the whole track seems to over-come the slowed-down tempo and his
bluesy-rock hybrid guitar solo is also one of his best. The highlight of the
song though is Sydney George’s brief harmonica playing at the end of the track,
full of the grit and passion lurking just under the surface of this under-rated
composition.
[105] Anyway hoists the tempo up again, via another instrumental interlude where
Stills’ rocky guitar phrases bounce off Fuzzy Samuels’ gulping bass lines.
That’s Joe Lala you can hear swapping lines with Stills on this simple song
about picking yourself up and starting again after being rejected in love. The
highlight of the song is another instrumental fade, this time a rather more
polished and orchestrated section which ends in a flurry of cymbals as the
narrator seems to have found love at last – fittingly, this is (almost!) one of Stills’ many songs that seem to be about Rita Cootlidge and her
departure into the arms of Graham Nash (‘Is that really the game you are
playing? Do you really believe you can win?), although there is some doubt as
to whether the next track is about her as well.
The Hillman/Stills song [106] Both Of Us (Bound To Lose) seems to fly in
from a different planet; the orchestral opening and interesting, detailed
lyrics are so different to the simple blues songs and rockers that have come
before it, yet the piece segues into this more polished sound so brilliantly
that it’s hard not to gasp at the effect. The lyrics seem to find the narrator
even further down the road of Anyway, with the narrator complaining to
his lover (or perhaps the rocker complaining to his critics) that they are now
only ‘second best’ in the other’s affections and are being ignored. In the
memorable closing line the narrator has become ‘just a statue making sounds’ in
the eyes of everyone else - like many later songs on this album, this
could be Stills telling us to stop erecting monuments to his past when he’s
firing on all cylinders in the present. Chris Hillman, the song’s co-writer
with Stills, is on particularly strong form here, trading verses with his
colleague and the two provide harmonies that get close to CSN perfection at
times. Most of this song is muted in comparison to its predecessors, stately
accompaniment and all—but not Stills’ piercing guitar, which howls its way
through the gaps in the song after every verse, as if breaking the narrator’s
reserve with some very real emotion. Stills can’t let things lie there,
however, and after the song seems to have gone about as far as it can he pushes
it headlong into a rocking finale, one where Manassas finally let off the steam
they have been building up for the last 20 or so minutes.
Side two – The Wilderness – is almost pure country, with fiddles
and steel guitars galore, but its not full of the
its-been-lonely-in-the-West-since-my-little-old-horse-died wrist-cutting type
of songs that the title implies; this side actually features some of Stills’
most lyrical, upbeat songs. In short, it sounds like The Flying Burrito
Brothers or mid-period Byrds – but better (I just know I’m going to get a rude
email from somebody about that sentence…) To call side-opener [107] Fallen Eagle
country-rock would be to do it an injustice; instead of both genres sapping the
life-blood from each other like on most country-rock songs, the song manages to
be both at once, without diluting either format. This is also another of
Stills’ ecological tales, with the eagle of the song looking for a safe place
from gunmen serving for a neat allegory for how American values (the American
eagle) are being shot down by predators. Stills’ memorable tag to the song –
‘fly on up to Canada, this country isn’t safe anymore, that’s for sure!’ says a
lot about the state of America at the time of the Watergate scandal and Stills
is going to be penning quite a few more of these sorry American tales later on
in the decade. The song is highlighted by guest Byron Berline’s busy
violin-playing, although unusually Manassas
[108] Jesus Gave Love Away For Free and [109] Colarado are
respectively the down and up sides of a relationship, possibly the same one
given their close proximity to each other in both style and running order
terms. The first song is a lazy piano-based lament with the narrator wondering
why his love has moved to the Rockies to find
her own freedom. The second song is upbeat pop about the narrator moving up to
the Rockies to escape a series of fallen
relationship, realising that he’ll find true love when he’s ready. Stills
handles these similar but different scenarios in different ways, with the first
song terribly claustrophobic in its gloomy steel guitar and layered plodding
harmonies and the second sounding free and easy and like the sun coming out. Jesus,
a slow mournful song about a dark haired girl, isn’t quite interesting
enough to make the listener forgive its slow, drab, dreary pace and its links
with the title are confusing (the last line, coming after three minutes of wary
trust rather than true love between the two characters, might be implying
frustration at how love ought to be free and easy – but clearly isn’t). Colorado
is a much better song, with a relationship gradually flowering before our ears
and the narrator unwilling to push it, after realising that he’s got years left
to pursue his dream (‘Me and the mountains – we’ll be right here’). This song
sports a singalong chorus on which the band kick up an impressive multi-layered
groove, with some of Al Perkins’ greatest steel-playing to the fore.
[2c] So Begins The Task is extra-special; its so superbly crafted, beautiful
and serious with reflective, poetic lyrics and features a cracking chorus and a
memorable hook courtesy of the bass runs going into the coda. A song about
dreading being lonely again after another relationship falls flat, its full of
memorable images. The best ones are the narrator ‘camping out on the edge of
your city’, waiting for a response that will never come, the sun ‘reminding my
body it needs resting’ after yet another sleepless night spent worrying about
his love life to the shadows the narrator sees on the ceiling of his room where
he lives alone, ‘like the bars that cage you within yourself’. The chorus is
particularly revealing – the narrator reluctantly decides to ‘learn to live
without you now’ not because he wants to but because he cannot change his
obsessive nature that has scared his loved one away; he cannot give ‘only part
somehow’ - his feelings are so intense he has to give way to them all. When a
lyric this strong and memorable is taken together with one of Stills’ most
haunting, memorable tunes and another of his glorious vocals, its clear that
this is Stephen at his absolute peak and this track could have been a huge hit
if it had come out as a single (it was played live on CSNY’s 1970-71 concert
tours but – amazingly – never recorded by the group, despite its strong
reliance on harmonies; Manassas’ are glorious here, agreed, but still not quite
the same somehow). Perhaps its not too late? Get a modern-day singer to cover
this song now! (Although having said that I won’t forget the mess Will Young
made of Love The One You’re With
in a hurry!)
After such perfection, the rest of side two becomes a bit of an
anti-climax, with [110] Hide
It So Deep running headlong into the maudlin country territory the
rest of the side has done so well to avoid. Stills still manages to bark the
hell out of his vocal, though, giving it plenty of power as well as passion and
there’s no doubting he had a feel for the genre, though thankfully he still
didn’t waste much time on it in his career. The lyrics – for what it’s worth –
are about the narrator finding one of his casual friends has been deeply in
love with him for years, but kept her emotions ‘so deep’ that he has only just
found out. Why is this theme so popular with country-rock artists? (Ex-Monkee Mike
Nesmith’s possibly career-best solo song Propinquity/ I’ve Just begun To
Care from his Nevada Fighter album is another particularly fine
example and sadly rather better than this maudlin mess).
Stills’ last full-blown country number is the hoedown [111] Don’t Look At My Shadow
– an interesting plea from Stills that his audience should not hold him back by
expecting him to stick to a successful style but should embrace the fact he is
trying new ideas. A very Neil Young-like sentiment, you can see what Stills
means when he’s trying all these many different things so successfully on this
album, but in context it’s a little bit sad because Stills’ well of inspiration
seems to have dried up almost completely after these sessions and the terrible
waste of vinyl that is Manassas’ follow-up to this album. And with a shadow as
great as this one, surely its expecting too much of an audience not to look
back in awe?….
Side three is more eclecticism let loose. [112] It Doesn’t Matter is
another superbly crafted song, this time uptempo but it’s more of a pop song
than a rocker. Chris Hillman’s superb harmony - his voice actually goes as well
with Stills’ vocals as Crosby’s and that’s saying something – really adds to
this song about a narrator trying to decide whether he’s spotting signs of
romantic interest from a passing stranger on his ‘wearisome vigils’ for love,
or whether he is making the whole thing up in his excitement and desperation.
The comparatively simple chords of this song and its repetitive structure make
it one of the more musically basic songs on the album, but the poetic and
haiku-like lyrics are among Stills’ more pleasing complex works. Most
songwriters would have been content to let the song go with its fine verse and
chorus structure, but not the perfectionist Stills. The unexpected electric
boost in the last verse, as the singers lock onto their prey both lyrically and
musically, holding on to the same rumbling riff over and over, refusing to
change until the last possible minute, adds a whole new layer of class to the
song.
[113] Johnny’s Garden is more crowd-pleasing commercial stuff, but it also cuts nice and deep;
an acoustic Stills singing about how much his garden means to him as his
sanctuary after a hard month’s touring is really touching and quite witty in
places (‘Its green and its quiet, only trouble was I had to buy it!’ he quips
at one point, acknowledging the pros of his rock and roll lifestyle along with
the cons). I can also see what Stills means about his beautiful garden, having seen
pictures of it as owned by its previous two inhabitants (Ringo Starr and Peter
Sellers no less!) Johnny, by the way, really was the name of Stills’ gardener
who also worked for the other celebrities passing through the house’s ranks and
its clear from the lyrics that Stills considers the garden still to be his,
indeed he almost thinks he is trespassing in the place where Johnny has spent
so much time and effort ‘beauty sharing’. Like Paul McCartney on this album
list’s near-neighbour Ram, the simplicity and beauty of the countryside
holds obvious attraction for Stills, used to playing smoky cities and staring
at the same old hotel rooms for weeks on end. A delightful return to the
acoustic format, this is another example of Stills at his very best.
[114] Bound To Fall is the only cover on the album, an old standard
about how things always go wrong just when they seem to be coming right. It was
brought to the table by Chris Hillman (a version of him attempting it with The
Byrds recently came to light on the Notorious Byrd Brothers CD re-issue
- but trust me, it sounds a lot better here). A frenetically paced arrangement,
it’s Stills’ deep harmonies to Hillman’s gutsy lead that make the song and the
sudden fading choral madrigal-like ending is an intriguing idea, catching the
listener by surprise.
[115] How Far is Stills getting melancholy again, with only an acoustic guitar and two
drummers for support. Another unusually simple and catchy song musically, the
gently bouncy music seem at first to be at odds with singing lines like ‘most
of this life is such a hard road to go down’, but Stills does sound quietly
hopeful when his ex-love tells him she still wants to be friends, leaving
Stills to promise that he’ll always be there for her, no matter ‘how far’ apart
they are geographically or emotionally. Stills follows on this side’s themes of
moving on, telling us both how he is ‘falling again’ and that ‘most of this
past year I’ve been searching for my home’, with Stills’ move to England to
escape his CSN and Cootlidge/Collins relationship past meaning it was more than
his house that changed in 1972, it was his lifestyle too. Stills has often
admitted that Suite: Judy Blue Eyes was a love-letter he never got round
to sending and turned into a song instead, ‘mailing it through the rock and
roll business’ – here he updates this theme, addressing his latest love
personally and telling her ‘if you’re listening, I hope you’ll understand my
song’.
As if the range of genres so far wasn’t enough, Stills then sets a science
essay to music with the song [116] Move Around. Moody and philosophical, with
acoustic guitars and all sorts of weird synthesiser bleeps going on, it sounds
more like the Moody Blues than a Stills song. The lyrics deal with nothing less
than man’s evolution and progress to date (given life, what could be more
natural but move around and explore it? – there really is no great forward
evolutionary plan for mankind after all except perhaps curiosity enticing him
on) and they are extraordinarily complex - just check out the last lyric
printed in the ‘key lyrics’ column above. The lines about mankind moving
further and further towards some unspecified goal seem at odds with Stills’
more sarcastic songs about how modern man has never been civilised, buts it’s a
sweet and moving song all the same, with mankind finding a ‘key’ every
generation or so and ‘standing on the brink of revelation’ only to find that
there is another puzzle still to be solved, sounding much like David Crosby in
the process. The sudden electric blues guitar bursting through the speakers in
the last elongated verse could only have been thought of by one man, however:
this is Stills at his understated best, even if the odd production means these
fine lyrics are irritatingly hard to hear.
A guesting Bill Wyman crops up on the next track [7b] Love Gangster, a song
where he is listed as co-writer with Stills, despite the fact that Stephen
already had much of this song worked out in 1968 (you can hear it under its
original name Bumble Bee and in
its first acoustic form on the 2007-issued Just Roll Tape). Perhaps
Wyman provided the slow-rolling bass groove that the guitarists copy throughout
this track - although maybe it was just inspiration, as fittingly Stills
provides his best swampy Mick Jagger impersonation to go with his playing on
this track. Interestingly, this spoof western seems to celebrate the kind of
reckless unthinking outsider that Stills has been chastising for much of the
album (however, even this character needs a ‘place to hide’ by the song’s end,
so maybe it fits the albums themes of ‘coming home’ after all). I wonder too if
it's loosely based on Nash again, with the 1968 version of 'Love Gangster' much
more playful - having heard Crosby's 'Cowboy Movie' effectively portray Nash as
exactly that perhaps Stills was reminded of this song? ('You look like you're
running away...why?') More delightful harmonies courtesy of Stills and Hillman
turn this simple boogie-woogie song into a musical tour de force.
Side four features several more genre-hybrids. [117] What To Do for instance, doesn’t quite know what to do
with itself and switches through several genres before committing itself,
becoming pure music-hall by the last verse thanks to some tack-piano,
but with a classic anthemic chorus sung by just everybody in the band kicking
in at key moments too. Lyrically though it's Stills at his most naked and
vulnerable, which might be perhaps why he smothered his hard-to-hear vocal with
so much else going on, desperately trying to get Rita alone for a few minutes
in a 'neutral corner' so they can have time to talk (she was literally so swept
up by Nash that she didn't even return to Stills' house to fetch her belongings,
or so the story goes). 'Blind stubborn pride drove us apart' Stills sighs,
although typically - in song at least - he's ready to hold his hand up as being
at least partly to blame, promising her her freedom for good if that's what she
wants but adding a slight dig at Nash with the line 'just don't let nobody tell
you no lies!' A rather odd instrumental section of bleeping synthesisers
off-setting a squawking violin that seems to have wandered in from the country
segment was described by Stills in his typically hilarious sleeve-notes: ‘I
think its dumb but Ronnie [Albert, engineer] and Dallas [Taylor, drummer] got
hung up. You see there’s this little box and Dallas twisted that knob and
Ronnie twisted the other one on a different box and I left the room because I
didn’t like what I played anyway and waited for the next verse with the tack
piano on it which I do like…’ As these notes show, the recording sounds like it
was a lot of fun, but to be honest this song is ultimately comes out sounding
like one of those ‘you had to be there’ moments.
[118] Right Now is Stills’ last burst of full throttle rock on the album, a charging
song proving that Manassas
[84b] The Treasure is a seven-minute epic, like Suite Judy Blues an outpouring of
inspiration, changing rhythms and tempos to fit the uneven run of lyrics
without ever breaking the song’s theme of searching for the hidden meaning in
life, behind every stone in the narrator’s journey if needs be. The ‘treasure’
is obviously the mysterious lady from the Colorado rockies, as Stills tries to
fight his way back to her on a perilous journey full of obstacles, trying to
work out which is the ‘devil’s key’ that he should turn down along the way.
Stills’ falsetto blues wailing is another of his best vocals on the album(s),
while the song’s gradual switch from walking pace harmony-drenched pop to
bluesy-rock wailing showcases Manassas Manassas
All that bluesing and rocking just leaves time for a quick encore: [119] Bluesman is actually
more of an acoustic wail than a straightforward electric blues, with more
unusual haiku-like lyrics lamenting the loss of Stills’ musician friends and
rock and roll casualties (Canned Heat’s Al Wilson, Duane Allman and Jimi
Hendrix in particular, with the Manassas album as a whole dedicated to
the three men). The excesses of the rock lifestyle has been playing on Stills’
mind for much of the last 70 minutes and seems to be Stills’ inspiration to
curb these tendencies in himself. Shaking his head sadly, Stills merely murmurs
‘such a waste’, missing the three men that ‘I knew well, never see again’ and
wondering which of his buddies will be next to go. Stills plays the song alone,
in stark contrast to the seven musicians playing at their loudest on the last
track, and pulls off a last-minute coup with Bluesman’s simple honesty
and moving sentiment, ending the album on a last triumphant ringing chord.
To the last, then, Manassas Manassas Manassas
A Now Complete List Of CSN/Y and Solo Articles Available To Read At Alan’s Album Archives:
'Crosby, Stills and Nash' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-29-crosby-stills-and-nash-1969.html
'Deja Vu' (CSNY) (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-34-crosby-stills-nash-and-young.html
‘Stephen Stills’ (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/stephen-stills-1970.html
'If Only I Could Remember My Name' (Crosby) (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-45-david-crosby-if-only-i-could.html
'Songs For Beginners' (Nash) (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-46-graham-nash-songs-for.html
'Stephen Stills II' (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-48-stephen-stills-ii-1971.html
‘Graham Nash, David
Crosby’ (1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/graham-nash-david-crosby-1972.html
'Stephen Stills-Manassas' (1972)http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-51-stephen-stillsmanassas-1972.html
'Wild Tales' (Nash) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/news-views-and-music-issue-75-graham.html
'Stephen Stills-Manassas' (1972)http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-51-stephen-stillsmanassas-1972.html
'Wild Tales' (Nash) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/news-views-and-music-issue-75-graham.html
'Down The Road' (Stephen
Stills/Manassas) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/stephen-stillsmanassas-down-by-road-1973.html
'Stills' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/review-65-stephen-stills-stills-1975.html
'Wind On The Water' (Crosby-Nash) (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-67-crosby-nash-wind-on-water.html
'Stills' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/review-65-stephen-stills-stills-1975.html
'Wind On The Water' (Crosby-Nash) (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-67-crosby-nash-wind-on-water.html
'Illegal Stills' (Stills)
(1976)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/stephen-stills-illegal-stills-1976.html
'Whistling Down The Wire'
(Crosby-Nash) (1976)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/david-crosby-graham-nash-whistling-down.html
'Long May You Run' (Stills-Young) (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/news-views-and-music-issue-33-stills.html
'CSN' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-70-crosby-stills-and-nash-csn.html
'Long May You Run' (Stills-Young) (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/news-views-and-music-issue-33-stills.html
'CSN' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-70-crosby-stills-and-nash-csn.html
'Thoroughfare Gap'
(Stills) (1978) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/stephen-stills-thoroughfare-gap-1978.html
'Earth and Sky' (Nash)
(1980)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/graham-nash-earth-and-sky-1980.html
'Daylight Again' (CSN) (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/news-views-and-music-issue-131-crosby.html
'Daylight Again' (CSN) (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/news-views-and-music-issue-131-crosby.html
'Right By You' (Stills)
(1984) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/stephen-stills-right-by-you-1984.html
'Innocent Eyes' (Nash)
(1986)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/01/graham-nash-innocent-eyes-1986.html
'American Dream' (CSNY)
(1988) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-american.html
'Oh Yes I Can!' (Crosby)
(1989)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/07/david-crosby-oh-yes-i-can-1989.html
'Live It Up!' (CSN) (1989) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/news-viedws-and-music-issue-104-crosby.html
'Live It Up!' (CSN) (1989) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/news-viedws-and-music-issue-104-crosby.html
'Stephen Stills Alone'
(1991)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/stephen-stills-alone-1991.html
'A Thousand Roads'
(Crosby) (1993) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/02/david-crosby-thousand-roads-1993.html
‘After The Storm’ (CSN)
(1994) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-final-review-crosby-stills-and-nash.html
'CPR' (Crosby Band) (1998)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/cpr-david-crosby-band-1998.html
'Looking Forward' (1999) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-looking.html
‘So Like Gravity (CPR,
2001)
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/cpr-just-like-gravity-2001.html
‘Songs For Survivors’ (2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/graham-nash-songs-for-survivors-2002.html
‘Songs For Survivors’ (2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/graham-nash-songs-for-survivors-2002.html
'Crosby*Nash' (2004) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/news-views-and-music-issue-21-crosby.html
‘Man Alive’ (S) (2005) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/stephen-stills-man-alive-2005.html
'Deja Vu Live' (CD) (2008) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/news-views-and-music-issue-1-crosby.html
'Deja Vu Live' (DVD) (2008) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008_09_21_archive.html
'Reflections' (Graham Nash Box Set) (2009) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/news-views-and-music-issue-22-graham.html
'Demos' (CSN) (2009) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/news-views-and-music-issue-41-crosby.html
'Manassas: Pieces' (2010) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/news-views-and-music-issue-52-manassas.html
‘Carry On’ (Stephen Stills Box Set) (2013) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/stephen-stills-carry-on-box-set-2013.html
'Croz' (Crosby) (2014) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/david-crosby-croz-2014album-review.html
'CSNY 74' (Recorded 1974 Released 2014)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-csny-74.html
'This Path Tonight' (Nash) (2016) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/graham-nash-this-path-tonight-2016.html
'Lighthouse' (Crosby)
(2016) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/david-crosby-lighthouse-2016.html
‘Sky Trails’ (Crosby)
(2017) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/david-crosby-sky-trails-2017.html
‘Here
If You Listen’ (Crosby) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/10/david-crosby-and-friends-here-if-you.html
The Best Unreleased CSNY
Recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/csny-best-unreleased-tracks-news-views.html
Surviving TV Appearances (1969-2009) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/csny-surviving-tv-appearances-1969-09.html
Non-Album Recordings (1962-2009)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/crosby-stills-nash-and-sometimes-young_6.html
Live/Compilation/Rarities Albums Part One
(1964-1980)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/crosby-stills-nash-and-sometimes-young.html
Live/Compilations/Rarities
Albums Part Two (1982-2012)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/crosby-stills-nash-and-sometimes-young_20.html
Essay: The Superest Of
Super Groups?
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/csny-essay-superest-of-super-groups.html
Five Landmark Concerts and
Three Key Cover Versions
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/csny-five-landmark-concerts-and-three.html
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