We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
You can make the argument (and I will) that the parts were better than the whole when it came to supergroup Crosby, Stills Nash & Young. Neil’s solo albums, the duo work of David and Graham and the solo records of Stephen were better than alot of the stuff that CSNY did. Yeah, Deja Vu was a great LP but that album too, was made up of songs that were basically solo songs by the writers.
And then there was Manassas. The group that Stills put together will forever live on as one of the most fully realized rock & roll bands in American history. Only to disappear after just two records.
The double LP “Manassas” released in April of 1972 is one of the greatest albums of all-time, and yet rarely gets its due. Rarely has their been this much variety & goodness on one double LP. Rock, blues,country, bluegrass sung and played by a talented collection of dudes led by Stills and fomer Byrd & Burrito Brother Chris Hillman. They are joined by piano whiz Paul Harris, bassist Fuzzy Samuels, Al Perkins on steel guitar, Dallas Taylor on drums and Joe Lala on percussion. The guest list included fiddle ace Byron Berline and Bill Wyman (who reportedly considered leaving the Stones for this group).
Money would prove to be the undoing of Manassas. The band would produce one more album, which was not nearly as good as this, but then Hillman (who in the interim had joined a Byrds reunion LP with the original band), got an offer from the record label to join Richie Furay and JD Souther in another “supergroup” pairing and Stills rejoined Crosby, Nash and Young for a monstrous reunion tour that made scads of money but never led to the album that you would have thought would follow. The Winterland show you can listen to below had Crosby, Nash & Young join Manassas, which led Hillman to realize that a CSNY reunion was coming.
The recording sessions for this LP were legendary…some lasting over 100 hours at at time (think cocaine). At one point they cut eight songs in two days with no sleep.
The album, at one point, shared the Top 5 of the charts with the Crosby/Nash duo disc and Harvest by Young.
The critics were actually mixed at the time with some not enjoying Stills vocals or lyrics. Some though the LP was bloated and could have been cut down. Stills claims that Ahmet Ertegun, the President of Atlantic, pulled the record from stores because he wanted Stills back in the cash cow that was CSNY.
The band did make a number of tv apperances including the fabulous Beat Club in Germany
And there is this slice of music history…a complete concert from Winterland in San Francisco
The list of my faves from the album is long. From the rock of “Song Of Love” & “Jet Set Sigh” to the blues tribute “Blues Man’, to the bluegrass of “Fallen Eagle” to the ballads of “Johnnys Garden”, Colorado (a song written by Rick Roberts who went on to found Firefall) and especially “So Begins The Task”. So much good stuff….
Stills would later say that “Manassas was a terrific band. It had structure and could play anything. It reminded me of Buffalo Springfield at its best”
Even though the 2nd LP couldnt match the first it would have been interesting to see what this group could have done if they had stayed together.
Comments