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Stephen Stills

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Stephen Stills

Stephen Arthur Stills is an American guitarist and singer/songwriter best known for his work with the Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Early years

Stephen Stills was born in Dallas, Texas on January 3, 1945 to a military family. Moving around as a child, he developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his teenage years in Tampa, Florida, Costa Rica and the Panama Canal Zone, where he graduated from high school.

Stills dropped out of the University of Florida to pursue a music career in the early 1960s. He played in a series of unsuccessful bands including the Continentals, which featured future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous Cafe Au Go Go in NYC, called the Au Go Go Singers (Rick Geiger, Roy Michaels, Michael Scott, Jean Gurney, Kathy King, Nels Gustafson, Bob Harmelink, Richie Furay & Stills) where and when he met Richie Furay. This group also did some touring in the Catskills, and in the South, released one album in 1964, then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills, along with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers: Geiger, Michaels, Gurney & Scott, formed The Company, a folk/rock group. Immediately prior to performing in the Au Go Go Singers, Stills could be seen singing solo in Gerde's Folk City, a well-known coffee house in Greenwich Village. The Company embarked on a 6-week tour of Canada where Stills met a young guitarist named Neil Young. On the VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills would say that at that time, Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months, opening up the way for Geiger to join a light opera company in Los Angeles; Michaels to link up with Jimi Hendrix, Gurney to go on to college while doing TV commercials, and Scott to tour with a retro-Highwaymen. Stills did session work and went to various auditions (including an unsuccessful one for The Monkees). In 1966 he convinced a reluctant former Au Go Go Singer, Richie Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.

Buffalo Springfield & CSNY

Main articles: Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young)

Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of the Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse on the streets of LA and flagged him down, a meeting described in the recent solo track "Round the Bend". The band would release three albums (Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again, and Last Time Around) and one hit single (Stills' "For What It's Worth") before breaking up.

Stills' guitar playing continually evolved. Early on, it would display sources in generic rock'n'roll, blues, and country music, as well as the chordings familiar in the acoustic-folk music scene. Soon Stills' playing would show the influence of his friend Jimi Hendrix and also sometimes the rhythms and riffs of various kinds of Latin music. Stills is notorious for experimenting with the guitar itself. This includes such things as soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left handed. He is also known for using unconventional tunings, particularly on acoustic. He is also adept at piano, organ and bass and plays some drums, inspiring the nickname "Captain Manyhands" in the early CSN days. "'Stephen had a vision,' [Graham] Nash says. 'David [Crosby] and I let him run with it.' Stills played nearly every instrument on Crosby, Stills and Nash, earning the nickname Captain Manyhands." (from RollingStone.com)

During the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills would join up with ex-Byrd David Crosby and ex-Hollie Graham Nash to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash. Cass Elliot invited Graham Nash over to meet him and David Crosby at the home of well known folk artist and painter Joni Mitchell, who has painted several artworks of the three, and whose house is pictured on the trio's first self-titled album in 1969. Mitchell also contributed the artwork seen on the cover of the CSNY collection album "So Far", released in 1974. Stills overdubbed much of the musical backing himself for the first CSN album with only Dallas Taylor's drums and some rhythm guitar from Crosby and Nash. Neil Young would be added for their second album, and the group would become Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, CSN and CSNY was one of the few North American groups to rival the Beatles in popularity. Despite several breakups and reformations, CSN (and sometimes CSNY) still records and tours to this day.

Solo years

In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his self-titled debut, which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix (on what was possibly his last recording before he died), "Mama" Cass Elliot, and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as contributions from various members of the CSNY band. It provided Stills with the hit single "Love The One You're With" as well as the concert favorite "Black Queen." Stills followed this with Stephen Stills 2, which featured "Change Partners." Nash saw this song as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY, while Stills viewed the band as something much less bland and repetitive.

The next year, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman and several CSNY sidemen to form the band Manassas. With Manassas Stills recorded the self-titled double album Manassas. The album was a mixture of blues, folk and latin music divided into different sections, and is considered by many to be one of Stills' best albums.

During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Then he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded two albums: Stills in 1975 and the punningly titled Illegal Stills in 1976. The former record found Stills in an uncharacteristically joyful mood; his marriage was going great, his son Chris had just been born, and he was happy living in Colorado. "To Mama From Christopher and the Old Man" was an exceptionally optimistic view of his new family.

In 1976, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, according to both David and Graham[citation needed] the other pair wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without their erstwhile partners as The Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection.[citation needed] Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did, but upon returning home, his wife announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France. Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. This led to the semi-permanent CSN reunion of 1977, which has persisted even though all three have released solo records since then.

In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice in the same night for his work with CSN and the Buffalo Springfield.

2005 saw Stills release 'Man Alive', his first solo offering in 14 years. Although not troubling the chart compilers, the record was critically well received and is regarded by many fans as his best since the mid seventies.

Political activities

CSN&Y have long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, Stills served as an Al Gore delegate from Florida during the Democratic National Convention.

Miscellany

Stills was a prolific songwriter before becoming a star performer; his composition Sit Down, I Think I Love You, was a minor hit for The Mojo Men before it was recorded by the Buffalo Springfield.

In 1966, Stills auditioned for The Monkees, but he dropped out, partially because his already-thinning hair and bad teeth made him look too old for the part, and partially because the actor's contract required him to assign his music publishing rights to Screen Gems, something he did not want to do. Stills instead recommended his former roommate, Peter Torkelson, who got the job.

Stills was a close friend of Jimi Hendrix, who appears on Stills' eponymous first solo album. Reputedly, when Hendrix was forming his trio The Jimi Hendrix Experience, his manager contacted Stills' manager to invite Stills to become the group's bass player. Concerned that Stills' friendship with Hendrix and admiration for Hendrix' genius might prompt Stills to take the job rather than continue with the Buffalo Springfield, Stills' manager elected not to pass the message on to Stills. Noel Redding was then offered and took the job as bassist with the Experience. Within a year, both Stills and Hendrix were superstars in their own right; they continued to socialize and jam together informally up until Hendrix' untimely death in 1970.[citation needed]

Several of Stills' most notable songs, "Bluebird", "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" "You Don't Have To Cry" and "Bluebird Revisited", were inspired by his intense, on-again-off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. In a 1971 interview in Rolling Stone Magazine, the interviewer noted, "So many of your songs seem to be about Judy Collins." To which Stills replied: "Well there are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them or turn them into literature. I've had my share of success and failure at all three."

Stills' son, Justin Stills, was badly injured at age 26 snowboarding in Tahoe in 1997; an episode of The Learning Channel's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and is profiled in "Autism: The Musical," a (forthcoming) 2007 documentary. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists.

Discography

Please also see discographies for Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

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