Stephen Stills solo career - could it have been salvaged?

Sweet Judy Blue Eyes.

I can listen to Stephen Stills play acoustic guitar all day.

What's weird with the second Manassas LP is that it didn't have to be as bad as it turned out. As for Donnie Dacus, personally I can handle him on Stills (he's a good guitar player and a decent foil for Still in that regard) but there's too much of him on Illegal Stills for my tastes. Best thing about that album is the cover for me.

Is that really what happened? I didn't know that...explains a lot, though. He can still play that guitar, at least

 

Just a few days ago, I made this compilation of all the songs Stills performed acoustically on tour in 1976:

Albums That Should Exist: Stephen Stills - Live Acoustic (1976)

There's a download link. Oh, I didn't include the songs that he played all the time and I'm sick of (Love the One You're With, For What It's Worth, Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, etc), but that still leaves 20 good songs. I think it shows he was still going strong at that point.

Yeah there definitely was a drop off in the late 1970s and beyond and lots of wasted talent. But I think he also did better than most people realize after that for another twenty years or so. The problem was bad production choices, bad choices of songs on albums, inability to work with Crosby, Nash, and/or Young etc... If you dig deeper, you find lots of gems. One example is "Haven't We Lost Enough" from 1990:



Whenever I play people that song, they assume it's a track from 1969 or 1970 that they somehow missed, and they comment that it's just as good as that stuff. It's a rare example of where he just played a song acoustically and thus wasn't bogged down by poor production. Check out the 1991 album "Stills Alone" for more good stuff in that vein.

 

A week or two ago, someone made this, which is all the good songs from "Down the Road" and "Pieces" combined to make the second Manassas album that should have been:

Albums I Wish Existed: Manassas - Down The Road Apiece (1973)

 

his recent releases are fantastic

 

I wish I had a career like Stills

 

Just an idea, but by the mid seventies his hearing started to go. I wonder if this had a greater impact than we've ever been told ...

 

This is the live Stills LP I picked up several weeks ago. Had never seen it or heard of it before, it's from late '75.

One thing about it is, the acoustic side contains at least three covers, so it's a little short on his own material.

The novelty of it is, one side is all acoustic, and the other side is all electric with a band (and he dusts off a couple Springfield numbers there). Have to say, he shreds on the acoustic side on "Crossroads". Not sure I've ever heard anyone outside of Townshend play the acoustic guitar so aggressively. Well worth a listen for anyone who hasn't heard it, cool cover too:





Stephen Stills - Stephen Stills Live

 

I did not know that. I always thought it was due to his near total deafness (I’m sure I’d read before that it’s 98% gone? And that he now plays guitar by feeling rather than how it sounds)

 

I like the version of "Wooden Ships" on Live- sort of the template for the epic versions CSNY would play in '74. You can't really go wrong with just about any version of the "Crossroads/You Can't Catch Me" medley though.

 

His cd boxset is all killer no filler

Might not have lived up to his full potential but he was successful

 

Stills knew it: "Tryin' to live up to what they said I lucked in to at twenty five."- "My Favourite Changes"

 

I think he had too much talent, money and coke. Which, to some isn’t a bad thing. However, it became destructive with his personality. Instead of taking time to craft his songs, he was spitting albums out with different outlets and quite a few were undeveloped and could’ve been improved upon. Coupled with Ego maniacal musicians he surrounded himself with, he created a sense of competition that was not needed. If I had an 1/8th of his talent, I’d be thrilled. But I’m a lurker on a music board that is Monday morning QB’ing.

 

But I’m a lurker on a music board
That is Monday morning QB’ing

I’m sure I have that single somewhere...

 

Not every songwriting band member is destined to have a consistently great solo career. Part of the reason to be in bands like the Eagles or CSN or Fleetwood Mac was that every contributor could put forth their best stuff, instead of needing to come up with entire records themselves. That's not to say those bands' members haven't produced some great solo albums, but few were able to sustain it at a top-tier level for more than a few albums. There's only so much inspiration in the well, I think.

 

Thing is, Stephen Stills is a talented enough musician and songwriter that he should have been able to pull it off, though. Unfortunately his bad habits and arrogant personality -masking myriad insecurities- got the better of him. Eventually he did learn his lesson, but it was too late to save his solo career. As Graham Nash said, "I have seen cocaine totally ruin Stephen's songwriting...personally I don't think he's written a great song in years." A harsh assessment, perhaps, but not entirely inaccurate, either.

 

He used up all his good ideas on his first 3 albums and got less and less inspired as time went on, like most musicians

 

That didn't help, but honestly, I think it just accelerated the inevitable. Perhaps sans bad habits he'd have pumped out a couple more decent records in the 70's, but he just never struck me as a guy with an endless well of great songs, just a guy who was great as part of a collective and had two, maybe three great solo albums in him, irregardless of his lifestyle. The fact that the best Stills song I can think of post-1980 was largely written by other people sort of solidifies this for me.

 

"haven't we lost enough" was largely written by other people?

 

I’m sure he’s referring to “Southern Cross”, but I don’t agree either.

 

I knew he was

 

My brother-in-law won a back stage meet and greet with CSN in the mid-80's. As he tells it, Graham Nash was incredibly warm and gracious. Crosby wasn't around at all (according to Nash, David wasn't "feeling very well" -- ahem!) And finally, when my brother-in-law met Stills he told him that he really enjoyed his Right By You album, to which Stills replied, "Well why didn't you tell ten-thousand of your friends to buy it?" Nice.

 

He’s not deaf, how could he sit and do an interview or tour with Judy Collins, obviously he can hear even if his hearing isn’t what it use to be

 

.....as we know, songwriting credits are sometimes just a way of giving someone publishing royalties, so it’s difficult to know one way or another......

Haven’t We Lost Enough was the first acoustic Stills song on a CSN record in a long time and a great fuss was made of it, but it sounded formulaic to these ears, like Stills trying to write something in the classic CSN Stills acoustic style; the guitar is half-strummed half-picked for some reason, and the harmonies sound like all Stills, not CSN. Live It Up was a CN record with Stills belatedly added so that may be the case.

 

Half written by Kevin Cronin in any case.

 

do we know he wrote what though