Stephen Stills
Vintage Guitar Magazine
March 1998
Neil Young News
In an interview with Stephen Stills by Cameron Crowe (September, 1974) on the Sunset Strip guitar duels with Young:
Neil and I used to have guitar wars on stage that were really stupid. It was really funny. I wouldn't play the game except every once in a while when I'd get in a mood. It was just pathetic. I started playing lead guitar in the Buffalo Springfield and it was okay. I never played anything that was really bad, other than that I played too loud. The fights started getting really good and I guess that fights started becoming a little too much to take or something. 'Cause it got weird."
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 16:34:10 +0100 This is an excerpt of a Vintage Guitar magazine interview with Stephen
Stills just before his induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for both Buffalo Springfield and Crosby Stills & Nash.
Vintage Guitar: There's a legend about the formation of the Buffalo Springfield that
supposedly involved you chasing down a hearse driven by Neil Young.
Stephen
Stills: That's a true story. I'd met Neil in Thunder Bay, Ontario; I'd been up
there working with a Cambridge, Massachusetts folk group. He came through
with his band; he had a bass player and a drummer, and was playing folk
music on a Gretsch guitar. I heard what he was doing, and said: "That is
it," because the other big influence on my guitar playing had been Chet
Atkins. I'd gone to see Chet Atkins doing a demonstration at a guitar store
in the late '50s, and of course, I fell in love with his playing, and I
began Travis-picking all over the South.
I arranged for Neil to get into the States on a working visa, but he decided
to be "...the Bob Dylan of Toronto," broke up his band, and started playing
acoustic music in small clubs.
After about a year or so, I was in Los Angeles; I'd decided to try to get a band
together out there. Richie Furay had been in that Cambridge folk group with
me, and I'd hustled him into coming out to L.A. too, but up to that point
all there was to our "band" was just him and me, and Richie was about to get
disgusted and go home. We'd been searching for musicians all over town.
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.
Neil had another hearse that had died in Thunder Bay, but this one was a
Pontiac he'd driven all the way to California, and when I pulled behind him,
he was actually looking for 77 Sunset Strip (laughs)! Bruce Palmer was with
him; Bruce became the Buffalo Springfield's bass player.
VG: I always thought the band had some great guitar tones on certain songs.
What did the Buffalo Springfield use, instrument-wise?
SS: Neil had a fondness for Gretsch guitars, which rubbed off on me, so the
original Buffalo Springfield sound was comprised primarily of Gretsches.
Richie got an Epiphone to saw on; Bruce played a Fender bass.
VG: Another interesting facet was what might have been called an
"aggressive" acoustic sound; those guitars were way up front in the mix on
songs like "Bluebird" and "Mr. Soul."
SS: When we got into our first recording session, the producer said: "This
is not what I want; play it faster," so Neil and I more or less learned how
to make records ourselves. When you're that young, you find yourself saying
things like: "Let's see what this particular machine does; let's turn all of
the knobs up and down, and see what it sounds like when it's really
'scrunchy';" it was sort of an Elmore James tradition!
We did that to some old Fairchild and UA limiters, which would make the
guitars sustain in a unique way. So a lot of that was due to what I'd call
"perverse, unnatural, and immoral use of a limiter" (chuckles).
VG: There were also some lower-end, almost Duane Eddy-ish twangs on tunes
such as "Rock and Roll Woman" and again, "Mr. Soul."
SS: I actually had a Guild Duane Eddy guitar, and I had a black Gibson that
was one of the first models with humbuckings; it was my first old guitar.
Then I ran across a Gibson Super 400, so there were a lot of good guitars
used on those recordings.
VG: The introduction to "Rock and Roll Woman" has always been fascinating;
it almost sounds like a 12-string guitar with a harmony tuning.
SS: That was a Gretsch acoustic put through the board, using a limiter; we
overdubbed it with its own self.
VG: How valid is it to pronounce the Buffalo Springfield progenitors of
country rock? The band came along before the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo,
and there were instruments like a banjo on "Bluebird," and a gospel piano on
"Kind Woman."
SS: Well, call it a potpourri of a lot of things. We thought one of the
crimes of music back then was pigeonholing – making songs so someone could
put them in the right "box." We certainly weren't a country band; we would
take all kinds of influences from all over and blend them together. I spent
my last year of high school in Latin America, and there's a edge of salsa
under all of my rhythms.
VG: There were some interesting covers of Springfield songs; a Texas band
called Fever Tree did a version of "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing" and
even the Yes covered "Everydays." Do you remember who did the hit version of
"Sit Down, I Think I Love You?"
SS: I should, because of the royalties (chuckles), but things were going so
fast back then I didn't really notice when we got covered; we were always
heading towards the next project. I haven't heard the cover of "Everydays;"
I've got to look that up.
VG: There was even sort of a "conceptual song" called "Broken Arrow" that
was fairly interesting for its time.
SS: That was when Neil discovered Jack Nietzsche. They went off and pretty
much came up with that by themselves, but I thought it was a great song, and
I was more than happy to do my harmony parts on it.
VG: Last Time Around's title and cover photo were somewhat unique, in that
it was an acknowledgment the band was breaking up, and there was a rip in
the photo by Young.
SS: Neil had quit the band just before we were going to do "The Tonight
Show," which would have been a big break for us. He left the night before we
were supposed to go to New York; he saw himself being trapped in a band and
had solo stuff he wanted to do. The Youngbloods went on "The Tonight Show"
instead of us, and they were so much trouble Johnny Carson didn't book
another rock and roll band for years (laughs).
VG: In my opinion, it's always seemed like CSN has had more of an emphasis
on songwriting and vocal harmony instead of instrumentation.
SS: I'm afraid you're right, although I played all of the instruments on the
first album. Basically, they were sort of like Springfield tracks with new
vocals. I used a standard array of Gretsches and Martins, plus a Dobro, a
banjo, and pianos. I still have an old '60s Precision Bass I used back then;
I call it "Grandma." The secret to its sound is old, flatwound strings that
have been left on it for years, and it works! I'm down to my last set of
pre-CBS Fender flatwounds.
But the band also featured David Crosby's remarkable songs, and Graham
Nash's record-making ability; he knew all of those English "tricks."
VG: In the early '70s, you formed a band called Manassas. How was that
supposed to have differed from your previous efforts?
SS: That was actually supposed to have gone back to more of a Springfield
sound, but to me it's all been kind of seamless. Manassas had a pedal steel
guitar player, as well as Chris Hillman, who could play the **** out of a
mandolin, so the band did have a bit more of a traditional country approach,
but the pedal steel guy could also play rock and roll on his instrument,
which scared me to death (chuckles)! I recorded that album in Muscle Shoals,
Alabama, down in your neck of the woods; I worked with Barry Beckett.
VG: When I saw Manassas on the old "In Concert" TV show, you were playing a
Gibson Firebird.
SS: I used a Firebird III and a single-pickup Firebird I back then, and I've
still got 'em.
From: "GMG"
Subject: Stills interview talks about BS, Neil, CSN, Manassas
Also, for more on Stephen Stills, see the Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young page.
For more on Stephen Stills [search].
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