Nineteen seventy-five and 1976 were two very prolific years for Stephen Stills. Two studio releases, one live disc, one greatest hits collection, and a duet album with Neil Young kept him busy and in the public eye. Illegal Stills<\/i> was released in March of 1976 and was the fourth of these five albums.<\/p>\n
This disc marked the beginning of a downturn in the quality of Stills\u2019 albums, and commercially, it would be his last release to reach the American Top Thirty. While he would continue to produce good and sometimes brilliant tracks here and there, his solo work would not have the consistent excellence of the past.<\/p>\n
Donnie Dacus was back on board for a third album but ends up being over-involved, which means that Stephen Stills is not involved enough. In some ways, this album can be considered a Stills-Dacus project rather than a solo release. Dacus co-wrote five of the tracks, which are both good and bad, in addition to playing a good portion of the guitar. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The best of the Dacus tunes is \u201cMidnight In Paris,\u201d written with Veronique Sanson. She was a French singer of note and was married to Stephen Stills for six years. \u201cSoldier,\u201d written with Stephen Stills, is a better-than-average post Vietnam protest song. However, \u201cCloser To You,\u201d \u201cDifferent Tongues,\u201d and \u201cRing Of Love,\u201d range from average to just filler.<\/p>\n
The disc\u2019s best track is a Stills creation, which demonstrates just how good he can be at times. \u201cBuyin\u2019 Time\u201d was an acoustic part of his live act, but here is reinvented as a rocker and it works. It features excellent guitar playing and a solid song structure \u2013 essentially, it is just Stephen Stills doing what he does best. <\/p>\n
\u201cStateline Blues\u201d is almost good but is underdeveloped at less than two minutes. Meanwhile, his cover of Neil Young\u2019s \u201cThe Loner\u201d is competent, but I prefer the original. \u201cCirclin\u2019\u201d and \u201cNo Me Niegas\u201d fall into the below-average category.<\/p>\n
Illegal Stills<\/i> is an album that had not been off my shelf for years \u2013 probably decades \u2013 until I gave it a couple of spins for this review. When reaching for some Stephen Stills music, there is any number of superior releases. It does have a great cover, which needs to be seen on the original vinyl release to be truly appreciated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":30457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8009],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-42121","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-stephen-stills","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42121"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}