Stephen Stills<\/i> may not be the most remembered album of the 1970s, but it did do well.\u00a0 The album reached number three on the Billboard chart before the end of 1970 and the main single from the disc \u201cLove The One You\u2019re With\u201d made it to number 14 and is probably Stills\u2019 most memorable song from the \u201870s.\u00a0 You may not realize it on the first or second pass, but it is a deceptively infectious album.<\/p>\n
One problem that Stills had in the CSN\/CSNY combos was that they hemmed in his ability\/desire to have complete control over a song\u2019s production.\u00a0 There are no such restraints here, and in typical Stills fashion he takes full advantage of it.\u00a0 He is heard doing vocals, guitars, bass, piano, organ, steel drum, and percussion in addition to a bevy of studio and guest musicians.\u00a0 The result is a big sound, especially on \u201cLove The One You\u2019re With,\u201d which stands out from the rest of the album as the obvious single.\u00a0 David Crosby, Graham Nash, John Sebastian, and Cass Elliott contribute vocals.\u00a0 Ringo Starr does the drums on \u201cTo A Flame\u201d and \u201cWe Are Not Helpless,\u201d and Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton come by for guitar solos on \u201cOld Times Good Times\u201d and \u201cGo Back Home,\u201d respectively.<\/p>\n
Stephen Stills<\/i> runs the gamut of autobiographic and romantic songs.\u00a0 And much like former girlfriend Judy Collins inspired some of his CSN\/Y songs in the previous year, a new flame, Rita Coolidge, served as the inspiration for songs like \u201cSit Yourself Down\u201d and \u201cCherokee.\u201d\u00a0 Stills and Hendricks, who had actually discussed forming a band together before Hendrix\u2019s tragic death, perform phenomenal countervailing solos on \u201cOld Times Good Times\u201d with Hendrix on guitar and Stills on the organ.\u00a0 You don\u2019t expect an organ to rock, but it plays with an equal force as Hendrix\u2019s jam.\u00a0 Meanwhile, \u201cGo Back Home\u201d has some classic Eric Clapton slowhand guitar wailing in the back throughout.<\/p>\n
Stills goes a bit over the top in the production on \u201cChurch (Part of Someone),\u201d which is meant to be a gospel sounding tune that comes across as a lot of fluff.\u00a0 Similarly on \u201cTo A Flame,\u201d \u00a0there are xylophones and big drum sounds that create a large symphonic sound, but only serve to make the song sound like a knock off of a sappy Sinatra or Tony Bennett number.\u00a0 Despite Stills\u2019 propensity for playing multiple instruments on his tracks, he laid off on one which was the best decision he made on this album.\u00a0 \u201cBlack Queen\u201d is a gem.\u00a0 Just Stills\u2019 rough gravely voice with an acoustic guitar that rocks hard in a slow blues in a \u201csong about a card game.\u201d\u00a0 Along with \u201cLove The One You\u2019re With\u201d this tune stands out. <\/p>\n
When you listen to the album the first time, you will remember \u201cLove\u201d and you may think the rest of the disc is okay.\u00a0 But give it a couple listens and you will find yourself humming a tune you didn\u2019t think you had memorized.\u00a0 Somehow, these demur tunes get in your brain and stay there.\u00a0 It\u2019s nice when good music does that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":30446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8009],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42837","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-stephen-stills","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42837","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\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42837"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42837"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}