Stephen Stills - S/T

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 38:57
Size: 89.2 MB
Styles: Pop/Rock, Album rock
Year: 1970/2005
Art: Front

[3:04] 1. Love The One You're With
[2:52] 2. Do For The Others
[4:05] 3. Church (Part Of Someone)
[3:39] 4. Old Times Good Times
[5:53] 5. Go Back Home
[3:05] 6. Sit Yourself Down
[3:08] 7. To A Flame
[5:26] 8. Black Queen
[3:23] 9. Cherokee
[4:18] 10. We Are Not Helpless

Talk about understatement -- there's Stephen Stills on the cover, acoustic guitar in hand, promising a personal singer/songwriter-type statement. And there is some of that -- even a lot of that personal music-making -- on Stephen Stills, but it's all couched in astonishingly bold musical terms. Stephen Stills is top-heavy with 1970 sensibilities, to be sure, from the dedication to the memory of Jimi Hendrix to the now piggish-seeming message of "Love the One You're With." Yet, listening to this album three decades on, it's still a jaw-dropping experience, the musical equal to Crosby, Stills & Nash or Déjà Vu, and only a shade less important than either of them. The mix of folk, blues (acoustic and electric), hard rock, and gospel is seamless, and the musicianship and the singing are all so there, in your face, that it just burns your brain (in the nicest, most benevolent possible way) even decades later. Recorded amid the breakup of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Stills' first solo album was his effort to put together his own sound and, not surprisingly, it's similar to a lot of stuff on the group's two albums. But it's also infinitely more personal, as well as harder and bluesier in many key spots; yet, it's every bit as soft and as lyrical as the group in other spots, and all laced with a degree of yearning and urgency that far outstrips virtually anything he did with the group. "Love the One You're With," which started life as a phrase that Stills borrowed from Billy Preston at a party, is the song from this album that everybody knows, but it's actually one of the lesser cuts here -- not much more than a riff and an upbeat lyric and mood, albeit all of it infectious. "Do for the Others," by contrast, is one of the prettiest and most moving pieces of music that Stills has ever been associated with, and "Church (Part of Someone)" showed him moving toward gospel and R&B (and good at it, too); and then there's "Old Times Good Times," musically as good a rock song as Stills has ever recorded (even if it borrows a bit from "Pre-Road Downs"), and featuring Jimi Hendrix on lead guitar. "Go Back Home" (which has Eric Clapton on guitar) is fine a piece of bluesy hard rock, while "Sit Yourself Down" features superb singing by Stills and a six-person backing chorus (that includes Cass Elliot, Graham Nash, and David Crosby) around a great tune. "To a Flame" is downright ethereal, while the live "Black Queen" is a superb piece of acoustic blues. All of this is presented by Stills in the best singing voice of his career up to that point, bolder, more outgoing, and more powerful (a result of his contact with Doris Troy) than anything in his previous output. He also plays lots of instruments (à la Crosby, Stills & Nash, which is another reason it sounds so similar to the group in certain ways), though a bit more organ than guitar, thanks to the presence of Hendrix and Clapton on two cuts. If the album has a flaw, it's the finale, "We Are Not Helpless," which slightly overstays its welcome. But hey, this was still the late '60s, and excess was the rule, not the exception, and it's such modest excess. ~Bruce Eder

Stephen Stills

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Stephen Stills - Manassas

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 71:57
Size: 164.7 MB
Styles: Soft rock, Contemporary pop/rock
Year: 1972/2005
Art: Front

[3:26] 1. Song Of Love
[3:32] 2. Rock & Roll Crazies Cuban Bluegrass
[4:23] 3. Jet Set (Sigh)
[3:19] 4. Anyway
[3:00] 5. Both Of Us (Bound To Lose)
[2:05] 6. Fallen Eagle
[3:01] 7. Jesus Gave Love Away For Free
[2:52] 8. Colorado
[4:00] 9. So Begins The Task
[2:46] 10. Hide It So Deep
[2:27] 11. Don't Look At My Shadow
[2:30] 12. It Doesn't Matter
[2:45] 13. Johnny's Garden
[1:53] 14. Bound To Fall
[2:52] 15. How Far
[4:15] 16. Move Around
[2:49] 17. The Love Gangster
[4:45] 18. What To Do
[2:58] 19. Right Now
[8:05] 20. Treasure
[4:04] 21. Blues Man

A sprawling masterpiece, akin to the Beatles' White Album, the Stones' Exile on Main St., or Wilco's Being There in its makeup, if not its sound. Rock, folk, blues, country, Latin, and bluegrass have all been styles touched on in Stephen Stills' career, and the skilled, energetic musicians he had gathered in Manassas played them all on this album. What could have been a disorganized mess in other hands, though, here all gelled together and formed a cohesive musical statement. The songs are thematically grouped: part one (side one on the original vinyl release) is titled "The Raven," and is a composite of rock and Latin sounds that the group would often perform in full live. "The Wilderness" mainly centers on country and bluegrass (Chris Hillman's and Al Perkins' talents coming to the forefront), with the track "So Begins the Task" later covered by Stills' old flame Judy Collins. Part three, "Consider" is largely folk and folk-rock. "Johnny's Garden," reportedly for the caretaker at Stills' English manor house and not for John Lennon as is often thought, is a particular highlight. Two other notables from the "Consider" section are "It Doesn't Matter" (later redone with different lyrics by the song's uncredited co-writer Rick Roberts on the first Firefall album) and "Move Around," which features some of the first synthesizer used in a rock context. The closing section, titled "Rock & Roll Is Here to Stay," is a rock and blues set with one of the landmarks of Manassas' short life, the epic "The Treasure." A sort of Zen-like meditation on love and "oneness," enlivened by the band's most inspired recorded playing it evolves into a bluesy groove washed in Stills' fierce electric slide playing. The delineation lines of the four themed song groupings aren't cut in stone, though, and one of the strengths of the album is that there is a lot of overlap in styles throughout. The CD reissue's remastered sound is excellent, though missed is the foldout poster and handwritten lyrics from the original vinyl release. Unfortunately, the album has been somewhat overlooked over the years, even though Stills considers it some of the best work he has done. Bill Wyman (who guested on "The Love Gangster") has said he would have quit the Rolling Stones to join Manassas. ~Rob Caldwell

Manassas

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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Deja Vu

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 35:57
Size: 82.3 MB
Styles: Rock
Year: 1970/1995/2005
Art: Front

[4:24] 1. Carry On
[2:52] 2. Teach Your Children
[4:27] 3. Almost Cut My Hair
[3:35] 4. Helpless
[3:52] 5. Woodstock
[4:10] 6. Deja Vu
[2:59] 7. Our House
[2:05] 8. 4 + 20
[5:09] 9. Country Girl A. Whiskey Boot Hill. B. Down, Down, Down. C. Country Girl [i Think You're Pretty]
[2:20] 10. Everybody I Love You

One of the most hotly awaited second albums in history -- right up there with those by the Beatles and the Band -- Déjà Vu lived up to its expectations and rose to number one on the charts. Those achievements are all the more astonishing given the fact that the group barely held together through the estimated 800 hours it took to record Déjà Vu and scarcely functioned as a group for most of that time. Déjà Vu worked as an album, a product of four potent musical talents who were all ascending to the top of their game coupled with some very skilled production, engineering, and editing. There were also some obvious virtues in evidence -- the addition of Neil Young to the Crosby, Stills & Nash lineup added to the level of virtuosity, with Young and Stephen Stills rising to new levels of complexity and volume on their guitars. Young's presence also ratcheted up the range of available voices one notch and added a uniquely idiosyncratic songwriter to the fold, though most of Young's contributions in this area were confined to the second side of the LP. Most of the music, apart from the quartet's version of Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock," was done as individual sessions by each of the members when they turned up (which was seldom together), contributing whatever was needed that could be agreed upon. "Carry On" worked as the album's opener when Stills "sacrificed" another copyright, "Questions," which comprised the second half of the track and made it more substantial. "Woodstock" and "Carry On" represented the group as a whole, while the rest of the record was a showcase for the individual members. David Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair" was a piece of high-energy hippie-era paranoia not too far removed in subject from the Byrds' "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man," only angrier in mood and texture (especially amid the pumping organ and slashing guitars); the title track, also by Crosby, took 100 hours to work out and was a better-received successor to such experimental works as "Mind Gardens," out of his earlier career with the Byrds, showing his occasional abandonment of a rock beat, or any fixed rhythm at all, in favor of washing over the listener with tones and moods. "Teach Your Children," the major hit off the album, was a reflection of the hippie-era idealism that still filled Graham Nash's life, while "Our House" was his stylistic paean to the late-era Beatles and "4+20" was a gorgeous Stephen Stills blues excursion that was a precursor to the material he would explore on the solo album that followed. And then there were Neil Young's pieces, the exquisitely harmonized "Helpless" (which took many hours to get to the slow version finally used) and the roaring country-ish rockers that ended side two, which underwent a lot of tinkering by Young -- even his seeming throwaway finale, "Everybody I Love You," was a bone thrown to longtime fans as perhaps the greatest Buffalo Springfield song that they didn't record. All of this variety made Déjà Vu a rich musical banquet for the most serious and personal listeners, while mass audiences reveled in the glorious harmonies and the thundering electric guitars, which were presented in even more dramatic and expansive fashion on the tour that followed. ~Bruce Eder

Deja Vu

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Joni Mitchell - Hits

Bitrate: 320K/s

Time: 65:54

Size: 150.9 MB

Styles: Folk, Folk-rock

Year: 1996

Art: Front

[5:04] 1. Urge For Going

[2:30] 2. Chelsea Morning

[7:41] 3. Big Yellow Taxi

[5:26] 4. Woodstock

[4:50] 5. The Circle Game

[3:02] 6. Carey

[3:49] 7. California

[2:38] 8. You Turn Me On I'm A Radio

[3:05] 9. Raised On Robbery

[3:21] 10. Help Me

[3:02] 11. Free Man In Paris

[4:02] 12. River

[5:16] 13. Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody

[7:29] 14. Come In From The Cold

[4:32] 15. Both Sides Now

All tracks have been digitally remastered using HDCD technology. HITS and MISSES, released on the same day in October 1996, are, amazingly enough, the first compilations of Joni Mitchell's work. Mitchell is one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the rock era. By incorporating poetic lyricism and a jazzy harmonic sensibility into the troubadour tradition, she paved the way for everyone from Rickie Lee Jones to Sting. HITS features some of the best-known songs from her immense repertoire (MISSES highlights equally important, but less commercially successful, compositions). HITS begins and ends with early, acoustic guitar-based material. "Urge For Going" (previously unavailable on CD) and "Both Sides Now" both yielded reams of cover versions by the likes of Judy Collins, Tom Rush and countless others. Moving on through the stylistically divergent phases of Mitchell's career, the lush pop songs "Help Me" and "Free Man In Paris" segue into the starkly confessional piano ballad "River" and the slippery, jazzy feel of "Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody," adorned by Larry Klein's Jaco-manque fretless bass. HITS can only skim the surface of Mitchell's prolific output; a truly thorough chronicle would require a box set. But every song here is a gem, and this is a perfect place for the uninitiated to begin.

Joni Mitchell (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, dulcimer, piano, electric piano, keyboards); Saskatunes, Lookout Mountain United Downstairs Choir (vocals); Larry Klein (guitar, percussion); Stephen Stills (guitar); James Taylor (acoustic guitar); José Feliciano, Larry Carlton, Robbie Robertson, Steve Lukather (electric guitar); Graham Nash (harmonica, background vocals); Tom Scott (woodwinds, horns); Joe Sample (electric piano); Larry Williams (synthesizer); John Guerin (drums, percussion); Jim Hughart, Russ Kunkel, Vinnie Colaiuta (drums); Alex Acuña & the Unknowns, Alex Acuña, Milt Holland, Bobbye Hall (percussion); David Crosby (background vocals).

Hits

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