WHAT'S THAT SOUND?
THE COMPLETE ALBUMS
COLLECTION
by Buffalo Springfield
Courtesy of Rhino/WMG
(Click photo to enlarge)
Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again, and Last
Time Around - were newly remastered from the original analog
tapes under the auspices of Neil Young for a boxed set: WHAT'S THAT SOUND? THE COMPLETE ALBUMS
COLLECTION that shipped from
Rhino Records on June 29, 2018.
Here is a comprehensive, in-depth review of this Buffalo Springfield box by Harvey Kubernik.
In 1966 and ’67 Harvey Kubernik saw Buffalo Springfield in two of their
Southern California concerts and attended debut Neil Young solo concerts in the
region.
Thrasher's Wheat just recently published two highly popular articles by Kubernik:
Thanks Harvey! enjoy.
Buffalo Springfield @ Hollywood Bowl on April 29, 1967Photo by Henry Diltz. REVIEW: "WHAT'S THAT SOUND? Buffalo Springfield Box"
By Harvey Kubernik © 2018, 2020
Before playing its final show on May 5, 1968
at the Long Beach Sports Arena in Southern California, Buffalo Springfield
released three studio albums on ATCO during an intense, two-year creative
burst.
Those
albums - Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again, and Last
Time Around - have been newly remastered from the original analog
tapes under the auspices of Neil Young for a boxed set: WHAT'S THAT SOUND? THE COMPLETE ALBUMS
COLLECTION that shipped from
Rhino Records on June 29, 2018.
The
box set includes stereo mixes of the group’s three studio albums plus mono
mixes for Buffalo Springfield and Buffalo Springfield Again. There are
also CD and limited-edition vinyl sets.
I witnessed
Buffalo Springfield on stage during December 1966 at the Santa Monica Civic
Auditorium and The Hollywood Bowl in April 1967.
If
you dig Buffalo Springfield you might want to investigate my books Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic and The Music Of Laurel
Canyon and Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In
Los Angeles 1956-1972. Plenty of Henry Diltz photos of the band members are
displayed in the pages around my text and interview subjects.
I’m
delighted Buffalo Springfield’s era-defining body of work will be heard and
discovered by new ears globally. I’m sure WHAT'S
THAT SOUND? THE COMPLETE ALBUMS COLLECTION coupled with my books will spur
additional interest for documentaries, television shows that will be produced as
well as subsequent titles still inspired by my teenage neighborhood. At Fairfax High School in West
Hollywood our Driver’s Education class was held in Laurel Canyon and the adjacent
Mt. Olympus region. Try learning how
to parallel park while “Nowadays Clancy
Can’t Even Sing” was on the AM radio station KHJ play list.
Buffalo Springfield’s three 1966-1968 albums were always debuted over
the Southern California airwaves before the rest of the world discovered
them. You really had to live in
Hollywood then to further understand and comprehend the initial impact of these
regionally-birthed discs and artwork design.
I’ve always felt the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and then The Band, were
the joint Godfathers of Americana music.
WHAT'S
THAT SOUND? THE COMPLETE ALBUMS COLLECTION is a five-CD set for $39.98 and
on digital download and streaming services. High resolution streaming and
downloads are available through www.neilyoungarchives.com.
The albums
were released - for the first time ever - on 180-gram vinyl as part of a
limited-edition set of 5,000 copies for $114.98. The 5-LP box features the same
mono and stereo mixes as the CD set, presented in sleeves and gatefolds that
faithfully re-create the original releases.
WHAT'S THAT SOUND? THE COMPLETE ALBUMS
COLLECTION is available, this time around, chronologically and sonically improved
from the label’s 2001 Buffalo Springfield
Box Set product, but the fan boy
in me wishes the longer 9:00 minute version of “Bluebird” was included. It’s only found on a double vinyl LP Buffalo Springfield
package that was released in 1973.
So enjoy these Buffalo Springfield 2018
available recordings on compact disc and vinyl, as well as digital downloading,
before record labels like Rhino cease pressing up hard product and become
exclusively streaming services.
“In our
world of music in 2018,” posed author and film/music historian Jan Alan
Henderson, “has any new product stood the test of time that this Buffalo Springfield
box set will? Golden years, golden days as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards put
it, ‘Lost in the silk sheets of time.’”
“Sure, this was
one band who boasted within its rarefied ranks several musical characters of
superb pedigree indeed,” realizes Gary Pig Gold …who, for the record, may never
have visited Springfield but has been stranded in Buffalo several times. “Yet despite the fact that a failed Monkee and even
a couple Au Go Go Singers were on board, I have for a half-century-and-counting
insisted it was the presence of not one, but TWO certifiable Canadians that
truly gave this band its shine, its sharpness, and undoubtedly a big part of its unmistakable sound …even
on the stereo mixes.
“I speak, of course, of (a) Neil
Young, of whom little if anything need be added at this point, but especially of the (b) as in bassman –
and so much besides – Bruce
Palmer: Already by ’66 a veteran of more
spectacular Toronto-area rhythm ‘n’ Merseybeat combos than even young Neil
could’ve shook a Gretsch at, Bruce brought the incredibly innovative bottom he’d
already punched onto such woofer-blowing discs as Jack London & the
Sparrows’ ‘If You Don’t Want My Love’ (REQUIRED LISTENING, everyone!) to create
the beyond-solid foundations his Buffalo bandmates relied to create upon and,
yes, were expected to fly fully from.
“One could argue the Springfield was
never the same – some might even say never completely recovered from – the loss
of Palmer; not to mention the here today, maybe
here tomorrow ways of his fellow Canucklehead Neil. But all great art, even pop
(music) art, seems to burst best from turmoil, and that the Springfield always had in often self-defeating abundance.
They ‘burned’ briefly, but oh, so
brightly! As all the best herds, then and even now, seem to.
“They came, they played, and they crumbled.
Fifty-some-odd years gone. But still
as sound as ever.”
In 2001 I
interviewed Richie Furay about Buffalo Springfield. Sections of our conversation
first appeared in Goldmine and in my
2017 book, 1967 A Complete Rock Music
History of the Summer of Love.
“We were always comfortable singing someone
else’s song early on. The first album and some of the second, you can hear the
cohesiveness was a group effort, there was not the possessiveness of ‘this is
my song, this is my baby, I’m singing it because I wrote it.’ Early on there was this ‘what does this sound
like with you singing?’ I know we tried ‘Mr. Soul’ with everybody singing and
it sounded best with Neil. “The individual members brought their own take on
what was being presented to the song. We liked the Beatles with John and Paul
singing harmony. Stephen and I did a lot of that unison singing. That we picked
up from the Beatles but then there was a lot of experimentation”
Buffalo
Springfield then recorded their debut disc with managers/ producers Charlie Greene
and Brian Stone at Gold Star Studio in Hollywood, home of Phil Spector’s epic
musical productions. Owners Stan Ross and Dave Gold with engineer Larry Levine
with their landmark studio made pivotal contributions to Buffalo Springfield’s
studio endeavors. Ross trained Doc Siegel who engineered Buffalo Springfield with Tom May.
Stan Ross, along with his business
partner, technical wizard Dave Gold and Larry Levine made overt and subtle
sound design contributions to Phil Spector’s studio undertakings while jointly
constructing the ‘Wall of Sound’ which helped inform Buffalo Springfield.
The Gold Star studio clients of
Dave Gold and Stan Ross included Herb
Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Sonny & Cher, Buffalo Springfield, Brian Wilson
with the Beach Boys, the Cascades, Iron Butterfly, Cher, the Cake, the
Chipmunks, Bob Dylan, Clydie King, Art
Garfunkel, Dick Dale, Bobby Darin, Minnie Ripperton, Johnny Burnette, Ray Ruff,
Thee Midniters, Donna Loren, the Sunrays, Mark and the Escorts, Jon & the
Nightriders, the Dillards, Tim Hardin, Beau Brummels, the Murmaids, Jackie De
Shannon, Led Zeppelin, Hoyt Axton, Duane Eddy, Margie Rayburn, Kim Fowley, the Runaways,
The Band, Go-Gos, Ramones, the Seeds, the Monkees, MFQ and the Turtles.
“Gold Star felt and sounded different than
any other L.A. studio,” explains the Turtles’ Howard Kaylan, who recorded “The
Story of Rock & Roll pop gem and other wonderful tunes like “Eleanor” there
in addition to their revolutionary L.P. The
Battle of the Bands produced by Chip Douglas.
“You could literally smell the tubes inside
the mixing board as they heated up. There was a richness to the sound that
Western and United, our usual studios, never had. Those two rooms sounded
‘clean’ while Gold Star felt fat and funky. Perhaps we were all reading too
much of the Spector legacy into the room, but I don't think so. Our recordings
from Gold Star always just sounded better to me. I miss that room,” lamented Kaylan,
whose band the Turtles sold 41 million records and had 9 Top Ten hits of their
own.
Gold Star
regulars Charlie Greene and Brian Stone were managers and producers, real show
biz operators, who represented Buffalo Springfield, Iron Butterfly, The Poor,
Bob Lind, The Cake, Dr. John, Jackie De Shannon and Sonny & Cher. “All I Really Want To Do” Cher's first solo
hit came out of the room, along with the duo’s “The Beat Goes On” and Sony
Bono’s solo masterpiece, “Laugh At Me.” Jackie De Shannon cut her Laurel Canyon LP there.
“Our
studio echo chamber gave it the wall of sound feel,” Stan Ross told me in a
2001 interview.
“Dave Gold
built the equipment and echo chamber and personally hand-crafted the acoustical
wall coating. We had so much fun with that echo chamber; it never sounded the
same way twice. Gold Star brought a feeling, an emotional feeling. Gold Star
was not a dead studio, but a live studio. The room was 30 X 40.”
“It was all
tubes. And when you have tubes, you have expansion and it doesn’t distort so
easy. We kept tubes on longer than anyone else. Because we understood that when
a kick drum kicks into a tube it’s not gonna distort. A tube can expand. The
microphones with tubes were better than the ones with out the tubes because if
you don’t have a tube and you hit heavy, suddenly it breaks ups. But when you
have a tube it’s warm and emotional. It gets bigger and it expands. It allows
for the impulse.
“Gold Star
brought a feeling, an emotional feeling. Gold Star was not a dead studio, but a
live studio. I’ve been in other studios that were ‘too hot,’ ‘too lively.’ Some
that sounded like card board boxes. ‘Too dead.’ Gold Star had enough that if
you snapped your fingers, or clapped your hands, you could actually hear it. So
if that’s the way your hands clapped, then your drum sound would be the same
kind of feel. Our echo chamber gave it
the wall of sound feel. It was smaller than most people knew.”
I asked Gold Star co-owner/engineer Stan
Ross about Buffalo Springfield sonic relationship to the Gold Star recording
studio.
“I was always
impressed by the songwriting abilities of the Buffalos,” he remarks. “Neil
Young, especially. The Buffalo Springfield was a self-contained group. A lot of
their stuff done as demos in studio A and B. with ‘Doc’ Siegel and myself with
the Buffalos. You won’t find a union contract on any of that stuff. Fun stuff,
kick-a-round time. Then track time and overdub time,” reflects Ross.
The band’s
Gold Star heritage can be heard in those 1966 and ’67 studio treks: Stills’
“Everydays,” plus Furay demos of “Words I Must Say,” “Nobody’s Fool,” Stills’
“So You’ve Got A Lover,” Young’s “Down To The Wire,” and another Stills’ song,
“My Angel.”
“Neil was
really a very personal friend of ours,” stressed Stan, “an appreciative man who
never forgot us over the years. Of all the guys in the group, Neil was the only
one who took care of Gold Star, especially Dave Gold.
“Dave did
Neil’s Trans album (along with
portions of Hawks & Doves). For
years Dave did all the mastering at Columbia that Neil did on his albums. He
made sure that Dave Gold would do all the lacquer mastering on his albums. No
one else. No other place. And if they wanted 15 pressing plants to have masters
Neil didn’t want prints made up from one master. He wanted Dave Gold to make 15
separate acetates. And to make sure it was done that way, Dave had to put a
number on each one he did that was a code between him and Neil.”
In 2009,
Neil Young finally made available his Archives
Vol. 1 multi-disc compilation. Song demos from Gold Star and both mono and
stereo mixes of Young-birthed Buffalo Springfield recordings, “Burned” and
“Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” help populate the package.
Buffalo Springfield Again Side acetate label-1968
(Courtesy of Jeff Gold and Record Mecca)
Kirk Silsbee: I was compelled by the
sound of ‘Clancy' and it took me awhile to catch up to the depth of the lyrics,
and comprehend the role of Riche Furay’s performance on the tune's
success. It took years, matter of fact. Even though I felt it on a
visceral level, I couldn't articulate what it was doing, and what it was doing
to me.
“The Springfield had three good writers, but
Neil cranked out the bulk of the band’s material. It was very smart to
give those vocals to Richie Furay. Neil had an odd voice, with
a haunted edge to it and lacking warmth. Richie's voice, on the
other hand, was far more engaging and even sweet, in the best sense of the
word. But listen to ‘Clancy'--it’s quite a poignant vocal performance.
The lyrics on ‘Clancy’ are emotionally torturous, which seemed to be
Neil’s stock and trade at that time. Around the same time he cut ‘Down to
the Wire’ at Gold Star; it surfaced later on Neil’s Decade. I love
all three versions, and I respect the fact that Neil was experimenting, taking
chances. ‘Okay--let Stephen song it one time; let Richie try it, and the third
time I’ll sing it. But let's play with the crazy psychedelic overlay
holocaust stuff.’”
Richie
Furay: The band was that first album and it was never
captured again. That album represented the five of us together in the studio.
After that it started to fall apart. It got worse with the next two albums.
There were a lot of people being used other than the five of us.”
James Cushing: The musical and lyrical news from Buffalo Springfield was very,
very different from the kind of information you would get from the Beach Boys.
The Beach Boys were saying that Los Angeles and the Southern California region
was heaven. On the first single, ‘For What It's Worth,’ Stephen Stills and
Buffalo Springfield were saying that Los Angeles was a place where you had to
be extremely careful. What was powerful about that song was
partially the voice of Stephen Stills and partly that minimalist guitar from
Neil Young. From the first album, Neil Young’s folky, anti-virtuoso
concept was fully formed. You hit just the right notes and let them ring out.
“Neil also voices chords in a unique way I don’t have the
technical vocabulary to describe, but there’s something about the way he voices
a chord versus the way Stephen Stills voices a chord. Maybe he likes to use
different intervals. Maybe he likes to hit the notes in a different way.
Together they are collaborative and competitive.
“As far as their sense of rhythm goes, I
think Neil’s sense of rhythm is much more rooted in folk strums and strings.
Stills is actually more rhythmically interesting than Neil. But one of the
reasons that Stills sounds so interesting is that Neil always gives him that support.
Stills' strengths are enhanced by Neil’s strengths.
“The
first album is not an unqualified success, though. ‘Flying on the Ground Is
Wrong’ sounds a little tricked out today. The lyrics show Neil Young trying a
little bit too hard to show that he’s clever. It's the sort of mistake that
young writers make. But ‘Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing’ makes up for
it. What I loved then and now about "Clancy" is its combination
of country-western directness and lyrical elusiveness. Lines in ‘Clancy’
have stayed with me for multiple decades, like lines in Dylan’s ‘Queen Jane
Approximately,’ and in both cases, I would have a terrible time explaining
what they mean. But intuitively and experimentally, I feel they illuminate
moments of experience in the way only the best poetry does.”
Kirk
Silsbee: The
Buffalo Springfield is tied to the fabric of the Hollywood Renaissance in a
special way. So often the bands gestated in the suburbs or traveled
outright from different far-flung cities to try their luck in the Big Leagues.
But the Springfield was a mix of people from different cities who came
together in Hollywood like spontaneous combustion. Can you think of
another band that has a creation myth like the Springfield? People are
still debating the precise details nearly sixty years after the fact.
Talent was never an issue; the problem for the Springfield was finding a
center where all of the artistic visions could peacefully coexist.
“Buffalo Springfield's Hollywood was a
world with four AM radio rock stations and a full time country
station. Teen magazines like The KRLA Beat, Hit
Parader, and TeenSet were on the verge of
publications trying to seriously address the music. Unfortunately, the
writers at the time didn’t always have the tools. The writers were
basically teenage fans with bylines. You look at those pieces now and
there’s just so much missing in them--the gee whiz quotient is pretty high.
“In the
first stages of the Springfield, Neil Young was conscious of wardrobe, image,
clothing. He liked the buckskins that Genie the Tailor made for him or
the faux Indian get-ups he could get at Western Costume
on Melrose. But then, each guy in the band went his own sartorial
way. Fortunately, there was never an attempt to put them in band suits; they
all had their own sense of style. Stills was often seen in a hip jacket
and tie; he went to Sy Devore and Beau Gentry. You'd see
Richie with a thrift store jacket and open shirt, next to Dewey, in
a velour pullover. Neil had his buckskin jackets, one with very
long fringe coming off of the arms; I believe he slipped it on like a poncho.
But fashion? No. Look at Love’s first album--that’s a fashion
statement.
“Even though it broke up on the cusp on underground FM rock radio,
Buffalo Springfield became an FM band. Aside from 'For What It's Worth,'
it wasn't a hit-record band. There was no FM in late ’66, but the
Springfield eventually got a lot of FM airplay.
“In
the year-and-a-half up to June 1967--when the format changed--there was no
station like KBLA. It was our pirate radio, and it set the stage for
the FM revolution to come. Beginning in last part of
1965, KBLA made the bold choice to acknowledge the albums coming from
these L.A. bands--not just the one or two hit songs pressed as 45s. This
was the period when rock was becoming an art form, and albums had non-hit
material that was often more fascinating than their hits. For the first
time, the album cuts actually had merit on their own; they weren't just filler.
And even though they weren’t getting played
elsewhere, Burbank's KBLA gave them parity with hit records.
That was revolutionary as far as I was concerned. ‘Clancy’ got
plenty of airplay on KHJ, a Drake-Chenault chain Boss Radio format,
and the station always supported Buffalo Springfield.
“In ’67, Dewey Martin and Neil Young
knocked on the back door of KFWB on Hollywood Boulevard and handed
deejay Dave Diamond an acetate of ‘Blue Bird’ to spin. So often in those
days you had one or two creative minds in a band; the rest usually kept up the
best they could. No so the Springfield. I don’t want to say ‘super group’ but
their collective talent had a tremendous range of expression.”
Rodney
Bingenheimer (Deejay): Greene and Stone were managers and producers, real show biz
operators, who represented Iron Butterfly, the Poor, Bob Lind, the Cake, Dr.
John, Jackie De Shannon, Sonny & Cher and Buffalo Springfield. I loved Gold
Star. I played one of the tambourines on Sony & Cher’s session for ‘Bang
Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).’ At Gold Star everyone was wearing Levis and some
buckskin things, Fairchild moccasins. Dewey Martin liked to wear velours.
“Charlie and Brian were always at Gold
Star. I loved Buffalo Springfield. I always saw them at the Whisky a Go Go. It
was a ‘jangly’ folk sound. Sort of ‘Byrdsy’ in a way. ‘Country Byrds.’ They
would gig all over Hollywood: The Troubadour, Hullabaloo. Charlie and Brian
were really good behind the board. I liked them as record producers.”
Henry Diltz (Photographer): I went to Gold Star in June 1966 when they
were doing their debut album. I had recorded there before with the MFQ and Phil
Spector. I was in the rom in July when Buffalo Springfield cut ‘Nowadays Clancy
Can’t Even Sing.’ I met their dog Clancy in the parking lot.”
Rodney Bingenheimer:
I liked the first album. ‘Clancy’ was incredible. ‘Down To the Wire.’ Stan Ross
was all over the place getting it together. Stan and Larry (Levine) were more
than engineers. They knew what they were doing as if they were the producers.
The first album didn’t really capture the Buffalo Springfield on stage. Just a
little.
“I later did go to Columbia studios and saw
the mix of ‘For What It’s Worth’ happening. Pretty amazing. I knew it was going to be a big hit.”
James Cushing: (Deejay): What was
powerful about that song was partially the voice of Stephen Stills and partly
that minimalist guitar from Neil Young. From the first album, Neil
Young’s quirky, anti-virtuoso concept was fully formed. You hit just the right
notes and let them ring out. Neil also voices chords in a unique way I don’t
have the technical vocabulary to describe, but there’s something about the way
he voices a chord versus the way Stephen Stills voices a chord. Maybe he likes
to use different intervals. Maybe he likes to hit the notes in a different way.
Together they are collaborative and competitive. As far as their sense of rhythm goes, I think
Neil’s sense of rhythm is much more rooted in folk strums and strings. Stills
is actually more rhythmically interesting than Neil. But one of the reasons
that Stills sounds so interesting is that Neil always gives him that support.
Stills' strengths are enhanced by Neil’s strengths.
It wasn't until 1969 that the Guess Who achieved global acclaim with their first million seller single, “These Eyes.” The Burton Cummings-Randy Bachman songwriting team turned out three more million-selling tunes, “Laughing,” “No Time” and “American Women.”
"You must understand the Winnipeg psyche," Burton Cummings explained to me in 1974 in an article published in Melody Maker. "It's not like growing up in London, Los Angeles, New York, or Chicago. Winnipeg is a small town. It's the prairies in Canada. I was locked up there so long that's all I wrote about.
"Neil Young was in a group (the Squires in March 1965) with (our drummer) Garry Peterson’s brother Randy.”
The group first tried to gain American recognition in 1967. Guitarist Randy Bachman suggested recording Young’s “Flying On The Ground Is Wrong. Buffalo Springfield’s album was already out by then but Neil played the guys in the Guess Who an acetate of it in Christmas 1966 when he came back to Winnipeg to visit his mom. Neil spun the LP for Randy. The Guess Who then recorded ‘Flying On The Ground Is Wrong” and two other tracks in London at IBC studios, March 3, 1967.
"We went to England to do an album and tour. The record deal and tour fell through. We were £25,000 in debt."
Young was absolutely thrilled that his old pals in the Guess Who recorded one of his songs. It was the first cover of a Neil Young composition.
James
Cushing: “Flying on the Ground Is Wrong.” The tune is a
little tricked out. It sounds there like Neil Young is trying a little bit too
hard to show that he’s clever. And that’s the sort of mistake that young
writers make. That’s the mistake I made in my early poems was trying to get
attention to how smart I was.
Kirk Silsbee: “Flying On The Ground is Wrong" is one of the best post-Dylan songs of its time. In just three stanzas Neil brilliantly paints a picture of emotional disconnection and missed opportunity. Even though there's an inviting girl in front of him, nothing is quite right in his world. It’s very poignant and you can’t minimize Richie Furay’s contribution to the success of the recording. 'Burned' is also on the debut album. The quality and sheer volume of Neil's songs during his Springfield tenure is, if not overwhelming, extremely impressive.”
John
Hartmann:
In 1965 and ’66 I had been at The William Morris Agency and I would get people
on TV to sell music. Then Shindig!
came along and that was my show. And I
signed Jack Good to William Morris. When
I was standing in the wings watching the Rolling Stones perform on stage I
encountered Sony Bono and then signed Sony & Cher and signed them to
William Morris.
“Charlie
Greene called me up one day and mentioned he had ‘America’s answer to the
Beatles, Buffalo Springfield.’ Charlie Greene, Brian Stone, myself and Skip
Taylor then drove to San Diego to see the act. I was in after the first
song. Because when Skip and I had come
back from San Francisco we started a thing called Stampede. And we’ll break
Buffalo Springfield. It would have been the first Bonnaroo Music and Arts
Festival. It didn’t happen. I booked Buffalo on The Hollywood Palace television show.”
Dickie Davis: When Buffalo did The
Hollywood Palace Neil was great, by the way. He came down there with that
mean look on his face and stole it. I got to play with Neil on the show when he
was doing his greatest solo. My back to the camera. Bruce wasn’t available and
I sat in. Bruce never looked at the camera. You would say, ‘Bruce you gotta
turn around and smile.’ And that would piss him off and he would just face his
amplifier. A phenomenal bassist.
“I thought
Neil was a poet who can write pop songs. So was Dylan and Paul Simon. I was a
poet myself. It was like a country song that had just grown a little. And Neil
did his own stuff like ‘Burned.. And nobody wanted Neil to sing. When I started
hearing all his material I started to realize I might have it wrong. That I had
seen a band, a group, and the focus. I wanted the band to succeed as a band.
And I put all of my energy into that.
“Neil Young
understood wardrobe but everybody showed up in whatever they wanted to show up
in. I have a photo of Neil sitting on top of a trash can with his Indian garb
on like he was Indian scouting. What Neil liked about the fringe jacket was how
it went all crazy when he played guitar. He liked flailing fringe. And it was a
great visual image, you know. As far as band clothing, there was a
{charge}account at DeVoss which I believe the group paid for whoever bought
there.
“While we
were in San Francisco playing the Filmore West, I had to borrow 300 bucks from
my parents to keep us alive, feed the band and do laundry,
“We were in
San Francisco and playing shows at The Ark with Moby Grape. I’m back in town. The night before I’m
driving home and by Pandora’s Box I make a right on Crescent Hights to go on
Fountain and in the parking lot are maybe 40 school buses and a huge bunch of
L.A. sheriffs or cops or whatever in that parking lot. The police presence was
military. It was like really oppressive. And I wondered ‘what the fuck?’ It
hadn’t happened yet and I went home. Outside Pandora’s Box. Somebody jumped up
on a bus. They (the sheriffs) moved in. A lot of kids had been arrested
(earlier) for curfew (violation). You gotta remember on the strip the political
pressure on the Sheriff’s department in Hollywood was to get rid of these long
haired freaks. Stephen wrote the song ‘For What It’s Worth.’
“You know,
Neil had a run in with the cops on Sunset Boulevard in front of the Whisky. It
started with me. I had come down to put some money in my (parking) meter that
had expired. And I was literally running to put some money in the meter and the
cop pulled up right beside me. ‘Come here!’ ‘Give me one second.’ And I ran to
the meter to put the money in. They grabbed me, slammed me down on the hood of
the car, kicked my legs apart. I mean, I still have bruises. I think they were
gonna take me in for a traffic or parking violation or something. They were
rough for nothing. People went and told Neil after he drove up to the Whisky in
his Corvette. Buffalo Springfield were rehearsing at the Whisky. They came out
and they started saying things like, ‘let him go,’ or ‘where are you taking
him?’
“So they ran
a make on everybody and got Neil on a warrant. Parking tickets. They let me
go. So they took Neil in and mistreated
him badly at the West Hollywood Station. He had long hair in 1966. When I
picked Neil up after that Neil was a changed person in terms of confidence.
Neil was shaken to his core. He was frightened. Neil told me they said, ‘Let’s
go feed the animals.’ He was bruised while in there.
“‘Mr. Soul’
was written partially about that. I remember first hearing ‘Mr. Soul’ at a club
in Beverly Hills called The Daisy. We rehearsed there but don’t know if we
played there. Neil always had that growling guitar. And I had seen Neil’s anger
coming (in that song).
“He was noticeably
different after that. And I’m telling you, whenever we went anywhere Neil
didn’t want to be out on the street. He wanted to go in back doors. It took a
while. That shook Neil, I think. It shook me and a lot of us. If you went into
some places like Googie’s with long hair they wouldn’t let you in. The people
who were making money on the Sunset Strip did not want the hippies.
“The Buffalo
first stayed at the Hollywood Center Motel and then Neil had his apartment in
Hollywood at Commodore Gardens, later at his place in Laurel Canyon. 8451 Utica
Drive. Or he had people who would bring him to gigs. His friends Donna (Port)
and Vicki (Cavaleri).”
Peter
Lewis: Moby Grape played with Buffalo Springfield in November
1966 at The Ark, a dry docked ferry boat with a slanted dance floor in
Sausalito after they played the Fillmore.
Skip (Spence) our drummer and Bruce (Palmer) Buffalo Springfield’s
bassist were friends. Neil and Stephen went and talked to the guy who ran the
place. I saw him point to me. ‘We’re Neil Young and Stephen Stills and we’re in
the Buffalo Springfield. We’ve come to see Moby Grape. I guess you’re one of
the band members.’ ‘Yes.’ So they broke out their guitars. I think they were
Martins and I had a Guild D 225. The first thing I noticed was how good Stephen
Stills was right away. We spent three or four hours together and I was alone
with them for a while playing songs and listening to their songs. They had one
good song after another. The caliber of the tunes.
“Neil played
‘Mr. Soul’ but it was in a D tuning. Skippy used to do that. I asked Neil why
he did that in D. ‘Because it changes the scale shape on the bottom. Neil used
this D tuning on ‘Mr. Soul’ which allowed him to use this open chord, you know,
like the head stock nut instead of having to bar it. Right away I was struck
away by the way they would kind of alter the thing. Everybody was trying to
sound different in those days. Like, the Lovin’ Spoonful did not sound like the
Byrds. The rest of their band showed up and we played. And they were like,
‘Fuck!’ We just started trading sets at the Ark. Hanging together for a week or
so. Stephen went to military school and
so did I. We had a brotherly type of
thing, you know. If Stephen was trying to teach you a song and you didn’t know
a chord, ‘you stupid fucker!’ I remember him saying that to me. I knew music
theory. I learned it at school. But they don’t tell you how chord chemistry
works.
“The bands
were a lot alike. Three guitar lineup. There might have been a competitive
vibe. Where Stephen was really competitive. So if he sees you do something he
likes he’ll do it the next day better than you. So there was that. And Neil
struck me as a guy doing his own thing. He has that sense of self. From as much
as I know Neil, he has a sense of being unique that kind of separates him. Just
a pre-conception of himself. It’s not an ego thing. First of all, he has, or
had epilepsy. I saw him have a seizure one time in the control booth at a
recording studio. And they had to stick something in his mouth. And, Stephen’s
you know, ‘he’s just faking.’ (laughs). So, like in a way I identified with
him. Just being a movie star’s kid [Oscar-winning actress and television star,
Loretta Young] growing up you kind of get left by yourself. In a way, Neil
struck me like that.
“His ‘Mr.
Soul’ is not like ‘For What it’s Worth,’ a kind of gather the troops kind of
thing. ‘Mr. Soul’ is like what it means to be nuts. I was struck by that right
away. And his ability to sort of write a whole song in your head, have the
bridge and everything and all these chords. I was struck by the genius of his
tunes. “We played the Ark all the time every night.
We had that really good first record because we kept the songs that everybody
kind of dug a lot.”
“Buffalo Springfield had a kinetic thing. They
were like a family. Stephen and Neil were always kind of vying for position.
But that worked out. Richie was kind of between them with a high voice. He was
the one between the two other guys being the wings and Richie being the
fuselage of an airplane. The balance of things or trying to control.
“I think
after the Ark they changed their style. They were doing more like a kind of
sing and songy deal. I don’t think Neil was affected by it in a way. {bassist}
Bob Mosely was the guy {in Moby Grape} they were stunned by, you know. They
wanted to get him out of Moby Grape and into Buffalo Springfield. They had him
come down and audition. Bob’s story was
of course, they didn’t want some guy singing and doing his own songs.
They just wanted what Bob could do on his instrument.”
The Stephen
Stills’ composition “For What It’s Worth” was partially influenced or at least
informed by two tunes in Moby Grape’s live repertoire. Jerry Miller and Don
Stevenson’s “Murder In My Heart For The Judge,” (both utilizing the exact
E-Major/A-major, folk-soul chord progression with a shuffle beat), and an
unreleased Lewis offering, “Stop” (Stop!, listen to the music’).
Peter
Lewis: Buffalo Springfield did hear us play ‘Stop!’ and
‘Murder In My Heart’ at the Ark, Later
after they came back to San Francisco and played the Avalon Ballroom, Stephen
said to me, ‘You know, we just recorded this song (‘For What It’s Worth’) and
after it was done, you know, I flashed on where it came from.’ I said, ‘who
cares? ‘It was cool. There was nothing to get into litigation about, man.
“We lived in
Mill Valley. I had a great time with Neil and Stephen in Mosley’s apartment
playing each other songs. Bob wasn’t married and you could go over to his
place. Somebody had some pot. It wasn’t very good in those days. All bunk. Like
powder.
“There was a
point where they took us to meet (Ahmet) Ertegun down in L.A. It was like
sitting down, cross-legged on the floor, and Ahmet smoked a joint and passed it
around. What Neil and Stephen we’re trying to say, and I kind of knew this
about show business, you better be able to call the guy that owns the company
and get a call back.’ Columbia is not like that. Buffalo Springfield really
wanted us to make it. That’s what I remember. We signed with Columbia.”
The group spent the first half of 1967
making Buffalo Springfield Again, which was the first album to
feature songs written by Furay ("A Child's Claim To Fame.") Stills
and Young both contributed some classics with "Bluebird" and
"Rock And Roll Woman" from Stills, and "Mr. Soul" and Young’s
"Expecting To Fly."
In 2014, I interviewed legendary record
producer and manager, Denny Bruce. Portions later were published in my book Neil Young: Heart of Gold.
Denny
Bruce: In 1966 I first met Neil
when he was living in an apartment at the Commodore Gardens in Hollywood. I saw
Buffalo Springfield play all the local clubs. The Whisky, Gazzarri’s and
smaller places. After performing Neil would go to his apartment still wide
awake and write songs. Neil
and I had a casual friendship and he was a true fan of music. Neil was always
interested in my opinion about all matters of things pop.
“One night at the Greene and Stone office
I was talking to Neil. Because he basically is a shy person, I introduced Neil
to Jack Nitzsche. Neil also indicated to
us that he wanted to create a musical and lyrical mix of the Rolling Stones and
Dylan.
“In 1967, Neil and the band left Gold Star
to do Buffalo Springfield Again. And
Neil finally saying, ‘I’m gonna use some other players.’ I did attend one of
the marathon session dates for ‘Expecting to Fly.’ Jim Gordon on drums and Don
Randi on keyboards. All good players who Jack picked. He said to Neil, ‘This is
gonna be a good solo deal. Not a Buffalo Springfield record.’ And Neil said,
‘Good. I don’t see them on this record.’ I said, ‘Not even Dewey?’ And Neil
shrieked ‘No!’
“Jack really believed in Neil’s music. And
Jack knew Neil would eventually become a solo star. He knew he wasn’t meant to
be in a band.”
Don
Randi (Keyboardist): Jack Nitzsche called me to play keyboard on
some dates in 1967 at Sunset Sound. I picked out the piano for the studio. A guy who had a store on Beverly Blvd. When I
walked into Sunset Sound I didn’t realize it was for Buffalo Springfield. I thought it was for a Neil Young (solo)
album, ‘cause that is what he was supposed to be breaking away from and going
on his own. Hal Blaine and Jim Horn are on the track. I played piano and organ.
When Jack and Neil asked me to play on the end part of ‘Broken Arrow’ they were
both waiving me on to keep playing. I kept lookin’ up at them, ‘are you ever
gonna tell me to stop?’
“Let me tell
you something. Jack really enjoyed working with Neil. This goes as well to
‘Expecting to Fly.’ Russ Titelman, Carole Kaye and Jim Gordon are on it. Piano and harpsichord. I had some little head
chart arrangement to work from and another of the tunes might have been
sketched. It was pretty wide open with the chord changes. And all you had to do
was hear Neil sing it down with an acoustic guitar and you sat there, ‘Oh my
goodness.’ He was so talented. And Jack enjoyed Neil and to be with him because
Neil was so talented. Jack and Neil were a team and had a mutual admiration
society. And they liked each other and recording with them was easy. Neil wrote
cinematically and Jack arranged his own records cinematically. He did movie
scores as early as 1965.
“But Neil
took it a step further with his lyrics. I was real busy with session work in
those days. In one week I did 26 sessions. I’m on Love’s Forever Changes and Neil was around a bit on that album. (Red
Telephone?). Jack and Neil were tight. 1967, ’68.
“Jack and I
never judged artists by their voices. To me it didn’t matter ‘cause I loved the
music so much. And Neil was able to sell it. There are some people you can’t
stand them on record until you see them live. And once you see them live you
can understand their records. That doesn’t happen a lot. But it does happen.
“And you
gotta remember, by 1967 some of the recording studios in town, like Columbia
and Sunset Sound now had 8-track tape machines. When it happened I welcomed it
but all I thought at that point, ‘well the studios are gonna get rich now.’
Because nobody is gonna know how to mix this stuff. And when they mix it
they’re gonna have to come down to mono because nobody has got stereos to play
it on. And guys like Jack and Neil with 8-track now had more options and tracks
to fill. But what makes me wonder how did Brian (Wilson) do it on 4-track?
(laughs).
“Brian
learned how the game was played. Neil knew it earlier. And I would love to have
said how big Neil was gonna get. I don’t think he realized it. But I loved
Neil’s music. Goodness gracious. This guy’s writing…I thought everybody and
their mother was gonna try and start doing his songs. I knew he was a
songwriter. Some of the tunes were movies. They were scripts. To me, Neil was
like another (Bob) Dylan. That’s what he reminded me of. He could do Dylan but
I think he did Dylan his way. It was Neil Young. It wasn’t Bob Dylan.
“Look, I’ve
been on dates with Elvis (Presley) and (Frank) Sinatra. Guys who would arrive
with an entourage. Neil would show up by himself. You have to realize that as
great as a musician and as great as a songwriter he is, Neil would also realize
talent himself. He realized a sound that he liked from a guitar. Neil knew that
the only way to get it was to have that guitar. You’re not gonna get that off a
Tele (Telecaster). You’re not gonna get it off something else. Neil was smart
enough, and most of the good writers and players, if they didn’t have the
acoustic guitar they went to that kind of guitar. Neil liked to experiment. And
he would say, ‘Oh my goodness. Why don’t I do that?’ And he had the wherewithal
and had the time. He had the time to take his time. ‘Wow. That’s a real nice
sound. I like this. I don’t like that.’
“Neil was
smart enough to know what he wanted and knew how to get it. And, Neil had Ahmet
Ertegun in his corner. I think, and we discussed this before, Ahmet had some of
the music publishing. Ahmet encouraged the guys in Buffalo Springfield to write
and do demos at Gold Star. I lived at Gold Star throughout the entire sixties.
Ahmet and Nesuhi were two of the smartest people in the record business. They
almost signed me to Atlantic.
“I opened
the Baked Potato (jazz nightclub) in Studio City on November 17, 1970. We’re
still open. Neil came opening night and would later in the seventies or
eighties would come to the club. I think he was sweet on one of the waitresses.
You gotta remember: In our hallway and on the walls, opposite the men and
women’s bathroom were the answering service phones for all the musicians ‘cause
they were there all the time. They could call Arlyn’s or Your Girl for messages
and get their dates. And everyone hung out there at the beginning.
“Neil once
had an idea and he called me on the telephone. ‘I got an idea. I’m tired of the
band.’ I said ‘Bullshit. You’re tired of the band.’ ‘No. It’s just gonna be me
and you.’ And I said, ‘You’re kidding! Great idea. Let’s do it.’ That was the
last time I heard that. (laughs).”
Henry
Diltz: For their Buffalo
Springfield Again back cover, Stephen called me one day and said, ‘Hey. I’d
like you to write out this list of names that inspired us in your calligraphy
handwriting. People we want to thank.’
I’m in there as Tad Diltz, my old name.”
Kirk
Silsbee: And the album that has an Eve Babitz collage on the
front cover and Diltz’s lettering on the back cover. I like the fact that the
art director at Atlantic had the sense to step back and put his hands up. ‘No.
This is a west coast product. It’s not going to look like every other Atco
album with the second-hand Milton Glasser illustrations. No. we’re gonna do
something different.’”
November saw the release of Buffalo Springfield Again, a defining
moment in L.A. music history; like Brian Wilson before them, the Springfield meshed
song craft with new recording techniques, elevating the music to a rarefied
state of eloquence.
Daniel
Weizmann (Author): Sweet, lilting, and
hypnotic, ‘Rock and Roll Woman’ by Stephen Stills was based on a jam session he
had with Byrd-man David Crosby. Rumor has it that it's an ode to Jefferson
Airplane's Grace Slick. True or not, the character he portrays was ultra-fresh
in '67--a free-spirited woman that is not a fan or a muse. She herself has total rock and roll
agency.
“For my money, ‘Mr. Soul’ is about
Dylan--whether or not Neil Young intended it that way. Young wrote it in five
minutes at the UCLA Medical Center where he was recovering from a bad epilepsy
episode. The dark clown / icon on a bad trip death wish, lost in the hall of
mirrors that is fame channels the Man Behind the Shades, and delivers a tragic
flipside to the bright comedy of the Byrds' ‘So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll
Star.’ All over the "Satisfaction" riff turned inside-out no less.
“But both ‘Rock and Roll Woman’ and ‘Mr.
Soul’ illustrate how Buffalo Springfield rep a new self-conscious
sophistication, a kind of ‘meta-rock’ energy never before seen.
“Earlier L.A. bands like the Byrds, Love,
and the Standells exposed their secret innocence with every move--even when
they were mugging blue-steel looks for the camera, Stones-style. Some of those
bands contained members that looked like they'd wandered in straight from the
local soda fountain. Even the Doors seem like a happy accident of youth at
times, pink-cheeked college kids jamming jazz on summer break.
“Buffalo Springfield on the other hand
came out of the box seasoned, almost a pre-super group. Many
members had been around the block, had flopped out at Monkees auditions and
paid bar band dues. They enlisted Sonny & Cher's management team and could
pull off a full-force live show. Who else could play a complex jam like
"Bluebird"--a pop-soul-folk blowout with acid rock frenzy, Gabor
Szabo-style meanderings, and dense harmonies, all cascading into an Appalachian
banjo denouement? They were almost like the last soldiers standing on the
Sunset Strip, and their composure was ahead
of its time, the birth of rustic rock royalty.”
Mark
Guerrero: “Blue Bird”- a great rocker with folk
overtones that features a fantastic vocal and acoustic guitar solo by Stills
and rocking electric guitar solos by Neil and Stephen. When played live they would extend the song
with longer solos and rock the house.
‘Hung Upside Down’- a great song about being down and confused that
features Richie Furay singing the slow verses with his incredibly smooth and
clean voice and Stills coming in on the choruses at his rocking best. Here were two of the best singers going in
rock in their primes singing lead on the same track.
“‘Rock and
Roll Woman’ shows Stills at his best as a singer and songwriter. It features a repeating acoustic double stop
guitar lick that’s joined by a three-part vocal harmony doing the same figure
that becomes the background to Stills’ edgy lead vocal. It’s a one of a kind song that also has great
instrumental sections that typify the Buffalo Springfield’s unique style.
“I saw a
riveting live performance of ‘Rock and Roll Woman’ at Cal State Los Angeles in
1967. It was a show stopper. During this
period, I had a band called The Men from S.O.U.N.D who was very popular in East
Los Angeles. We regularly played ‘Mr.
Soul,’ ‘Rock and Roll Woman,’ ‘Hung Upside Down,’ and ‘Bluebird,’ which we
would extend to 20 minutes or a half an hour at times. We absolutely loved doing these songs.”
Kirk Silsbee: There was nothing
like ‘Expecting to Fly' at the time, even within the Beatles' canon. It’s
rubato, without a set tempo. We hadn't heard anything like this in a pop
context. Neil had an odd voice, and though we'd heard him sing, this tune
brought out a ghostly side of him with that floating/spacey intimate as
material.”
“‘Broken Arrow' was Neil’s SMiLE. The
self-referential obsession found in ‘Broken Arrow’ wasn't something
we were used to hearing from these musicians--not just the Springfield but all
of the musicians in the genre who were laying themselves open to examination.
Dylan talked about other people and he crawled up their asses with
microscopes. But he didn’t talk about himself. Then Neil Young
laid himself open, rolled up his sleeves, showed his tracks marks the way Miles
Davis did on ‘It Never Entered My Mind.’ Neil wasn't afraid to show himself
as vulnerable, or scared on Jack Nitzsche's sonic highway. But
the orchestration has Nitzsche responding to the words and the spare
chords that Neil gave him.”
Little
Steven Van Zandt: I saw Buffalo Springfield [November
1967] at a college here [in New York] with the Youngbloods and the Soul
Survivors. It was a great show.”
During spring 1968, Buffalo Springfield were
trapped in what looked to be a scene right out of the 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone Rod Sterling and team
had written. Five Characters in Search of
an Exit, based on a theme from a Luigi Pirandello play, Six Characters in Search of an Author
and Jean- Paul Sarte’s No Exit.
Dickie
Davis: Going on tour with the Buffalo was getting together.
By that time we hardly spoke to each other while we were in town. When we were
on the road everybody started playing together and going to each other’s rooms
and working on songs and being friends again. And we tightened up. One of the
reasons I think that Neil left the band at one point was because he didn’t want
to go back on tour to get tight with them again. Because if that happened in
town we drifted apart. On tour we became friends again.”
And on May 5,
1968, Buffalo Springfield voluntarily fled from their stage stable and became a
mythical fable.
James Cushing: As far as Buffalo Springfield breaking up after
the last show in Long Beach California, I was so into their music I was into
denial they had broken up. Or I figured it was just a temporary re-arrangement.
They were all alive and still living in town. I wasn’t sitting shiva for
Buffalo Springfield. I was waiting for some local deejay one late night to
announce their reformation.”
“The Buffalo
Springfield just sort of snuck UP on everybody,” summarized drummer/writer Paul
Body in a 2018 email. “From ’66 until they shattered like glass, they were
everywhere or seemed to be.
“Saw them
open for the Stones in the Summer of ’66. All fringe and cowboy hats. I seem to
remember them doing ‘Nowadays, Clancy Can’t Even Sing.’ Saw them at the Whisky
with the Daily Flash opening for them. They were just part of that magic
Summer. By the time ’67 rolled around the first album was out and then there
was that little riot on the Sunset Strip that the Springfield immortalized in
‘For What It’s Worth.’ Saw them at the Monterey International Pop Festival and
they were pretty good. The long version of ‘Bluebird’ was played all Summer.
For some reason that version wasn't put on the album.
“It was a
great look into the future, a future that never came because by ’68, there was
a drug bust and they went their separate ways. For about 2 years, there was a
Buffalo Springfield Stampede and then the flame was gone. For two years they
were as good as it got to be.”
On July 30, 1968, Last Time Around, a posthumous album by Buffalo
Springfield that was recorded February-May of ’68, materialized. When Last Time
Around came out in July 1968, the band members were in the midst of
transitioning to new projects: Stills famously joined David Crosby and Graham
Nash in CSN; Young went solo; and Furay started Poco with Jim Messina, who
produced Last Time Around and played bass on two of the songs.
Richie Furay: And
always remember Bruce Palmer’s bass playing. What an interesting melodic bass
player. Only played the notes he had to play.
Dewey Martin our drummer. I got
him ‘Good Time Boy’ so he wouldn’t have to do ‘Midnight Hour.’”
Pete
Johnson in The Los Angeles Times
praised the platter: “Within the Springfield were three of the best pop
songwriters, singers, and guitarists to be found in any American rock group. I
have never seen a group use three guitars as tastefully as they do, weaving a
finely detailed fabric whose pattern never blurred from overlapping.”
“In the short three year
life span of the Buffalo Springfield, Last Time Around was
their last piece of original work--their swan song as the title so-implies,”
offered Gene Aguilera, East L.A. music historian and author (Latino Boxing
in Southern California and Mexican American Boxing in Los
Angeles).
“Well-known for their ego battles, subtle
clues in the LP's art work gives a glimpse into their break-up. A
pronounced crack on the front cover separates Neil Young from the rest of the
group; though on this final LP, Neil penned two of his finest
works: ‘I Am a Child’ and
the opener ‘On The Way Home.’
The back cover further shows the group's fragile state, as individual band
member photos are cut-out to form a fractured montage; and a snippet of a Los Angeles Times article on the
Springfield's Topanga Canyon drug bust delivers the band's final eulogy.
“By the time of the album's release,
original bass player Bruce Palmer was gone; enter Jim Messina (formerly of surf
band Jim Messina & His Jesters; later of Poco) to serve as Buffalo
Springfield's producer, recording engineer, and bass player. Adding
to the wounds, a bizarre contest by local radio station KHJ-AM for listeners to
submit their poetry to be used as lyrics for a new Springfield song became the
opening track of side two, ‘The
Hour of Not Quite Rain.’
“All was not lost in the delivery though, as the Springfield broke up
releasing their most beautiful and compelling album yet (containing such gems
as ‘Kind Woman,’ ‘On The Way
Home,’ ‘Pretty Girl Why’); at the same time curtailing Richie
Furay's rise as a writer, singer, and performer within the band.
“Soon
after, my hair was getting good in the back as I walked the streets of East
L.A. wearing thrift store plaid cowboy shirts in a living testament to one of
my favorite albums and groups.”
Richie
Furay: Everything happened so fast. We were young. We were
new. When we did a six week house band stint at The Whisky we thought we had no
competition. It’s pretty incredible, isn’t it? Five young guys who brought five
different elements together. When we put out stuff together, it was like
‘here’s what I want to contribute to your song, Stephen and Neil.’ We took elements of folk, blues, and country
and we established our own sound. We were pioneers, and I see that.
“As far as
Buffalo Springfield’s catalog, why it still reaches people, I guess it has to
be the songs. Buffalo Springfield was very eclectic. I mean, we reached into so
many genres. Look, the original five
members of Buffalo Springfield couldn’t be replaced. There were nine people out of the Springfield
in two years. Jimmy Messina came in late in the game and did a fine job. I
worked with him on Last Time Around.
“I think
we’re one of the most popular, mysterious American bands. The mystique has
lasted for some reason. Two years, a
monster anthem hit of the ‘60s, but no one really knew us. Neil has gone on to
become an icon, Stephen has made enormous contributions, CS&N, and look at
me into Poco, which I believe opened the doors for the contemporary country
rock sound. Our legacy speaks for itself.”
Stampede by Buffalo Springfield
(Courtesy of Rodney Bingenheimer)
"Neil Young: Heart of Gold" by Harvey Kubernik
Thrasher's Wheat just recently published two highly popular articles by Harvey Kubernik:
Harvey Kubernik is the author of 19 books, including Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon and Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972. Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. For 2021 they are writing a multi-narrative book on Jimi Hendrix for the same publisher.
Otherworld Cottage Industries in July 2020 has just published Harvey’s 508-page book, Docs That Rock, Music That Matters, featuring Kubernik interviews with D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles, Murray Lerner, Morgan Neville, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Andrew Loog Oldham, John Ridley, Curtis Hanson, Dick Clark, Travis Pike, Allan Arkush, and David Leaf, among others.
In 1966 and ’67 Harvey Kubernik saw Buffalo Springfield in two of their Southern California concerts and attended debut Neil Young solo concerts in the region.
UK-based Palazzo Editions arranged Harvey’s music and recording study, an illustrated history book, Neil Young, Heart of Gold published in 2015, by Hal Leonard (US), Omnibus Press (UK), Monte Publishing (Canada), and Hardie Grant (Australia), coinciding with Young’s 70th birthday. A German edition was published in 2016.
In 2020 Harvey served as Consultant on Laurel Canyon: A Place In Time documentary directed by Alison Ellwood which debuted om May 2020 on the EPIX/MGM television channel. It was just nominated for Three Emmy nominations.
Harvey served as Consulting Producer on the 2010 singer-songwriter documentary, Troubadours directed by Morgan Neville. The film screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in the documentary category. PBS-TV broadcast the movie in their American Masters series.
Harvey Kubernik, Henry Diltz and Gary Strobl collaborated with ABC-TV in 2013 for their Emmy-winning one hour Eye on L.A. Legends of Laurel Canyon hosted by Tina Malave.
Kubernik’s writings are in several book anthologies, most notably The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats and Drinking With Bukowski. He was the project coordinator of the recording set The Jack Kerouac Collection.
Kubernik has just penned a back cover book jacket endorsement for author Michael Posner’s book on Leonard Cohen that Simon & Schuster, Canada, will be publishing this fall 2020, Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: The Early Years).
Deja Vu Photo Composites
via Susan Miller
Interview w/ Author Harvey Kubernik on Neil Young Turns 70
Labels: album, buffalo springfield, review
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