At the end of a grueling solo tour of the U.S. to promote is second solo album, Stephen Stills of Crosby, you-know-who and Nash met up with Byrds alumnus and Flying Burrito Brothers member Chris Hillman in Cleveland, where the Burritos were also playing. Stills and Hillman got to talking, and seeing that they needed some musical direction in their lives, agreed to work together. A week later , Stiulls called Hillman. "Met me in Miami," he told him.

At Criteria Studios in Miami, Hillman arrived with two fellow Burritos, steel guitarist Al Perkins and fiddler Byron Berline. Retained from the Stills tour were drummer Dalls Taylor, keyboardist Paul Harris, and bassist Fuzzy Samuels, along with former Blues Image percussionist/signer Joe Lala. Stills had been visualizing a concept album that would bring together every conceivable form of popular music.

Right from the start, the chemistry was electric. Stills and Hillman realized that they had assembled a potent band, and they set about recording what became a double album. The band could have easily been called "Stillman," but that sounded like a Brooklyn gym ( :lol: ), so they needed another name. While on a "dry run" tour and passing through Virginia, near the Civil War battlefield at Bull Run, they found the perfect name from the nearby town that gave the two battles of Bull Run their Southern name. . . .

MANASSAS!

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002J6F.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

The debut album of Stills and Hillman's band was released on April 12, 1972. As you can see, Stephen Stills is the only one credited twice on the album. It's appropriate - Stills was the driving force behind this septet. This could be the greatest album ever put out by anyone from Crosby, Stills and Nash outside the group itself. :)

The album was divided into four distinct parts, one part per side: "The Raven," side one, a freewheeling suite of rock songs with Latin and blues influences; "The Wilderness," side two, which was pure country and bluegrass; "Consider," side three, dominated by pensive folk-rock tunes; and side four, "Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay," which says it all.

So let's begin with a song-by-song analysis! :)

"Song Of Love" - The opening cut is a strong, intense blues-rock number with some delicious guitar solos and some punchy Latin percussion. Stills's voice is in fine form, and the rest of the band play with enough grit to offset the studio polish.

"Medley: Rock and Roll Crazies / Cuban Bluegrass" - Not missing a beat, the Manassas album segues straight into the second song. Side one was designed as a consistent song cycle, with no gaps between the songs. The "Rock and Roll Crazies / Cuban Bluegrass" medley, released as a single, delivers sharp guitar lines and Stills's satirical lyrics about getting hung up on rock stardom in the first part. Going along at a moderate tempo, a biting guitar riff kicks the track into a faster pace and initiates a bluegrass-based rock melody with a Latin vibe - "Cuban bluegrass." Stills ends the cut with a Spanish language-verse, then abruptly segues into. . .

"Jet Set (Sigh)" - Unlike the other "Raven" songs, "Jet Set (Sigh)" is a slow, smoky blues number, heavy on slide guitar and peppered with harmonica. This was one of the first songs Stills and Hillman cut together, and it worked out well enough to give the whole concept of the album a life of its own.

The tempo picks up at the end of "Jet Set (Sigh)" with a slight Latin hustle at the end, at which point it segues into. . . .

"Anyway" - This is a crunchy rocker, with the full band anchored firmly by Fuzzy Samuels's bass and Dallas Taylor's subtle but steady drums, with Joe Lala's percussion thrown in for good measure. Stills shares lead vocals with Lala about the need to go after a desired woman without rregard to the consequences: "I'm gonna try again, don't matter if I win or lose; gonna try again anyway." Dig it. Stills's sharpest guitar riffs on this record can be found right here.

"Both Of Us (Bound To Lose)" - The band slides into a lilting, romantic melody kicked into gear by Dallas Taylor's efficient drums as Hillman and Stills share lead vocals. The lyrics plead for a woman to notice the narrator and acknowledge his feelings for her. Essentailly a country-rock song, Stills throws in some angular blues guitar riffs. After an abbrievated harmony verse, Manassas suddenly swings into a funky Latin hustle jam, with more sharp guitar riffs. :banana: :mango :guitar: Stills, Hillman, and Talyor lead the group to a heavy raveup at the end, slamming the song - and side one - shut.

Manassas would play the entire "Raven" suite from start to finish in concert. The band was so well-rehearsed, they could even play the edits in the record live!

Engineers Ron and Howard Albert, who worked on the first Manassas album, consider it one of the two greatest rock albums of the seventies, the other being Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos. And the Albert brothers ought to know - they worked on both of them! :D

Manassas peaked at number four on the Billboard charts.

A picture of Stephen Stills from the Manassas days, on the July 1972 cover of Circus.

http://www.suitelorraine.com/suitelorraine/Media/sscovercircus.jpg

As the name of side two implies, "The Wilderness" is a set of country-rock songs; in fact they're more country than rock. This is the most consistently themed of the four sides of the first Manassas album, as some of the songs on the other sides don't fit their respective concepts so neatly. As fate would have it, 1972 was the year country-rock broke through commercially; it was the year the Pure Prairie League scored a hit single with "Amie," and Neil Young released Harvest, which produced the chart-topping single "Heart Of Gold." Also, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band released the epic triple album Will The Circle Be Unbroken in 1972, and it was also the year of debut albums from the Eagles and Jackson Browne (not to mention America, so we won't!).

The downside of the commercial breakthrough of country-rock - which had been around for awhile by 1972 - was that it led to the soft, mellow, homogenized, whitebread LA pop-rock of the mid-seventies, which was one of the many reasons punk had to happen. Stephen Stills and Chris Hillman, by contrast, keep their country-rock pure and unadulterated on this record, producing some marvellous tunes.

So here we go:

"Fallen Eagle" - The first time I heard this song, I thought it was about a Vietnam draft dodger because of the closing lyric - "Fly on up to Canada, this country isn't safe anymore - that's for sure." Actually, it's about western Americans who were repsonsible for the bald eagle's near extinction - hunters shooting eagles for sport, sheep ranchers shooting them to keep them away from their lambs - and their disrespect for the national bird. It's an environmentalist song written before cliched, just-add-water environmental protest songs became fashionable.

Oh yeah, the music. It's a fast bluegrass song dominated by Byron Berline's fast fiddle playing, demonstrating why country used to called country and western. Stills and Hillman harmonize and try to keep up - vocally and instrumentally) with Berline, who's clearly leading on this track. They hold on to the end.

"Jesus Gave Love Away For Free" - Okay, never mind the redundant title. The truth is, this is one of the loveliest songs on the album. It's a slow waltz, with elliptical harmonic vocals and simple, plaintive lyrics about the need for people to "be trusted and loved by one only." The steel guitar alone makes this song a keeper. :)

"Colorado" - This paean to Stills's adopted home state is full of rich, treble-heavy guitars and lovely backing harmonies. A delicious pedal steel guitar solo in the middle eight adds to the confection. Stills movingly sings about the need for a woman who will love his home as much as she loves him, romanticizing Colorado's pine trees and tall mountains. It's a better tribute to the Centennial State than John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High," but Denver's song is the one everyone remembers. "Colorado" could have been a hit single if Stills had released it as such.

"So Begins The Task" - This tune sounds like a forgotten Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song, which it actually is. Stills wrote it immediately after he composed "Helplessly Hoping ," which appeared on the 1969 CSN debut record, and although CSNY played "So Begins The Task" a few times in concert, they never recorded it. It has a chord progression similar to "Helplessly Hoping," with a light drum shuffle and a fine pedal steel line from the great Al Perkins.

Oh yes, the words. We'll let Stills explain "So Begins The Task": "I thought of this song as a poem. . . . It's a song of loss but also the freedom that goes with loss. It was conceived of as an acoustic song." Lyrically, it's superior to "Helplessly Hoping," although I'll always have a soft spot for that CSN tune for its alliterations. :)

"Hide It So Deep" - Here, ladies and gents, is a song that encapsulates every stereotype of every country ballad cliche ever conjured up - an extremely relaxed rhythm, a mournful fiddle line, Floyd Cramer-type piano passages, and lyrics about a good love gone bad. Not a bad song, mind you, but not a great one. Had David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash recorded an album together in 1972, this Stills song most likely wouldn't have made the final cut. In fact, it probably wouldn't have made the final cut of the first Manassas album had Stills and Chris Hillman elected to make it a single disc instead of a double set. It's still interesting, of only to show the magnitude of Stills's talents. He could (and can) pretty much do anything. :)

"Don't Look At My Shadow" - Now here's a country-rock tune that cooks! A pure honky-tonk number, "Don't Look At My Shadow" features some fine guitar pickin,' shuffling drums, and down-home fiddle. Stills offers up semi-autobiographical lyrics about a journeyman musician who makes it from the coffeehouses of New York and the roadhouses of the Deep South to playing the L.A. Forum and becoming a big star, only to escape to the Colorado Rockies which "saved my senses" because "California dreamin' never brought me down for good." It's a fun number, with some fine harmonies and an infectious melody. Stills vows he's "got some more to go," though, irnoically, "The Wilderness," a.k.a. side two, closes with this song.

manassas is pretty much one of the most boring town ever...but the holiday inn is nice there lol

the whole time we were there me and my mom were calling it "Man asses" :lol:

manassas is pretty much one of the most boring town ever...but the holiday inn is nice there lol

the whole time we were there me and my mom were calling it "Man asses" :lol:

Er. . .yeah. . . .

When Manassas played Paris, singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson, the French Joni Mitchell, caught their concert and, accordign to Stephen Stills, fell in love with him when she heard his banjo playing. They married in April 1973. (They divorced in 1976.)

A young guitarist from Veronique Sanson's band in Paris, Donnie Dacus (pronounced dah-KOO, most likely), joined Stephen Stills's solo backup band after Manassas disbanded in 1974. Dacus was Stills's right-hand man on his first two Columbia solo albums, 1975's Stills and 1976's Illegal Stills; he later replaced Terry Kath in Chicago.

Stills almost went broke as the leader of Manassas because he paid Chris Hillman and the rest more than he should have when the group toured, and he was also covering all the overhead. :eek:

Here's a poster advertising Manassas's November 8, 1972, concert at Stanford University!

http://www.suitelorraine.com/suitelorraine/Media/manassasposter.jpg

Side three, as its title suggested, is donminated by pensive, more philospohical songs. Not entirely, though, as it closed with "The Love Gangster," a frankly sensous rocker - and I'll have more on that later. Not every song here is a masterpiece - one of them, "Bound To Fall," wasn't even written by anyone in the group - but there are still some pleasant surprises here. This side coheres more than you might expect it to, and it displays a sensitive side to Stephen Stills's vocal lacking on his early solo records and even on most early CSN cuts.

So here we go:

"It Doesn't Matter" - The opening song on side three captures the sound of the Buffalo Springfield incredibly well. Perhaps too well; it seems almost anachronistic for 1972, a year that saw David Bowie break out in a big way and Steely Dan release its debut album. Heck, even by the country-rock standards of the time, it sounds dated. But so what? "It Doesn't Matter," written by Stills with Chris Hillman and Flying Burrito Brothers alumnus Rick Roberts, features a consistent, steady tempo and clever lyrics about fantasizing how a reality could be better. The song concludes with suggestions on how to improve real life, yet follows with the lamentation that "it doesn't matter, it's nothing but dreaming anyhow."

Released as a single, "It Doesn't Matter" peaked at number 61 on the Billboard charts.

"Johnny's Garden" - This charming, country-folk shuffle, dominated by acoustic guitars and light percussion, is Stills's salute to the joys of horticulture. Specifically, it was written about the garden at Stills's estate in Elston, England where he lived in the early seventies, and John, his gardener. "He had soul," Stills recalled. "He was an herbalist, and he used to make these incredible herbal teas." Stills wrote the song at a time when he was constantly touring, when what he wanted to do most was stay home and enjoy his garden. The lyrics are rife with images of flowers, birds flying down to grub for food, and the overall pastoralism of such a scene. Although there are fine songs on the rest of this album from here on, "Johnny's Garden" is perhaps the best song on the first Manassas album. :)

"Bound To Fall" - This song has an interesting history. It weas composed by two earnest folkies named Tom Mastin and Mike Brewer in the sixties and given to the Byrds as a possible track for their album The Notorious Byrd Brothers. The Byrds did record an instrumental version of the song for that album, but it was shelved. During the Manassas sessions in Miami, Chris Hillman suggested that the band cover the song, and Stephen Stills happily agreed. Mike Brewer, by the way, had already had success as a performer; he teamed up with a fellow named Tom Shipley, and as Brewer and Shipley, they had a hit with the Grateful Dead-like song "One Toke Over the Line" in 1971.

Oh yeah, "Bound To Fall." It's not a bad song, really. Dominated by brittle acoustic guitars, the song's lyrically expresses frustration at life spinning out of control and a desire to set things right. The harmony vocals from Stills and Hillman are first-rate. At the end of the song, Stills and Hillman sing with resignation, "Possibly I've died." The word "died," sung a cappella, is given echo to give the word dramatic effect and and equally stirring conclusion.

Brewer and Shipley did their own version of this song in 1974.

"How Far" - This is an earnest light-rock song about needing someone and being ready to run to them to help them. Stills ruminates about a woman he can't get off his mind, and how he always wants to be with her when she needs him. The music is mostly acoustic guitars with punchy percussion at the end of each verse, augmented by a scratchy electirc guitar riff reminiscent of early Fairport Convnetion. (And if you need to ask who Fairtport Convention are, you've probably wandered into the wrong thread.)

The lyrics revolve around the refrain of "If you get lonely / All you gotta do is call me / And I'll come on the run /To wherever you are / No matter how far." Stills makes it car he'd rather be with the one he loves than love the one he's with this time. ;)

"Move Around" - A song about trying to stand your ground in a world of constant motion, Stills combines Byrds-like guitar with a moody synthesizer in the background, programmed to create a pensive, dreamy effect. Synthesizers were novelties in the early seventies, and they relied more on basic electricity than microchips; it took forever to program them. Stills uses it here with great subtlety; he doesn't allow it to dominate the track the way many artists would in the future. :)

"The Love Gangster" - Side three closes with a smoldering blues rocker with a tough Stills vocal and some stinging guitar riffs. If it sounds like like a blues-based song the Rolling Stones would do, well guess what - then-Stones bassist Bill Wyman wrote the song with Stills, and he plays bass, with his trademark caressing notes, on this track. It doesn't really belong on side three of this LP, a side of introspective songs, any more than "Mother Nature's Son," a light Beatles number, belongs on the hard-rocking side three of the White Album. "The Love Gangster" isn't too overamplified, though, and it brings side three to a definitive conclusion.

Bill Wyman actually wanted to quit the Rolling Stones and join Manassas, but he didn't. . . because Stephen Stills and Chris Hillman never asked him! He told Manassas drummer Dallas Taylor himself. Said Stills later, "I nearly jumped off a bridge when I heard this." (Imagine how different rock history might have been if Stills and Hillman had asked Wyman to join!)

David Crosby and Graham Nash were hardly idle at this time. On April 5, 1972, a week before the first Manassas album was issued, Crosby and Nash put out their first duo album, which was simply titled Graham Nash / David Crosby. Like the first Manassas LP, this Crosby-Nash record came out on Atlantic.

http://www.redskybooks.net/rsb455/images/items/002616.jpg

Manassas, 1973, from a songbook for their second album. From left: Stpehen Stills (in hat), Dallas Taylor, Fuzzy Smauels, Chris Hillman, Al Perkins, Paul Harris, Joe Lala.

"Colorado" - ["Colorado" is] a better tribute to the Centennial State than John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High," but Denver's song is the one everyone remembers. "Colorado" could have been a hit single if Stills had released it as such.


Oh yeah, "Rocky Mountain High" came out as a single in 1972, the same year as the Manassas album. If I were one of Stills's advisers at the time, I'd have told him to release "Colorado" as a 45, but hey, too late.

The final side of the Manassas LP is the least artistically consistent of the four sides of the album. It's not bad, mind you; it's just that it profeeses to be a testament to rock's staying power, but only two of these four songs are flat-out rockers. The energy of these songs, however, pretty much makes up for this shortcomings.

So let's go, with side four:

"What To Do" - The chorus is a driving, direct assurance to an unnamed second party of faith in that friend's ability to run their own life, but the verses are looping, fiddle-dominated country that kind of clash with the chorus in which Stills sings in a rustic vocal that sounds at times like he's about to sneeze. Nothing wrong here, but a rather undistinguished song.

"Right Now" - This is the fastest, sharpest rocker on side four, and possibly opn the whole album. Lyrics about a man's lover wronged by his best friend are propelled by biting guitar riffs and tumbling drums. The music continues in a fast, swirling sound before suddenly slowing quickly to a stop.

"The Treasure (Take One)" - This track is a lot like many of the songs on that other rock double album of 1972, the Rolling Stones's Exile On Main Street; it's so muddily mixed, it takes forever to make out the words, then you have to figure out what the words mean. (I still haven't done either! :eek: ) At eight minutes long, "The Treasure (Take One)" is rough and uneven, sounding very much like the first take it purports to be. It also sounds inspried; the band is tight and well in sync throughout the song's first four minutes. The last four minutes is a jam led by the guitars; this part is very much improvised all the way through, and sputters to an end just as the band begins to run out of ideas. Stills and Hillman knew when to quit while they were ahead. :)

"Blues Man" - The final song on the first Manassas LP bleongs to Stills alone. He accompanies himself with a stinging acoustic guitar riff, in which he sings about the importance of meaning of the blues, and how it remains the taproot of rock. The "three good men" he knew well whom he'll never again see he refers to in the last verse are Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, and Canned Heat's Al WIlson. The album is dedicated to theri memories. The song ends on a chord sharper than a razor.

This song is a tombstone. :(

"Rock and Roll Crazies/Cuban Bluegrass," the infectious medley from side one, peaked at number 92 on the Billboard charts as a single.

Stills would constantly wake up the Albert brothers with overnight phone calls with new ideas he wanted to get on tape while the inspiration was still fresh. Surpsingly, Howard and Ron did not attempt to strangle him. :lol:

Manassas at Stills's estate in Surrey, England. From left: Paul Harris, Joe Lala, Chris Hillman, Dallas Taylor, Fuzzy Samuels, Stephen Stills, Al Perkins.

http://www.themusicmotel.com/download/images/APStephenStillsManassasBand.jpg

The group ostensibly gathered at Stills's estate to rehearse, but they spent more time drinking. :lol:

Although Stills's group issued a followup album, Down the Road, in April 1973, time would run out very quickly for the septet. Stills had the recording of Down the Road rushed, turning a potentially good album into a dud with press and public alike, and other members were eyeing separate projects. Hillman, for example, was ready to form a new band with LA rock veterans J.D. Souther and Richie Furay.

And, Dallas Taylor added, "As long as the possiblity of CSNY remained, Manassas never had a chance." For his part, Chris Hillman declared the group the best band, in terms of musicianship, he'd ever been in.

It was uncertainty about the future, joined with lukewarm support from their record company and the inevitable CSNY regrouping that happened in 1974, that brought Manassas's existence to a close.

But their first album remains one of the most underrated and most overlooked rock albums of the seventies. :)