Stephen Stills's 1972 Manassas album

[Steve M.]

"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.

[MissZero]

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"

[Steve M.]

Originally Posted by MissZero

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"

Er. . .yeah. . . .

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

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

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

"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.

[Steve M.]

"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.

[Steve M.]

"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.

[Steve M.]

"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.

[Steve M.]

"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.

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

Originally Posted by Steve M.

"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.

[Steve M.]

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.