![\"STEPHEN-STILLS-Issue-No26\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/STEPHEN-STILLS-Issue-No26.jpg\")
STEPHEN STILLS<\/h1>\nSTEPHEN STILLS<\/h1>\nHis career at 60 years and counting, an icon looks back\u2014and forward<\/b><\/p>\n
By Jeff Tamarkin<\/b><\/p>\n
Even at 82 tracks packed onto four CDs,\u00a0Carry On<\/i>, the new Stephen Stills retrospective boxed set, barely scratches the surface of one of rock\u2019s most iconic careers. After all, how can one afternoon\u2019s listening encapsulate a half-century of creativity? We first heard Stills in 1966 with Buffalo Springfield (\u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth\u201d remains a definitive \u201960s protest anthem), before he moved on to superstardom with Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young) and finally a prolific solo career.<\/p>\n
Stills performed at all three of the major \u201960s rock festivals\u2014Monterey, Woodstock and the ill-fated Altamont. Acknowledged as one of rock\u2019s most innovative guitarists, he jammed with Hendrix and was featured, alongside keyboardist Al Kooper, on Super Session<\/i>, a trailblazing 1968 album that virtually launched the jam-band era. Stills\u2019 eponymous 1970 debut solo album burnished his reputation as one of our most formidable singer-songwriters, as did his stint with Manassas.<\/p>\n
Unlike many of his peers, Stills has maintained a regular presence since those heady classic rock days when Southern California was the center of the world. But when it came time to finally tie together the threads of his career with a boxed set, Stills left what he calls \u201cthe heavy lifting\u201d to his old pal Graham Nash and Joel Bernstein, a photographer and producer who goes back to the CSN days. \u201cI move forward,\u201d says Stills. \u201cI\u2019m glad this set is done and I can give it to my friends and they can listen to what I\u2019ve been wasting my time on for 60 years. That\u2019s how long ago it was when I got paid for the first time to play music, the start of this nice, comfortable life.\u201d<\/p>\n
While health issues have dogged Stills in recent years\u2014hearing loss and surgery for prostate cancer\u2014the setbacks haven\u2019t slowed him one bit. He\u2019s about to release a blues album, Can\u2019t Get Enough<\/i>, recorded with ace guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd and keyboardist Barry Goldberg, and he\u2019s excited to hit the road to promote it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How was recording Can\u2019t Get Enough<\/i>?<\/b><\/p>\n
It was the most fun I\u2019ve had in the studio in a long time\u2014and it only took a week. It\u2019s just Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg\u2014from the old Mike Bloomfield days in Chicago\u2014and me. Barry\u2019s a contemporary of Al Kooper and was on the original Super Session<\/i> album. In fact, we started out calling it Super Session 2<\/i>. Kenny Wayne plays a lot like Stevie Ray Vaughan, so it was like having the ghosts of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix in the studio. Pretty scary.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What did you learn while assembling the boxed set?<\/b><\/p>\n
That I did a lot of stuff real fast\u2014I recorded everything I could think of. Some was good, some was eh. I\u2019d have a great melody and write really stupid words because I was in a hurry. I have songs that are fairly complex and then I have virtual jingles, like \u201cLove the One You\u2019re With.\u201d That song is actually multilayered\u2014the line about \u201cthe rose in the fisted glove\u201d refers to an English icon, a chainmail glove with a rose in it. It comes from the [15th century] War of the Roses. Living in Britain in the early 1970s was my salvation. That\u2019s when my creativity in songwriting exploded.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How were the demos different from the final mixes?<\/b><\/p>\n
With David [Crosby]\u2019s song \u201cThe Lee Shore,\u201d for example, I was trying to get an arrangement. It was like, \u201cHere\u2019s how I picture the song, Dave, what do you think?\u201d It was more like, \u201cI borrowed your car and had it painted. Do you like turquoise?\u201d Another one is \u201cForty-Nine Reasons,\u201d which became \u201c49 Bye-Byes.\u201d I played everything including the drums. The backward guitar on that really moves. It jerks at you and has an incredibly graceful melody.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Did you record an entire album with Jimi Hendrix?<\/b><\/p>\n
No. There is the \u201cNo-Name Jam\u201d on the set. It\u2019s a song that I had prepared, but we didn\u2019t like the words. I was going to work on them and put a solo on it but never went further. We were recording everything, and you hear a lot of loitering on the tapes\u2014people talking and hanging out. I don\u2019t know who was recording what, so I\u2019ll call BS on the idea there\u2019s an album\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Did you sense Hendrix was heading for a fall?<\/b><\/p>\n
No. But he would take everything that anybody threw at him\u2014and a lot of good people didn\u2019t make it through that time. Once I had broken my hand and could only use two fingers. I got this call: \u201cJimi Hendrix\u2019s office is calling you. Don\u2019t take the job.\u201d I went, \u201cWhat job?\u201d I didn\u2019t find out until [Experience drummer] Mitch Mitchell\u2019s book that they were trying to reach me because there was a tremendous row between Jimi and Noel Redding, and they wanted me to finish up the tour with them, on bass.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Recall your first recording?<\/b><\/p>\n
For reasons known only to my father, we went to Costa Rica. I happened to have a guitar, and there was absolutely nothing to do except play the guitar. We\u2019d been there for a few months, and I played here and there at parties. One day a fellow said to me, \u201cI\u2019ve got a whole apartment full of electronic gear, all the good stuff. I\u2019ll record you because nobody has yet.\u201d I was 16, and he wasn\u2019t kidding: It was wall-to-wall, two rooms of electronic equipment. He had good microphones and maybe a Uher or a Grundig reel-to-reel recorder. It came out beautifully, and I don\u2019t know how it survived, but my sister saved it. The guitar style emerged whole\u2014exactly the way I play now. Don\u2019t know if I have the jackhammer thumb I used to\u2014I\u2019ve developed a little carpal tunnel\u2014but that\u2019s amazing. The song is silly. I\u2019d written it about the only thing I knew, moving house, because we were always moving. I\u2019m glad it starts the box because it is the first thing that I recorded.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Who were your early influences?<\/b><\/p>\n
My heroes were Elmore James, Howlin\u2019 Wolf, Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley. I liked\u00a0pre-Nashville Appalachian country music, the real stuff. I also liked Motown, the Shirelles and the girl groups.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your writing process?<\/b><\/p>\n
You sit down and something goes through your head\u2014a mood, a melody, maybe a\u00a0lyric\u2014and you\u2019re off to the races.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How did you write \u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth\u201d?<\/b><\/p>\n
I started writing the song with the bassline. I\u2019d been working on something else, a<\/p>\n
shout-out to the guys on the line in Vietnam. Then I came upon this stupid situation on Sunset Boulevard in L.A. I turned the car around and went back to my house and finished the song in the time it took me to write the lyrics.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How did you work out guitar parts with Neil Young?<\/b><\/p>\n
We just started playing, and it fit together. He was actually trying to do the\u00a0same thing I was, acoustic style parts\u2014fingerpicking and folk music\u2014on an electric guitar. It just meshed\u2014we both have the same kind of mind. When we heard the mixes our first producers had done, we looked at each other with big eyes and\u00a0said, \u201cOh, my God, we\u2019re going to have to\u00a0learn to do this ourselves.\u201d A year later, we could both make a record, independently, without any help except an\u00a0assistant engineer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Why did last year\u2019s Buffalo Springfield reunion tour fall apart before it began?<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u2019ll quote Neil: \u201cSometimes you get up in the morning and you say, \u2018Well, that\u2019s over.\u2019\u201d He got tired, went to Hawaii, and started writing a book.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Any plans to write your own memoir?<\/b><\/p>\n
I find interviews and talking about myself the most loathsome activity in the world. So no, I\u2019ll never write one of those stupid autobiographies. Except for Keith Richards\u2019, I find them all equally boring.<\/p>\n
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STEPHEN STILLS His career at 60 years and counting, an icon looks back\u2014and forward By Jeff Tamarkin Even at 82 tracks packed onto four CDs,\u00a0Carry On, the new Stephen Stills retrospective boxed set, barely scratches the surface of one of rock\u2019s most iconic careers. After all, how can one afternoon\u2019s listening encapsulate a half-century of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,7],"tags":[6636,6634,6631,6372,995,310,6633,6635,970,5414,678,6632],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9937"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9951,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937\/revisions\/9951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}