Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American
guitarist and
singer/songwriter best known for his work with
Buffalo Springfield and
Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young). He has performed on a professional level in several other bands as well as maintaining a solo career at the same time. Stills was ranked #28 in
Rolling Stone Magazine's 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
[Rolling Stone Magazine The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time 2003-08-27.] Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with CSN and the
Buffalo Springfield.
Early years
Stills was raised in a
military family. Moving around as a child, he developed an interest in
blues and
folk music. He was also influenced by
Latin music after spending his youth in
Gainesville and
Tampa, Florida,
Louisiana,
Costa Rica,
Panama Canal Zone and
El Salvador, where he graduated from
high school, and was an avid
sailor. He also attended
Admiral Farragut Academy in
St. Petersburg, Florida and
Saint Leo College Preparatory School in
Saint Leo, Florida.
[Zimmer, Dave. Crosby, Stills & Nash: The Biography, Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2008, p. 8.]
Stills dropped out of the
Louisiana State University[College prowler LSU] to pursue a music career in the early 1960s. He played in a series of bands including The Continentals, which featured future
Eagles guitarist
Don Felder. Stills could also be heard singing solo at
Gerde's Folk City, a well-known
coffee house in
Greenwich Village. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous
Cafe Au Go Go in NYC, called the
Au Go Go Singers, which included future Buffalo Springfield bandmate
Richie Furay. This group did some touring in the
Catskills and in the South, released one album in 1964, then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills, along with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers formed
The Company, a
folk-rock group. The Company embarked on a six-week tour of Canada where Stills met a young guitarist named
Neil Young. On the
VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills would say that Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months; Stills did
session work and went to various auditions. In 1966 he convinced a reluctant Richie Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.
Stills made an unsuccessful attempt to become one of
The Monkees. He was turned down, not due to any lack of ability, but because of a conflict with his existing record contract. So instead, he recommended his friend, multi-instrumentalist
Peter Tork.
Buffalo Springfield & CSNY
Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in
Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse on the streets of LA and flagged him down, a meeting described in the recent solo track "Round the Bend." The band would release three albums:
Buffalo Springfield,
Buffalo Springfield Again, and
Last Time Around, and enjoy only one hit single "
For What It's Worth") before disbanding. A Stills song off the Springfield debut, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for
The Mojo Men in 1967.
Stills was a close friend of Jimi Hendrix, who appears on Stills'
eponymous first solo album. Reputedly, when Hendrix was forming his trio
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, his manager contacted Stills' manager to invite Stills to become the group's
bass player. Concerned that Stills' friendship with Hendrix and admiration for Hendrix' genius might prompt Stills to take the job rather than continue with the Buffalo Springfield, Stills' manager elected not to pass the message on to him.
Noel Redding was then offered and took the job as bassist instead. They continued to socialize and
jam together informally until Hendrix's death in
1970.
During the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on the
Super Session album with
Al Kooper, and joined up with
David Crosby, who had recently been ejected by
The Byrds in the autumn of 1967. At a party in the
Laurel Canyon neighborhood, according to various sources either at the home of
Cass Elliott or
Joni Mitchell,
Graham Nash joined in a rendition by Crosby and Stills of the latter's "You Don't Have to Cry," this leading to the formation of Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills' songs, including "
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry" on the
debut album were inspired by his on-again-off-again relationship with singer
Judy Collins. In a 1971 interview in
Rolling Stone the interviewer noted "so many of your songs seem to be about Judy Collins." Stills replied, "Well, there are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, or turn them into literature. I've had my share of success and failure at all three."
The cover photo pictured on the debut was taken on the back porch of a house in West Hollywood, which was torn down the next day. Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians, the band invited Neil Young to join them for for their subsequent tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby Stills Nash & Young. CSN with and without Young still record and tour to this day.
Having played at the
Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield, and both
Woodstock and
Altamont with CSNY, Stills performed at all three of the iconic U.S.
rock festivals of the 1960s.
Solo years
[
Stills 1978 by Mitchell Weinstock.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Stills performing in a concert with [[Arcosanti], 1978]]
In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded high-profile solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his
self-titled solo debut which featured guests
Eric Clapton,
Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot,
Booker T Jones and
Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as
David Crosby,
Graham Nash,
Rita Coolidge and CSNY drummers Dallas Taylor and Johnny Barbata. It provided Stills with the hit single "
Love The One You're With." Stills followed this with
Stephen Stills 2, which featured "Change Partners." Even though the song was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY.
In 1972, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd
Chris Hillman to form the band
Manassas. Their
self-titled double album was a mixture of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and Latin music divided into different sections. All of Stills' albums after the Springfield had gone either
gold or platinum; the Manassas follow-up album the next year
Down the Road was his first LP that did not. After the CSNY reunion tour in 1974, he signed to
Columbia Records for three albums:
Stills in 1975;
Illegal Stills in 1976; and
Thoroughfare Gap in 1978.
In 1976, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point,
Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, according to both David and Graham
[Cameron Crowe "Quick End to a Long Run." Rolling Stone Sept. 9, 1976 reprinted in 4 Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Reader 2004 Da Capo Press.] the other pair wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without their erstwhile partners as
The Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection.
Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did, but upon returning home, his wife announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France. Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from
Long May You Run. This led to the permanent reunion of Crosby, Stills, Nash in 1977, which has persisted to the present. Since, Neil Young has joined the trio for two albums in 1988 and 1999, and tours in 2000, 2002, and 2006.
In 1979 he traveled to
Havana,
Cuba, to participate in the
Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2–4, alongside
Weather Report, the
Trio of Doom,
Fania All-Stars,
Billy Swan,
Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnegan,
Kris Kristofferson,
Rita Coolidge and
Billy Joel, plus an array of Cuban artists such as
Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on
Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary
Havana Jam '79.
In 1984,
Right by You would be the final Stills album to make the
Billboard 200 album chart, with
Stills Alone issued in 1991. In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice in the same night for his work with CSN and the
Buffalo Springfield.
Fender Guitars crafted a custom guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, a
Telecaster-style guitar bearing an inscription on the neck plate.
2005 saw Stills release
Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years.
Man Alive! was released on the small English
independent folk rock label Talking Elephant, and was not widely reviewed. The record did not chart on either side of the Atlantic, and was received lukewarmly by the few critics who did review it.
[Amazon.com editorial review: Man Alive!][Rolling Stone album review]
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "The Quartet", which consisted of drummer
Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnegan or Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either
Kevin McCormick or Kenny Pasarelli on bass. On May 28, 2007, Stills sang the National Anthem for Game 1 of the
2007 Stanley Cup Finals between
Anaheim and
Ottawa in
Anaheim,
California.
On December 17, 2007, Graham Nash revealed on
Larry King Live that Stills had been diagnosed with early stage
prostate cancer and that his operation would take place on January 3, 2008, which is Stills' birthday.
Stills said later in January 2008 that he had come through the operation with "flying colors."
Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008. In 2011, Stills contributed a song, "Low Barefoot Tolerance," to J. Ralph's Wretches & Jabberers soundtrack.
Personal life
During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married his first wife
singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson. Stills has since divorced and remarried twice; his third wife is Kristen Hathoway.
Stills' son, Justin Stills, was critically injured at age 26
snowboarding on Mt Charleston just outside Las Vegas in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series
Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with
Asperger syndrome,
[The Musician's Family Discusses Their Role in the Recent Miracle Project Movie, Theatre Therapy, and Their Son's Progress, Spectrum Publications, October/November 2008, Retrieved March 10, 2010.] and is profiled in the 2007 documentary
Autism: The Musical. His son
Chris and daughter
Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland.
[Stephen Stills becomes Papa Westcoast Music, October 31, 2004.]
Like all four members of CSNY, Stills has long been involved in
liberal causes and politics. In 2000, Stills served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from
Florida during the
Democratic National Convention, and was an actual delegate in previous years.
[eVote News August 2000]
The comic book series
Scott Pilgrim features a character by the name of Stephen Stills, referred to as "The Talent" by the band he shares with the titular character. The character also plays an acoustic guitar and sings, and is often portrayed wearing the kind of western shirts that Stills has as standard wardrobe.
Style of musicianship
Stills' sound as a guitarist playing displays sources in
rock and roll,
blues, and
country music, as well as the
chordings familiar in the
folk music.
Latin music played a key role in both his approach to percussion and guitar, and as did many contemporaries during the late 1960s, Stills' playing showed the influence of his friend
Jimi Hendrix.
Stills experimented with the guitar itself, including soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using unconventional
guitar tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would feature songs rarely played, and showcase agile
fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings.
He is also adept at
piano,
organ,
congas and
bass guitar, and can play some trap drums and banjo. For the CSN debut album in 1969, Graham Nash commented that "Stephen had a vision, and David and I let him run with it." Stills played every instrumental part on
Crosby, Stills and Nash with exception of some guitar by Crosby and Nash, and drums by
Dallas Taylor
Discography
See also discographies for Crosby Stills Nash & Young and Buffalo Springfield.
| Date of release
| Title
| Peak Billboard chart position
| RIAA Certifications[[1].]
| Label
| Information
|
| November 16, 1970
| Stephen Stills
| #3
| Gold
| Atlantic Records
| Studio
|
| June 30, 1971
| Stephen Stills 2
| #8
| Gold
| Atlantic
| Studio
|
| June 1975
| Stills
| #22
|
| Columbia
| Studio
|
| December 4, 1975
| Stephen Stills Live
| #42
|
| Atlantic
| Live
|
| March 1976
| Illegal Stills
| #30
|
| Columbia
| Studio
|
| December 2, 1976
| Still Stills: The Best of Stephen Stills
| #127
|
| Atlantic
| Compilation
|
| September 1978
| Thoroughfare Gap
| #83
|
| Columbia
| Studio
|
| July 30, 1984
| Right By You
| #75
|
| Atlantic
| Studio
|
| September 11, 1991
| Stills Alone
|
|
| Vision/Gold Hill
| Studio
|
| November 10, 2003
| Turnin' Back The Pages
|
|
| Raven
| Compilation
|
| August 9, 2005
| Man Alive!
|
|
| Titan/Pyramid
| Studio
|
| July 10, 2007
| Just Roll Tape
|
|
| Eyewall/Rhino
| Studio
|
| October 27, 2009
| Live at Shepherd's Bush
|
|
| Rhino
| Live
|
With Bloomfield/Kooper
With Manassas
| Date of release
| Title
| Peak Billboard chart position
| RIAA Certifications | Label
| Information
|
| April 12, 1972
| Manassas
| #4
| Gold
| Atlantic
| Studio
|
| April 23, 1973
| Down the Road
| #26
|
| Atlantic
| Studio
|
| September 22, 2009
| Pieces
|
|
| Rhino/Atlantic
| Compilation
|
With the Stills-Young Band
