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Buffalo Springfield were an American folk-rock band which started the careers of Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Neil Young.
In 2001 a 4-cd Buffalo Springfield box set was released (compiled by Neil Young). As well as their original albums, it also contained a host of unreleased material. There are enough good, strong studio recordings to re-assemble into a lost 'fourth album', which is what we have here, called Down To The Wire. These songs are very good, and it really is surprising that some of them became outtakes.Some interesting points about some of the songs. Neil Young's "Down To The Wire" was also released on his triple-LP compilation album Decade in 1977. That version had Young singing lead, but the version here has Stills' vocals (though the instrumental backing is identical). Richie Furay's "What A Day" was later re-done for Poco's debut album - the Buffalo Springfield version here has vocals from both Furay and Stills. "Baby Don't Scold Me" was on the original version of their debut album, before the success of the single "For What It's Worth" led to the album being re-issued with an altered tracklist, and "Baby Don't Scold Me" was dropped. Young's "Down Down Down" was later incorporated as part of his "Country Girl" medley on CSNY's Deja Vu album. This compilation also contains two excellent instrumentals - "Falcon Lake" and "Kahuna Sunset".This material shows what great potential the band had, and if they had not let personality clashes and internal bickering tear them apart, they could have had a much longer and more productive career than they ultimately did.
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Buffalo Springfield were an American folk-rock band which started the careers of Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Neil Young.
Once one of folk-rock's premier groups, Buffalo Springfield were falling apart by 1968. After one too many drug busts, erratic bassist Bruce Palmer was out of the band for good. Guitarist and studio engineer Jim Messina was hired to play bass in time for their last album. But by the time Last Time Around was released, the band had already broken up. Much of the album was recorded by various sorts of combinations of members filled out with session musicians. Neil Young was become less and less interested in the group, only contributing two songs (one of which would be sung by Richie Furay). Even more so than on their fractured-yet-undeniably-brilliant second album, Last Time Around is a loose grouping of songs from three seperate songwriters, soon to be solo artists and bandleaders in their own rights. Young's first solo album would be out by the end of the year, Stills would soon be working with ex-Byrd David Crosby and ex-Hollies Graham Nash as Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Furay was soon to pursue his country-rock dream by forming Poco.
The album was pieced together and released after the group's demise to fulfill contractual obligations. However it's still a good album, and actually includes one of Richie Furay's best songs - "Kind Woman", where he is backed by future Poco member Rusty Young on pedal steel guitar.
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Buffalo Springfield were an American folk-rock band which started the careers of Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Neil Young.
Their second album was notable for several developments, as the band began to fragmentate. Whilst the first album worked as a cohesive whole, a perfect union between all the band members, Buffalo Springfield Again saw Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furay start to move in seperate directions. At the same time bassist Bruce Palmer's presence became erratic, and numerous L.A. session musicians were used on the album. The result is less of a band effort and more like an album shared between three seperate singer-songwriters. Nevertheless it resulted in some of their best material, and is generally regarded as their strongest album, despite the truth of what was happening behind closed doors. Stephen Stills contributed the most consistent material, with strong folk-rockers such as "Bluebird", "Rock & Roll Woman" and "Hung Upside Down". It was here that Richie Furay first emerged as a songwriter, as he had not written any material on the first album. Of his three compositions, "A Child's Claim To Fame" was indicative of the country-rock direction he who soon pursue (it also featured James Burton on dobro). Neil Young contributed the psychedelic hard rock number "Mr Soul" which opened the album (and unashamedly took its riff from the Stones' "Satisfaction"). But it was his other two songs ("Expecting To Fly" and "Broken Arrow") which hinted at his isolation from the rest of the band. Recorded without any of the other members, but instead using outside musicians and string arrangements from Jack Nitzsche (who would become a frequent collaborator of Young's), they are the first glimpses of the confessional singer-songwriter solo career he would soon embrace. Whilst he had performed as guitarist and songwriter on the first album, here he was clearly restless and keen to start work by himself. The truth is that soon the band would be over, and all three frontmen would soon be leading new projects.
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Buffalo Springfield were an American folk-rock band which started the careers of Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Neil Young.
Their debut album followed in the wake of the folk-rock movement started by The Byrds. They had three lead singers and songwriters in Stills, Young and Furay. Young and Stills also gave them a formidable twin guitar attack. The group was rounded out by bassist Bruce Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin. The first album was dominated somewhat by Stills, who wrote and sang lead on over half the songs. The remaining numbers were all written by Young, though at this early stage in his career he was not a confident singer, so only sang lead on two of them. The remaining three Young compositions were sung by Furay, who elsewhere added superb harmonies to Stills’ tunes. The fact that all twelve songs were original composition marked them out from just being another group of Byrds impersonators - the Byrds were still relying on cover songs and Bob Dylan material, and their song writing had yet to truly flourish. Stylistically it could also be argued as being more diverse than the early Byrds albums, a unique and charming mixture of folk, pop, country, psychedelia and rock, all adorned with careful harmonies and rich tapestries of guitars which jangle, buzz and twang. The album initially failed to make an impact, but after the protest single "For What It's Worth" became a hit it was re-released in early '67 with this song pasted in.
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In 2001 a 4-cd Buffalo Springfield box set was released (compiled by Neil Young). As well as their original albums, it also contained a host of unreleased material. There are enough good, strong studio recordings to re-assemble into a lost 'fourth album', which is what we have here, called Down To The Wire. These songs are very good, and it really is surprising that some of them became outtakes.
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