In 1966, Buffalo Springfield released their first, self-titled album, and made an immediate impact on the world of folk/country rock with their hit “For What It’s Worth,” a protest song written by their lead singer and lead guitarist Stephen Stills. Stills was only twenty-one at the time, and his songs showed the influences he had been exposed to growing up in a military family in Texas and for a time in Costa Rica.
But tensions began to mount in the band, particularly between Stills and the other chief songwriter/guitarist in the band, a dude named Neil Young, who was the same age. It’s not hard to imagine how these two giants would butt heads, each being such outstanding songwriters, and also so damn young. They stayed together long enough to put out two more albums, but the inevitable breakup happened just a couple of years after their big breakthrough.
But Stills’ career shows that he never sat idle for long. Just after Buffalo Springfield broke up, Stills had a chance meeting with Graham Nash, who had just left the Hollies, and David Crosby, who had recently been kicked out of the Byrds for being way too vocal about his political beliefs. There are several great interviews with various members of Crosby Stills and Nash, describing how they knew almost immediately that they had something special with the vocal harmonies that came out of that first jam session.
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