Stephen Stills 2 | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | June 30, 1971 | |||
Recorded | February–May 1971 | |||
Studio |
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Genre | Folk rock, rock | |||
Length | 43:02 | |||
Label | Atlantic | |||
Producer | Stephen Stills, Bill Halverson | |||
Stephen Stills chronology | ||||
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Singles from Stephen Stills 2 | ||||
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Stephen Stills 2 is the second solo album by Stephen Stills, released on Atlantic Records in 1971. It peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200 and was certified as a gold record by the RIAA. [1] [2] Two singles were released from the album, both just missing the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: "Change Partners" peaked at number 43, while "Marianne" peaked at number 42. [3]
After the break up of CSNY, being busted on a swath of possession charges,[ citation needed ] overdosing on pills,[ citation needed ] and his loss of Rita Coolidge to Graham Nash, Stills became extremely prolific and wrote and recorded 23 songs for this album.[ citation needed ] It was originally intended to be a double album that included songs such as "Johnny's Garden", "Love Story", "So Begins the Task", "The Treasure", "Colorado", "Fallen Eagle", and "Rock and Roll Crazies". However, Atlantic executive Ahmet Ertegun insisted it be a single album. [4] [5]
Stills was influenced by the recent success of bands with horn sections, including Chicago, and Blood, Sweat, & Tears, and introduced the Memphis Horns on this album and the tour to support, despite its mixed reaction from fans. [4]
This was the first album he recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami from February to March 1971 with the Albert Brothers, who he used for the majority of his 1970s work. [5] Ahmet Ertegun had suggested Miami as to get away from all the drama on the West Coast. [6] Stills started work on the album while his first album had only just been released a month prior. This album was released only six months after his first album.
It was during this time that Stills would hold marathon recording sessions for three months while recording the album, employing two teams of studio engineers working shifts around the clock just to keep up with him. Jerry Garcia recalled that Stills flew him to Miami for a week to record pedal steel on "Change Partners" saying "I did sessions at the weirdest hours... the way he worked in the studio was totally crazy, but at the time he was really happening. He just accumulated endless tracks." Engineer Howard Albert recalled "he turned up to his very first session at 2 am on the very night he landed in town. We didn't know he was coming and we were in the middle of making a Johnny Winter album. Lucky for us, there were two of us because Stephen wanted to start straight away". [6]
The lyrics were printed on the inside of the gatefold cover in red, on a background photograph of Stephen Stills in a mountainous outdoor setting pointing into the distance. There were numerous errors in the original printing of the lyrics, which necessitated that Atlantic issue the album with a large sticker affixed to the shrink wrap of the back cover with the corrections to the lyrics. Later editions of the album had corrected lyrics inside the gatefold and thus did not include a correction sticker on the album. [4]
"Singin' Call" which had been demoed for Déjà Vu was written about Rita Coolidge. [6] Stills was inspired to write "Word Game" after watching a documentary film about apartheid and musically influenced by Bob Dylan's "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)". [6] "Fishes and Scorpions", which featured Stills and Eric Clapton on guitars, was recorded during the recording sessions for his first album. "Relaxing Town" expresses disconnect with the narrator wanting to settle down in a relaxing town away from the revolution. It contains a reference to Jerry Rubin, one of the Chicago Seven, and Mayor Daley.
Stills had already performed "Bluebird Revisited" on tour with Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young in 1969 including at Woodstock. [4]
Stills undertook a 52-date tour called The Memphis Horns Tour in the summer of 1971 to support the album; members included the Memphis Horns along with CSNY bass player Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuel and CSNY drummer Dallas Taylor. The tour encompassed a variety of formats and moods from solo acoustic confessionals and folk duets to rock anthems and big band R&B. The tour was not very well-received, with some blaming Stills' lack of confidence. On the opening night in Seattle only 3,000 people attended out 15,000 as the Boeing factory had just closed. With this fact and his recent split from Coolidge severely knocking his confidence, Stills started drinking, hence the tour's nickname "the Drunken Horns Tour". However, Stills has also said there were good nights like the night he sold out Madison Square Garden, though this was overshadowed by the Concert for Bangladesh just a day later, for which Stills had donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager, although he was not invited to play at the event. [5] Also a roadie died on stage after plummeting from the rigging at MSG, then a few days later Stills fell off a motorcycle and finished the tour in a brace requiring David Crosby to help him finish the last few dates of the tour. [7] Stills had been promising a massive tour since his first album saying it would be 'a real road show - the biggest since Ray Charles hit the stage'; however early on in the tour he commented saying it was a marathon where you watch the singer bleed trying to sing 18 songs in a row. Due to these issues Stills has a negative perception of the tour. [7] It was during this tour that Stills met with the Flying Burrito Brothers' Chris Hillman and the beginnings of Manassas took place.
He later re-recorded two songs from this album: "Singin' Call" for his 1991 album Stills Alone , and "Word Game" for the 2013 album by blues supergroup The Rides. He also reworked the song "Know You Got to Run", adding on a chorus to change it into "Open Up", a song which he never recorded himself, but instead gave to REO Speedwagon, who recorded it for their album Ridin' the Storm Out .[ citation needed ]
By 1974, according to Rolling Stone magazine the album had sold an estimated 600,000 copies. [8]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [9] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [10] |
The Village Voice | C [11] |
Contemporary reception was mixed to positive with John Mendelsohn of Rolling Stone describing Stills as "a solid second-rate artist who so many lower-middlebrows insist on believing is actually first-rate" and his post-Buffalo Springfield work collectively as "fifth-rate self-indulgence". Of Stephen Stills 2 specifically he commented, "the words to Stills 2 are alternately trivial, cloyingly self-important, and downright offensive, the music is decidedly lackluster and undistinguished, and the production of the whole shebang is so distant from up to snuff that one is hard pressed to get much impression at all of the playing of the latter." [12]
In a positive review Nick Logan reviewing for the NME , 1971 said "The heartfelt plea to know the reason for the pain in 'Open Secret', among the set's best tracks, saves itself from tumbling into a self pitying abyss because the 'pain' is not specified but universal". [6]
Robert Christgau, in 1971, said, "Stills is of course detestable, the ultimate rich hippie--arrogant, self-pitying, sexist, shallow. Unfortunately, he's never quite communicated all this on a record, but now he's approaching his true level. Flashes of brilliant ease remain--the single, "Marianne," is very nice, especially if you don't listen too hard to the lyrics—but there's also a lot of stuff on the order of an all-male chorus with jazzy horns singing "It's disgusting" in perfect tuneful unison, and straight, I swear. Keep it up, SS—it'll be a pleasure to watch you fail." [11]
In a positive review Bill McAllister, writing in August 1971 for Record Mirror , called the album "more personal" than his first due to the fewer number of other musicians, and "absorbing while reaching out further, which it should". He summarised his review by saying "Like his 'Bluebird', Stephen Stills knows how to fly". [13]
Record World called the single "Marianne" Stills' "most commercial sounding single since 'Love the One You're With.'" [14] Cash Box called it Stills' "best solo effort to date." [15]
All tracks are written by Stephen Stills, except "Know You Got to Run", co-written by John Hopkins
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Change Partners" | 3:13 |
2. | "Nothin' to Do but Today" | 2:40 |
3. | "Fishes and Scorpions" | 3:13 |
4. | "Sugar Babe" | 4:04 |
5. | "Know You Got to Run" | 3:50 |
6. | "Open Secret" | 5:00 |
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Relaxing Town" | 2:20 |
2. | "Singin' Call" | 3:01 |
3. | "Ecology Song" | 3:22 |
4. | "Word Game" | 4:13 |
5. | "Marianne" | 2:27 |
6. | "Bluebird Revisited" | 5:23 |
Total length: | 43:02 |
Technical Personnel
Album
Year-end charts
| Singles
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Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
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United States (RIAA) [29] | Gold | 500,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
Tour by Stephen Stills | |
Start date | July 3, 1971 |
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End date | August 21, 1971 |
Legs | 1 |
No. of shows | 52 |
Stephen Stills concert chronology |
The Stephen Stills 1971 North American Tour was a concert tour by American musician Stephen Stills, informally known as the Memphis Horns or Drunken Horns tour. It was in support of Stephen Stills 2, and the first solo tour of his career. Members included the Memphis Horns along with CSNY bass player Calvin Samuel and CSNY drummer Dallas Taylor. All concerts were in 1971 and in the United States. The Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed for a future release, as seen and said on an episode of The Old Grey Whistle Test where Stills plays a live version of "Go Back Home". [30] [31] Two songs recorded here were also used on his Carry On box set - "Find the Cost of Freedom", and "Do for the Others" featuring Steven Fromholz. It was during this tour he played to 20,000 fans at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, as mentioned in the Manassas song "Don't Look At My Shadow", released in 1972. A live album recorded during the last two nights of the tour was released in 2023 as Live At Berkeley 1971.
Personnel
Tour Setlist
This is the setlist from the show at the Los Angeles Forum, August 18, 1971. [32]
All songs written by Stephen Stills, except where noted.
Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) was a folk-rock supergroup comprising American singer-songwriters David Crosby and Stephen Stills and English singer-songwriter Graham Nash. When joined by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, they were known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY). They are noted for their intricate vocal harmonies and lasting influence on American music and culture, their political activism and their tumultuous relationships.
Stephen Arthur Stills is an American musician, singer, and songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Manassas. As both a solo act and member of three successful bands, Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He was ranked number 28 in Rolling Stone's 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 47 in the 2011 list. Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Neil Young, "Stephen is a genius".
Long May You Run is a studio album credited to the Stills–Young Band, a collaboration between Stephen Stills and Neil Young, released in 1976 on Reprise Records. It peaked at #26 on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold in the United States by the RIAA. The album is the sole studio release by Stills and Young as a duo.
CSN is the third studio album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, released on Atlantic Records on June 17, 1977. It is the group's second studio release in the trio configuration. It peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart; two singles taken from the album, Nash's "Just a Song Before I Go" and Stills' "Fair Game" charted on the Billboard Hot 100. It is currently the trio configuration's best selling record, outselling 1969's Crosby, Stills & Nash by 200,000 copies. It has been certified quadruple platinum by RIAA.
Daylight Again is the fourth studio album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, and their third studio album in the trio configuration. It peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, the final time the band made the top ten before the death of David Crosby in 2023. Three singles were released from the album, all making the Billboard Hot 100: "Wasted on the Way" peaked at No. 9, "Southern Cross" at No. 18, and "Too Much Love to Hide" at No. 69. The album was certified platinum by the RIAA with sales of 1,850,000.
Looking Forward is the eighth and final studio album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, and their third with Neil Young. It was released on Reprise Records in 1999 and peaked at number 26 on the Billboard 200, with total sales nearing 400,000.
Journey Through the Past is a double LP soundtrack album from the film of the same name by Canadian / American musician Neil Young, released in November 1972 on Reprise Records, catalogue number 2XS 6480. It peaked at #45 on the Billboard 200. Its initial release was on vinyl, cassette tape, reel-to-reel tape, and 8-track tape cartridge. Although its follow-up Time Fades Away was finally released on CD in August 2017, Journey Through the Past remains the only 1970s Neil Young album yet to see an official CD reissue.
Manassas was an American rock supergroup formed by Stephen Stills in 1971. It was used primarily for Stills' music, the band releasing two studio albums before disbanding in October 1973. They released a 1972 self titled debut and a second album titled Down the Road in 1973.
Manassas is the 1972 debut double album by Manassas, a blues rock group led by American musician Stephen Stills, released April 1972. It was a critical comeback for Stills, and continued his commercial success by being certified Gold only a month after being released and peaking at number 4 on the US charts.
Stephen Stills is the debut solo album by American musician Stephen Stills released on Atlantic Records in 1970. It is one of four high-profile albums released by each member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the wake of their 1970 chart-topping album Déjà Vu, along with After the Gold Rush, If I Could Only Remember My Name and Songs for Beginners. It was primarily recorded between CSNY tours in London and Los Angeles. It was released in the United States on November 16, 1970, and in the United Kingdom on November 27, 1970.
Graham Nash David Crosby is the first album by Crosby & Nash, the partnership of David Crosby and Graham Nash, released on Atlantic Records in 1972, catalog SD 7220. It peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and a single taken from the album, "Immigration Man", peaked at No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 on June 17 and 24, 1972. It was certified gold by the RIAA, and it was dedicated to Joni Mitchell, as "to Miss Mitchell".
Replay is a compilation album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, appearing in 1980 on the Atlantic Records label. It contains no material with Neil Young, but does include CSN solo projects. It peaked at No. 122 on the Billboard 200, their first album not to chart in the top ten.
Crosby & Nash were a musical duo that maintained a separate career in addition to the solo endeavors of David Crosby and Graham Nash, and separate from the larger aggregate of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Crosby and Nash performed and recorded regularly during the 1970s, issuing five albums including three of original studio material. After the more or less permanent reformation of Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1976, the duo continued to play sporadic concerts from the 1980s through the second decade of the 21st century, issuing another studio album in 2004 and going on an extended concert tour in 2011.
American Dream is the fifth studio album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, and their second with Neil Young. Released in 1988 on Atlantic Records, it peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 and has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. To date, it is their final album of original material to receive either a gold or platinum citation by the RIAA. It is the highest-selling album by Neil Young in the 1980s. The album is dedicated to Jan Crosby, Anne Stills, Susan Nash and Pegi Young.
Down the Road is the second and last studio album by Stephen Stills' band Manassas. It was released in April 1973, and peaked at number 26 in the US charts, to mixed reviews. "Isn't It About Time", a protest song, was released as the lead single and reached number 56 on the charts.
Stephen Stills Live is a live album by Stephen Stills, released on Atlantic Records in 1975. Recorded on his first solo tour since 1971 and released after he had signed to Columbia Records. It peaked at number 42 on the US charts.
4 Way Street is a live album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, and their second album as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. It was originally released as Atlantic Records SD-2-902, shipping as a gold record and peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. A document of their tour from the previous year, the live recordings presented were taken from shows at the Fillmore East on June 2 through June 7, 1970; The Forum on June 26 through June 28, 1970; and the Auditorium Theatre on July 5, 1970.
Déjà Vu Live is a live album by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and their sixth in the quartet configuration, released by Reprise Records in 2008. It peaked at #153 on the Billboard 200, recorded on their 2006 Freedom of Speech tour. The album was released on vinyl in early 2009 and was pressed on 200-gram vinyl in Japan.
CSNY 1974 is a live album by Crosby, Stills, & Nash, and their seventh in the CSNY quartet configuration. Issued on Rhino Records in 2014, it consists of concert material recorded in 1974 on the band's tour during the summer of that year. It was issued in several formats: a standard compact disc box set consisting of three audio discs and a standard DVD; as one pure audio Blu-ray disc and a Blu-ray DVD; and a more expensively packaged limited deluxe edition consisting of the material on six vinyl records along with the Blu-ray discs and a coffee table book. Three single disc samplers were also issued: one of the acoustic material exclusively available at Starbucks in the United States and Canada; a second at normal retail outlets; and a third included as a covermount disc to the 250th anniversary issue of the UK music magazine Mojo issued as "an exclusive audio-visual sampler of the new CSNY 1974 box set." Each of the non-sampler sets also contained a 188-page booklet, and all formats were released the same day, with the Mojo sampler arriving with the September 2014 publication of that edition. The three-disc and DVD package peaked at No. 17 on the Billboard 200, while the Starbucks sampler peaked at No. 37 and the selections sampler at No. 81.
"Change Partners" is a song written by Stephen Stills that was released on his 1971 album Stephen Stills 2. It was also released as the debut single from the album, just missing the Top 40, and peaking at number 43 on the Billboard Charts, during the week of July 24, 1971 and spending 9 weeks on the chart.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)...Jerry Garcia's fabulous, lyrical pedal steel guitar...