One of the less well-remembered sections of
Stephen Stills' recording career is chronicled on this two-CD set from British reissue label
BGO -- his three-LP stint at
Columbia Records in the mid- to late '70s. When
Stills signed to
Columbia in 1975, he was coming off the record-breaking 1974 reunion tour of
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Like a professional sports team signing a veteran free-agent player,
Columbia seems to have thought it was contracting a major star who could mint gold records. That's the way it had worked several years earlier; in the wake of the first
CSN&Y breakup in 1970, its individual members had all made gold-selling solo albums. What
Columbia did not realize was that the second coming of the band, instead of serving as another springboard for each musician, instead produced an expectation in
CSN&Y's audience that they would continue to come together and that what they did in their solo careers was just mark time until the next reunion. As ever,
Neil Young was an exception to this rule, and
David Crosby & Graham Nash as a duo, signing to
ABC Records, showed that spinoffs could still sell if the label was aggressive in its promotion, going gold with
Wind on the Water (September 1975) and
Whistling Down the Wire (July 1976). At
Columbia, however,
Stills was expected to do the heavy lifting himself. He made a brave attempt with
Stills (June 1975), his first album for the company. It was very much in the tradition of his previous solo albums
Stephen Stills and
Stephen Stills 2, featuring name guest stars including
Crosby,
Nash,
Rick Roberts, and "
English Richie" (
Ringo Starr), and boasting anthemic folk-rock songs with strong choruses and plenty of tasty guitar work. In his lyrics,
Stills reflected on his status as husband to French singer/songwriter
Veronique Sanson and father to a son on such songs as
"My Favorite Changes" and
"To Mama from Christopher and the Old Man." In the same spirit, he also covered a
Neil Young song,
"New Mama." And he reunited
Crosby, Stills & Nash for
"As I Come of Age." All of that was enough to push
Stills into the Top 20, barely, but the album was not a major hit.
Its successor,
Illegal Stills (April 1976), followed a mere ten months later and was one of those albums on which the artist hadn't had enough time to craft a full disc's worth of good material. There was another
Young cover,
"The Loner," and
Stills leaned heavily on singer/songwriter/guitarist
Donnie Dacus, who wrote or co-wrote five songs and actually sang lead vocals on all or parts of three of them,
"Midnight in Paris," "Closer to You," and
"Ring of Love." In his lyrics, along with the romantic sentiments,
Stills examined the failing U.S. economy on
"Buyin' Time" and, with
Dacus, lamented the military victims of Vietnam in
"Soldier." Sales were disappointing, with a peak at number 31 in
Billboard. In the wake of the album,
Stills embarked on an abortive tour with
Young that managed to produce an album,
Long May You Run (September 1976), and then reunited with
Crosby and
Nash for the multi-platinum
Crosby, Stills & Nash comeback album
CSN (June 1977). He still owed one album to
Columbia, however, and he fulfilled that commitment with
Thoroughfare Gap (October 1978). By now,
Dacus was out of the picture and, if the lyrics were any indication,
Stills' personal life wasn't faring too well. He had always been interested in dance beats, particularly Latin rhythms, so it was no surprise that he jumped on the disco bandwagon with
"You Can't Dance Alone," the leadoff track. The title song was an acoustic ballad that was thoughtful but somewhat ambiguous. Elsewhere,
Stills expressed his romantic disappointment in self-written songs like
"What's the Game" as well as a cover of
the Allman Brothers Band's
"Midnight Rider" and a version of
Buddy Holly's
"Not Fade Away" with rewritten lyrics. On the whole, the album was not one of his better efforts, and it struggled to reach the Top 100.
Stills,
Illegal Stills, and
Thoroughfare Gap have had a spotty presence on CD, and fans will welcome this reissue. They may want to skip
John Tobler's digressive liner notes, which are littered with factual errors and say next to nothing about these particular albums. ~ William Ruhlmann
