BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD

Buffalo Springfield showcased the prodigious talents of Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Richie Furay and Jim Messina. With the possible exception of The Byrds, no other band had such an impact on the burgeoning folk rock scene and the California Sound of the 1960s.


"For What It's Worth (excerpt)" and "Mr. Soul" (1967)

In 1966, after witnessing the police riot on the Sunset Strip, Stephen Stills composed "For What It's Worth," and scored a top ten hit for Buffalo Springfield in 1967. The band broke up two years later, and Stills joined former Byrd David Crosby and Graham Nash of the Hollies to form Crosby, Stills, and Nash--soon to be joined by Neil Young.


"Rock and Roll Woman"(1967)

Cute outfits and pop folksiness gave way to heavier sounds in 1969, the year Buffalo Springfield broke up and Crosby, Stills, and Nash released their first album.


"Down by the River." Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young at Big Sur (1969). The country folk pop was gone, and now an electric super group soared for the Northern California hippies.


"You Don't Have to Cry," Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on the Tom Jones Show (1970). They could still do wind chimes and beautiful harmonies.

WHISKEYTOWN!

See? This post isn't even Obama-related. With the release of a great new album by a cleaned-up Ryan Adams, "Cardinalogy," it's worth digging back to his old band, Whiskeytown. They were a rough and tumble band that played Americana, alt.country, no depression music--or whatever you want to call it--music built with equal parts old school country and indie rock, a continuation of the country rock lineage of Gram Parsons (the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers) and Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

These sweethearts of the rodeo occasionally ventured out from their gilded palace of sin to play for adoring fans, and I saw them one time, years back, and they were on fire. They say bad boy Adams has cleaned up his act, and that's good. In the clip above they play "Dancing with the Women at the Bar" on Austin City Limits.

Ryan Adams wakes up under a tree with his hair full of leaves: booze, drugs, and temper tantrums have plagued a career that zig-zags like a drunken sailor on a unicycle, but now he's clean and sober and the new album is great.


Ryan Adams and the Cardinals perform "Fix it" on the Letterman Show.

Read the Rolling Stone review of the "Cardinalogy" here.
For a Ryan Adams piece in the NYTimes, click here.
For a story from Paste Magazine click here.