Homage to Stephen Stills at 80

January 5, 2025 • 11:45 am

I’ve often said that if I could have been any rock star, it would have been Stephen Stills. Well, make that any American rock star, for if I could chose one musician from around the world, it would be Paul McCartney. Both men were incredibly handsome, a prerequisite for my fantasy, but more important, both were immensely talented, able to write great songs, sing wonderfully, and play a number of instruments with dexterity. It’s just that McCartney produce a greater variety of music, and overall better music, than did Stills.

But Stills, who celebrated his 80th birthday on January 3, remains underrated. His greatest years were with Buffalo Springfield, as well as with Crosby, Nash (and somtimes Neil Young), but I will put up a few songs that he wrote and played on his own or with other groups.

First comes one of my favorite Stills songs, “4 + 20,” which did appear on a CS&N album, but is solely the work of Stills. He was indeed 24 when he wrote it, a remarkable achievement for someone that young. I loved it so much that I taught myself to play it back when I played acoustic guitar and did three-finger picking. Wikipedia says this:

Stills stated: “It’s about an 84-year-old poverty stricken man who started and finished with nothing.” However, the lyrics state that the narrator was born 24 years ago, making him about a year younger than Stills was when the song was recorded.

. . . . Stills recorded the song in one take and planned to use it on his upcoming debut solo album, but when his bandmates heard it, they implored him to use it on the Déjà Vu album. He planned to have bandmates David Crosby and Graham Nash sing harmony parts, but they refused. “They told me they wouldn’t touch it,” said Stills. “So it always stood alone.” On the highly-collaborative Déjà Vu album, “4 + 20” stands out as the only song which was both written and performed solo by one member of the band, justified by Crosby who recalled “We just said, ‘It’s too damn good, we’re not touching it.”)

Here he sings and plays it on the Dick Cavett show, and you might recognize Joni Mitchell beside him as well as David Crosby sitting nearby.  The lyrics are slightly different from the recorded version (here), as Stills seems to forget the one line: “And he wasn’t into selling door to door.”

In this part of his life, Stills was also into wearing ponchos.

“Do for the others” is remarkable in that the entire song—all the vocals and instrumentation—was performed by Stills. (he also wrote it). It’s from his first solo album, the 1970 Stephen Stills. All that Wikipedia says about it is this:

“Do For the Others” was written for David Crosby about the death of his girlfriend Christine Hinton.

Below we have the song “It doesn’t matter” from the 1972 Manassas album, by a group in which he shared guitar leads with former Byrd Chris Hillman.  I wanted to put up a live version of another great song from that album, “So begins the task,” but I couldn’t find a live version. You can hear the recorded version here.

The song is clearly about a lost love, and that love is apparently Judy Collins, with whom Stills had a torrid relationship. One site says this:

[Stills] wrote the song about his breakup with Judy Collins; that same lost romance was fodder for “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and “You Don’t Have to Cry.” “So Begins the Task” is believed the first song Stills wrote about/for Collins.

“Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” is one of Stills’s best songs, sung on the 1969 album “Crosby, Stills & Nash” (original recording here). But here are CS&N doing it live, and it’s a very good version, showing the harmony that made the group famous (they first sang together at a party at Joni Mitchell’s home in 1968).

Here’s a translation of the Spanish lyrics at the song’s end:

How happy it makes me to think of Cuba,
the smiles of the Caribbean Sea,
Sunny sky has no blood, and how sad that
I’m not able to go
Oh go, oh go go

What a great tribute to Judy!

Finally, Blonde in the Bleachers,” an underrated song by Joni Mitchell from her great 1972 album “For the Roses.” On this song Stills plays the bass and drums.  The two never had a romance, but did work together a few times.  My theory (which is mine) is that Mitchell wrote the song about Stills and his groupies.

39 thoughts on “Homage to Stephen Stills at 80”

  1. My first and still-favorite version of Judy Blue Eyes is their Woodstock performance. The only place, so far as I know, where Stills sings “ I am sor-or-eee” with his voice going up rather than down as on the studio version. I don’t know why, but I’ve always thought this was the better way to sing it.

  2. I agree with PCC(E) that Stephen Stills and Sir Paul are great. But now, I’m going to put forward another guy who is pretty darn good: Burton Cummings. What a voice!

    2. I used to see fellow Winnipeger Cummings with his earlier group, The Devrons. When Chad Allan left The Guess Who, Cummings replaced him, and the band took off. Randy Bachman and drummer Gary Peterson were in high school with me. By the way, if I could choose any singer to be, it’s Sam Cooke (sans being murdered), for me, the greatest singer of the era, a voice so rich, round, pillowy, ranging from honey to gravel.

  3. You left out “Love The One You’re With”. I followed his advice and it cost me my first marriage.

  4. I recently turned my 28 year-old daughter on to some CSNY. She instantly became a fan and loves Stills in particular.

    Amazingly, when I was 11 years old, my sleep-away camp decided to send us on a trip to Saratoga Performing Arts Center to see Stephen Stills. It was 1970 and I had no idea who he was, but I do recall thinking how much fun people were having at the concert. I wish I remembered more, but I have impressed many people over the years with my response to the inquiry “what was your first concert?”

  5. Great stuff. I have just come back from a long drive over several of our big midwestern states, and along the way I played a lot of Beatles. I still am agog at the sheer range of talent, where every song has a significantly different sound. Played as if they trained all their lives to perform that way.

    And I wish side-burns would come back. Why did they go away?

    1. AMEN to the sideburns. Love the 60’s and 70’s. However, my mother in law gave my husband a Leisure Suit in 1974 in a very
      Wondrous shade of light gold. Ha. Well. He was cool in it!!!!

  7. Great list of songs. To those I would add Wooden Ships about two soldiers of opposite sides meeting soon after a nuclear war (“Could you please tell me who won?”) written with Crosby and Kanter (of Jefferson Airplane fame).

    1. And recorded by both CSN and the JA (both bands also played it at Woodstock). The Airplane version credits Crosby for the music and Stills & Kantner for lyrics.

    1. Stephen stills use of tone modulation on guitar made him what he’s always been called,a musical genius.

  9. Stephen Stills was Peter Tork’s housemate. Stills auditioned for The Monkees but didn’t make it.

    Mickey Dolenz auditioned with Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B Goode.”

    I saw Dolenz in concert on August 2, 2024. He was amazing. I hope I’m that active when I’m 79!

  10. In that first video, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna) are sitting there too. What a bunch of talent in that circle!

    1. Good appreciation — could that be Marty Balin behind the two of them? Probably some others of that crowd there.

    2. That dick cavvet show was recorded the morning after Woodstock. They didn’t even change out of their muddy clothes. Check it out on YouTube. From what I (loosely) understand, when Judy and Steven parted, he played suite for her on a new Martin guitar on her birthday as a last ditch effort to keep her, she loved the song, kept the guitar, and it was over. and he headed out to audition for CSN. Stephen stills demos. Is a great listen. Peace to all.

  11. Stills did a lot of the production on the CSN/CSNY albums too. (Hence the full deal on the second song.)

  12. Stills used lots of open tunings (e.g. open E (a crazy version his own), open D).
    Both Suite Judy Blue Eyes and 4+20 use his EEEEBE tuning (low to high).

    IIRC, it’s said Joni learned about open tunings from Stills.
    I don’t know; but I’d imagine he got started on them from the old blues guys.

  14. If I could have been an American rock star it would be Paul Simon who I consider to be the greatest (modern) American singer/songwriter.

  15. There are many good American rock artists, but Stephen Stills is one of the best. We used to listen to his music on cassette tapes in the heady seventies at university.

  16. Deja Vu is a wonderful album, the best of all CSN&Y in my view. I’d even include solo albums in that comparison. I had assumed Blonde in the Bleachers was about James Taylor, but apparently Joni has kept mum on this.

  17. Stills was also an accomplished guitarist. The album ‘Supersession’ with Bloomfield and Kooper is a great listen. The song ‘Season of the Witch’ with Stills on the guitar is so well done.

  18. Unfair to compare Stephen to Paul, who has written dozens of iconic rock and pop tunes. Stills is equally comfortable in juggling blues, country and folk, so IMHO a more versatile artist than Macca.

    1. Not unfair. McCartney could write many different songs, and early on the Beatles did blues, too. No country for the Beatles, but jeez, look at the variety of music they produced, from love ballads to hard rock!

  19. Nice article, and agree with much of it, and I am a Beatles fan. However, Stephen Stills is an amazing multi instrumentalist, and aside from that, you might have overlooked his crowning achievement in Buffalo Springfield, “Bluebird”. Released in about 1967 or so, with 2 versions containing a banjo solo, another rare version with acoustic guitar solo.

  20. For us fledgling guitarists in bands in 1968, Bluebird was the one we were most impressed by, especially his acoustic solo, but also the multiple other electric and acoustic guitar tracks. But a year later, Suite Judy was even more impressive as a composition overall, and just as impressive as an acoustic track.

  21. There are too many but definitely Still is at or near top of lists. Was it summer ’67 that I fortunately had caught a showing of American Bandstand where the beach boys displayed clean cut look a week before, low and behold Buffalo Springfield with amps and chords strewn randomly across the set.
    For What It’s Worth and Rock & Roll Woman were their selected performances. I been a follower ever since, seeing CSNY, Manasas.

  22. His solo album is a masterpiece. I particularly love Cherokee, a song he wrote about his breakup with Rita Coolidge. AND, it’s the only album to ever have Hendrix and Clapton on it.

  23. I love Stills’ song “49 Bye Byes”, which closed the “Crosby, Stills & Nash” album. The slightly weird opening solo vocal line (without instrumentation), followed by bouncy guitars, shimmering vocal harmonies & abrupt time-changes makes this song for me an under-appreciated gem from CS&N’s debut album.

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