Stephen Stills Live
Live is the first solo live album by the American rock musician Stephen Stills.
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The recordings for Live occurred on 8 and 9 March 1974 at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago on a solo tour of Stephen Stills, before he went on tour again in the summer of the same year with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Since the international CSNY tour in commercial terms had become a resounding success, a long- awaited new CSNY studio album but failed to (all four members had a falling out again in the studio, so that the recordings had to be aborted), the record company Atlantic Records still wanted by the popularity of its artists benefit. In Stills ' case, this -designed, however, difficult as it was changed as a solo artist to the label, Columbia Records in early 1975 and had already published there, the album Stills. Contractual obligations secured but two Atlantic albums: The first of these was Live.
The album is divided into two parts ( corresponding to the two sides of the original record release ): On the first page ( tracks 1 to 4) stills plays with belt and electronically amplified. On the second page ( tracks 5 to 9) to stills accompanied himself on acoustic guitar. It is striking that in the compilation of the songs on the three biggest hits, which had until then stills ( For What It's Worth, Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Love the One You're With ), has been omitted. Nevertheless, Live provides the listener a very good insight into the qualities of the musician, who is shown both on the guitar as well as vocally in top form. Critics praised especially his version of the CSN classic Wooden Ships and be " unruly " ( " frenetic " ) guitar playing on the piece Crossroads / You Can not Catch Me addition to the hits Change Partners, 4 20 Wooden Ships and the album contains some rarely performed pieces such as the protest song Word game ( on apartheid in South Africa), Special Care or Jet Set ( Sigh ) from the album Manassas. The Barnstorm Classic Rocky Mountain Way and Fred Neil's hit Everybody's Talkin ' were first published here on a Stephen Stills album, but occupied him throughout his career again and again: The Blues play Rocky Mountain Way plays stills today at concerts ( nachzuhören among others on the album Live at Shepherd's Bush, 2009); Everybody's Talkin ' he took in 1969 during the Crosby, Stills & Nash sessions on, but not it appeared on the finished album ( the first edition of 2006 included the recording as a bonus track ). In 1991, Stills a new solo version of the track on his album Stills Alone and plays it occasionally at concerts.
Although the album had to compete with the recently released album stills, it sold - compared to other live albums - not bad: number 42 on the Billboard 200 charts, however, was not an outstanding result. By the critics, the album was - as far as it was at the time discussed at all - responding favorably. In 1992, a re-release on CD, which is, however, out of print today.
Title list
A-side: Electric page
B-side: Acoustic page
Instrumentation and instruments
- Stephen Stills - vocals, guitar
The band can be heard only on the electrical side ( tracks 1 to 4).
- Donnie Dacus - guitar, backing vocals
- Jerry Aiello - keyboards
- Kenny Passarelli - bass, background vocals
- Russ Kunkel - drums
- Joe Lala - percussion