Stephen Stills’ “Just Roll Tape”
It's not often you get your hands on a blueprint of a super group, especially not 40 years after the fact -- but that's exactly what you get with "Just Roll Tape," a demo of "new" songs laid down by Stephen Stills in a single recording session and "lost to the wind" for four decades!
On April 26, 1968, a post Buffalo Springfield Stephen Stills tagged along with then girlfriend Judy Collins to a New York recording session. When she finished, Stills peeled off a few hundreds and offered them to the engineer to roll tape. The 12 tracks laid down, with nothing but Stills' stirring, emotional voice and his acoustic guitar, are raw, powerful and familiar. The following fall, four of these tunes were featured on the first Crosby, Stills, and Nash album and five others made the cut on subsequent CSN (and sometimes Y) albums.
The original version of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" is amazing in it’s complexity, especially given the fact that a single musician recorded it without benefit of digital multi-tracks. "Helplessly Hoping" has a strong country edge and "Wooden Ships" is a completely polished, but very different song than the one released a year later. But it's "The Doctor Can See You Now" that really gives you that one-on-one-up-close-and-personal experience. You feel this one everywhere you can feel -- it's lyrically and spiritually tactile. If David Crosby is the vocal flash and Graham Nash is glue, "Just Roll Tape" is solid proof that Stephen Stills is the heart, soul and lyrical voice of Crosby, Stills and Nash.
On April 26, 1968, a post Buffalo Springfield Stephen Stills tagged along with then girlfriend Judy Collins to a New York recording session. When she finished, Stills peeled off a few hundreds and offered them to the engineer to roll tape. The 12 tracks laid down, with nothing but Stills' stirring, emotional voice and his acoustic guitar, are raw, powerful and familiar. The following fall, four of these tunes were featured on the first Crosby, Stills, and Nash album and five others made the cut on subsequent CSN (and sometimes Y) albums.
The original version of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" is amazing in it’s complexity, especially given the fact that a single musician recorded it without benefit of digital multi-tracks. "Helplessly Hoping" has a strong country edge and "Wooden Ships" is a completely polished, but very different song than the one released a year later. But it's "The Doctor Can See You Now" that really gives you that one-on-one-up-close-and-personal experience. You feel this one everywhere you can feel -- it's lyrically and spiritually tactile. If David Crosby is the vocal flash and Graham Nash is glue, "Just Roll Tape" is solid proof that Stephen Stills is the heart, soul and lyrical voice of Crosby, Stills and Nash.