Stephen Stills, Manassas - Manassas

Stephen Stills at his very finest singing and playing, wonderful band.

Stephen Stills was a true musical superstar in his unfortunately short prime, and while his greatness with the Buffalo Springfield and of course Crosby, Still and Nash have been widely heard and widely recognized, this 1972 effort was overlooked by a lot of people. Including this reviewer; I was a huge Stills fan at the time, but until last month had never heard this interesting and cohesive album fronted by Stills.

As other reviewers clearly indicate, there are few if any excellent and truly memorable song selections, in terms of song writing. "Johnny's Garden" is a very good and really catchy one. And most of the others are hummable, servicable "Americana" style tunes. But there are just not many individual standout songs. Still, you can hear that Manassas was clearly a great band;the Byrd's Chris Hillman is a fine second singer and guitarist, and the players are all talented pros, especially Al Perkins on pedal steel.

Most of all you get to hear a young Stephen Still sing his heart out and play all those amazing accoustic and electric guitar parts. Nobody has ever gotten all those brilliant sounds out of a Martin 6 string like he did, and here is some of the best acoustic playing he ever put on record. So if you love that wonderful, intelligently executed rock that is countryish but is not country, "roots" sound that Still was a master of, and you wonder why he rarely sounded as good as he did on "BlueBird" "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" "Questions" "Woodstock", Wooden Ships", then buy this because he sounds just as wonderful on Manassas. And the band really cooks, and the overall feel of the twenty or so songs is really lively and most cohesive.

Aching to give it five stars, but the tunes are just not that memorable. Even so, if this were vinyl, I would have worn it out in [past six weeks. It's a tight,talented band fronted by a true musical genius. I was most pleased to have finally heard, after all these years, a lesser-recognized gem. May 3, 2008

Not like I'd remembered

I am a Steve Stills fan as well as CSN&Y. These days I'm going back and buying CDs of many of the old LPs I used to have.
I was surprised when I got this one that it was not as good as I had remembered. It's still Steve Stills and has a quality about it just because of that, but it seemed like this was a collection of the non-hits.
The other surprise was that the harmonies weren't very good. After CSN&Y, you'd think that would be a given.
So while it's not a bad recording, if I had it to do over again, I probably would have spent my money elsewhere. January 25, 2008

A Treasure

OK we all know the roots of this album, Buffalo Springfield-BYRDS-etc. The family tree of California Rock/Country Rock etc. This stop along the way is fantastic. With Manassas we have a musical journey/book.
When I bought this album in "72" I was so amazed, like a kid in a musical candy store. Then Manassas came to town, I told my freinds were going to see Stephen Stills & Manassas. They were like Who's that what's a Manassas. I explained who they were a little history about Stephen & Chris, where the name Manassas came from (Manassas Virginia where the famous battles were fought during the Civil War). All's I can say is they were blowen away, so was I. If I could see one concert over again it would be Manassas. Now about the album being to long-HOG WASH. You might as well take a classic novel and rip 3 or 4 chapters out. To me its a musical journey that showcase's many styles of music. At least all the style's I love Rock, Blues & Country. Its a tough decision but one of my favorite songs is "So Begins The Task". Now its been about 36 years since Manassas was first released. I would love to see a box set with "Down the Road" remastered- unreleased songs alt-takes and some Live recordings from the tours. (PLEASE) PS Get this Album, Just Do It
January 9, 2008

(3.5 stars) Good, but long - a bit of editing wouldn't have hurt

When I dug this one up to review it, it had been over a year since I last heard Manassas, the first of two albums by Stills' supergroup of the same name, which includes ex-Byrd Chris Hillman and CSN associates Calvin Samuels (bass) and Dallas Taylor (drums), former Blues Image percussionist Joe Lala, and session men . You know what? That's way too long. This is a good album! Not fantastic or wonderful or anything, just good. It's a double, which means it's a bit on the long side, and there's some I could've done without. I don't have any problem with side one, the straight-up rock side (The Raven). In fact, it's very solid straight-up rock `n' roll, with gems like the groupie tribute "Rock and Roll Crazies/Cuban Bluegrass"; the bluesy "Jet Set (Sigh)", and "Anyway", packed with solid guitar licks. The countryish "Both of Us (Bound to Lose)" is okay as well, and has a fantastic Latin-rock coda that just comes out of nowhere. Most of my problem lays in side two, The Wilderness, packed with country-rock that's either insincere ("Fallen Eagle"; "Don't Look at My Shadow"), hokey ("Colorado"; "So Begins the Task"), or both ("Jesus Gave Love Away for Free"; "Hide it So Deep"). And "It Doesn't Matter" rips off Stills' Buffalo Springfield-era sound without adding anything new to it. But "Johnny's Garden" is one hell of a track, some lovely little pro-environmentalist, metaphoric folk-rock. And "Bound to Fall" is a haunting folk piece, "Right Now" is more chugging rock; "Love Gangster" is funny and actually not a rip-off of Steve Miller's "Gangster of Love". Even the obligatory early '70s blues guitar jam ("The Treasure") is pretty much fantastic. And the solo-guitar spot "Blues Man" is an efficient way to close the album, with Stills' great blues vocals. Twenty-one tracks are a few too many (I'd say get rid of seven or eight of 'em). There's a lot to be said for this one regardless December 9, 2007

A Great Double Album By Stephen Stills

MANASSAS is a great double album by Stephen Stills with an all-star band of California's finest musicians, divided into several multipart suites. Each suite has a general theme; "The Raven" is Latin-flavored, "The Wilderness" is oriented towards country and bluegrass, "Consider" has a folk-rock sound, and "Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay" is basicalliy a blues-rock suite. However, there is overlap in styles between all of the suites, so it would be foolish to say that the album is divided by themes. MANASSAS is now available on one CD, which is great, because it's much more manageable this way, given its length. The fact that all of the band's members, especially Stills and Chris Hillman, are opposed to some countries' practices of convicting foreign tourists for trumped-up crimes makes MANASSAS an essential purchase for both your ears AND your conscience. October 4, 2007

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