Well, there's a rose in a fisted glove and the eagle flies with the dove

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts.

14/03/71 : Stephen Stills - Stephen Stills

Another artist with multiple visits in the year - I'd just assumed we'd already met his debut solo album but for some reason it didn't occur to me that Stephen Stills 2 might not be his debut (it's fair to say I don't always apply logic to such things). I didn't mind our last visit with that lad, but interestingly I declared it to be nicely different for the year - and since then we've had Leonard Cohen, Nash, Crosby and a couple of Elton John albums which haven't been a million miles away. I have reasonably high hopes for this one though...

He starts off with "Love The One You're With" which I obviously knew and liked, but I'm not sure I ever knew was by him - so that was a pleasant surprise (which I'll undoubtedly forget immediately). And the rest of it is all decent enough - I feel it hit me more than his follow-up did (but if I'm being honest I can't really remember anything about that one). It has some fine playing on it, particularly guitar, which I assume is mostly from Steve - his voice isn't bad but I do think others could probably have done a better job with some of the tracks. Overall though, it's a decent effort - with a somewhat peculiar album cover.

We're at #8 in the chart this week on his seventh week of an eight week run, with this being as high as it got - it seems weird that it took its time crawling to the dizzy heights of #8 and then plummeted out of the chart. The top five this week were George Harrison, Simon & Garfunkel, Elton John, Yes and Andy Williams with the highest new entry being Neil Diamond (#29) and it's mad that he's still going over 55 years later (apparently Stephen is mostly retired, but still pops up at the odd gig from time to time).

Wikipedia tells us this is his debut album and it "features many themes common to 1960s' countercultural beliefs" - who coulda guessed that? Another feature it shared with albums from other members of CSNY is that plenty of his celebrity mates rocked up on it, with Booker T Jones, Ringo Starr, Rita Coolidge, David Crosby, Cass Elliott and Graham Nash all appearing. It's also the answer to an interesting pop quiz question "which is the only album which features guitar work from both Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix?" - apparently Stephen and Eric bumped into each other on a night out and they went back to the studio with Eric providing input to "Go Back Home". And Stephen and Jimi were good mates and hung out loads when they both in London, with Jimi played on "Old Times, Good Times" - the album is dedicated to him after he died a few months before it went out. 

It also tells us that the snow on the album cover is real (apparently it was in September in Colorado) and the pink giraffe is a coded message for Rita Coolidge who had just left him for Graham Nash, which contributed to the breakup of CSNY. Critically, the entry says that the reception was mixed but only gives examples of positive reviews so I'm not sure how much I trust that - commercially, it did well getting to #7 in Canada and #3 in the US, selling half a million copies over there.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version of this for three quid, but if you want a mint original version it will set you back £90. I liked this without loving it, but it definitely provides a window into the times so it's certainly an interesting listen that I was pleased to visit.

21/03/71 - A definite gap in my musical knowledge