Manassas (band) - Second Album, Hiatus, Reformation and Breakup

Second Album, Hiatus, Reformation and Breakup

Upon returning to the U.S. from the European leg of Manassas' 1972 tour, Chris Hillman took several weeks away from the band to record a reunion album with his pre-Burritos band the Byrds, an effort that also included Stills’ ex-CSNY bandmate David Crosby. Manassas then regrouped and quickly completed their second album, Down the Road. Initial sessions for the album were convened at Criteria Studios, but the band moved the sessions in midstream to Caribou Ranch in Colorado and the Record Plant in Los Angeles after Criteria staff engineers Ron and Howard Albert expressed concern that the sessions were not producing quality results. Down the Road was completed in January 1973, and released in the spring of that year to middling reviews and sales, falling short of RIAA Gold status; it was the first album that Stills appeared on since 1968 not to "go Gold."

After completing Down the Road, Manassas went on hiatus for several months. During the break, Stephen Stills married Véronique Sanson, whom he had met in Paris during Manassas’ 1972 European tour. As Hillman and Crosby's Byrds reunion album was readied for release in March 1973, some consideration was given to launching a Byrds tour in support. When this did not materialize, two events occurred instead that effectively doomed Manassas. First, Hillman accepted his management’s proposal to, after satisfying Manassas’ scheduled touring commitments, join a project involving ex-Buffalo Springfield and Poco singer/guitarist Richie Furay and Eagles songwriter/collaborator J. D. Souther. Second, Crosby joined Neil Young on tour, in a band that also included their ex-CSNY mate Graham Nash. When this tour ended in mid-1973, Crosby, Nash and Young – encouraged by their management, who were hopeful to realize the financial benefits of a possible CSNY reunion – regrouped in Maui to discuss potential work on a new album. The three reached out to Stills, who went directly from his honeymoon break with Sanson to Hawaii to join the new project. CSNY worked for several weeks in both Maui and Los Angeles on the project, Human Highway, but these sessions were ultimately aborted due to various disagreements within the band.

Stills was greeted by several sources of turmoil upon returning from the Human Highway sessions to regroup Manassas, as, in addition to Hillman’s future commitment to work with Furay and Souther, Dallas Taylor had become severely addicted to heroin, and Calvin Samuels had left the band for personal reasons. Stills dealt with these issues by securing the services of drummer John Barbata, with whom he had worked in CSNY during their 1970 tour, as a backup for Taylor, and bassist Kenny Passarelli of Joe Walsh’s band Barnstorm to replace Samuels. Samuels would return to the band for the last leg of its 1973 tour. Following the tour’s completion in October, Manassas’s dissolution was publicly announced.

One of Manassas’ last shows, at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in early October 1973, was made notable by the band’s being joined onstage by first David Crosby and Graham Nash, and, later in the show, by Neil Young. When later asked about this occurrence, Chris Hillman would comment “I could smell a CSNY reunion.” CSNY would, in fact, regroup for a world tour in early 1974. Following this tour, Stephen Stills would start a new band in 1975 with Kenny Passarelli and Joe Lala, but this was short-lived; Passarelli would soon depart to join the Elton John Band, and Lala would subsequently leave as well. Chris Hillman’s Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, which would also include Manassas members Al Perkins and Paul Harris (and eventually Joe Lala, who would later join Chicago), released its first album in early 1974.