Stephen Stills - Buffalo Springfield & CSNY

Buffalo Springfield & CSNY

Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse on the streets of LA and flagged him down, a meeting described in the recent solo track "Round the Bend." The band would release three albums: Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again, and Last Time Around, and enjoy only one hit single. the Stills-penned "For What It's Worth" before disbanding. A Stills song off the Springfield debut, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for The Mojo Men in 1967.

Stills was a close friend of Jimi Hendrix, who appears on Stills' eponymous first solo album. Reputedly, when Hendrix was forming his trio The Jimi Hendrix Experience, his manager contacted Stills' manager to invite Stills to become the group's bass player. Concerned that Stills' friendship with Hendrix and admiration for Hendrix' genius might prompt Stills to take the job rather than continue with the Buffalo Springfield, Stills' manager elected not to pass the message on to him. Noel Redding, who up to that point had been a guitarist, was then offered and took the job as bassist instead. They continued to socialize and jam together informally until Hendrix's death in 1970.

During the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on the Super Session album with Al Kooper, and joined up with David Crosby, who had recently been ejected from The Byrds in the autumn of 1967. At a party in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood, according to various sources either at the home of Cass Elliott or Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash joined in a rendition by Crosby and Stills of the latter's "You Don't Have to Cry," this leading to the formation of Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills' songs, including "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry" on the debut album were inspired by his on-again-off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. In a 1971 interview in Rolling Stone the interviewer noted "so many of your songs seem to be about Judy Collins." Stills replied, "Well, there are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, or turn them into literature. I've had my share of success and failure at all three."

The cover photo pictured on the debut was taken on the back porch of a house in West Hollywood, which was torn down the next day. Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians, the band invited Neil Young to join them for their subsequent tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby Stills Nash & Young. CSN with and without Young still record and tour to this day.

Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield, and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills performed at all three of the iconic U.S. rock festivals of the 1960s.