Stephen Stills (1970)

Stephen Stills is the debut solo album by American musician Stephen Stills released on Atlantic Records in 1970. It is one of four high-profile albums (all charting within the top fifteen) released by each member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the wake of their 1970 chart-topping album Déjà Vu, along with After the Gold Rush (Neil Young, September 1970), If I Could Only Remember My Name (David Crosby, February 1971) and Songs for Beginners (Graham Nash, May 1971). It was primarily recorded between CSNY tours in London and Los Angeles. It was released in the United States on November 16, 1970, and in the United Kingdom on November 27, 1970.

The album features many themes common to 1960s' countercultural beliefs, with many songs directly inspired by Stills' on-going and previous relationships with girlfriends and members of CSNY. The album was an immediate commercial success, in both the UK and the US, going top ten and being certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Background

The album was mainly recorded at Island Studios in London between the two CSNY tours of 1969 and 1970. Stills had bought a mansion in Surrey, England, for £100,000 called Brookfields, which previously belonged to Ringo Starr, and Peter Sellers. This, on the advice of Ahmet Ertegun, head of Atlantic Records, allowed him to get away from Los Angeles and the deteriorating relationships within CSNY. The songs recorded at Island Studios, include "Old Times, Good Times", "To a Flame" and "Go Back Home". After the 1970 CSNY Tour, Stills recorded a few more songs in LA, and most of the backing vocals. Graham Nash recalled in his book Wild Tales: "Stephen called and said, 'You remember that song of mine, "Love the One You’re With," that I cut in London? Well, I've brought the track back and we're in Wally Heider's with it. I need voices for the choruses. Any chance you and David would come down?'" In addition to Crosby & Nash, the album features an array of well-known guest musicians, including John Sebastian, Cass Elliot and Rita Coolidge who contributed vocals. Ringo Starr drums on two tracks under the pseudonym "Richie", which he also used for his contribution to the London Sessions album by American bluesman Howlin' Wolf, recorded in England the same year. Stills' album is also the only album to which both Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix supplied guitar work. According to Stills, he "bumped into Eric one evening, and he came by and the night degenerated into an endless jam of The Champs' "Tequila". Then we did the album track ("Go Back Home") in the studio. His solo was one take and he got a fabulous sound". Also, around this time Clapton recorded the solo for "Fishes and Scorpions" which appeared on Stills' follow-up, Stephen Stills 2. Hendrix added guitar to "Old Times, Good Times" at Island Studios on 15 March 1970. Stills recalled in 1991: Hendrix and I cut a bunch of stuff together, this is one of the few things that surfaced. He was a very dear friend of mine, we were lonely in London together and hung out a lot. I left England suddenly, and years later I learned from Mitch Mitchell that Jimi had been looking for me everywhere – wanted me to join the Experience as the bass player, which would have been my greatest dream in life! It had something to do with a manager deciding it was a wrong career move and said, 'we don't know where he is.' I learned to play lead guitar from Jimi he showed me the scales and said things like, 'You begin by thinking about the chord position and base your improvisations on that.' Or he'd make some little remark like, 'F sharp is really cool,' and we'd develop a jam around that. We'd make up songs, play the blues. He'd improvise until the inspiration began to ebb, then he'd look at me and say, 'You drive.' You had to hear that cat play acoustic guitar! We once jammed for about five days, one long marathon session in my beach house in Malibu. The sheriff's deputy overheard our guitar playing. When he found out it was us he asked permission to park his police car directly outside the house so he could listen in while he fielded radio calls. Told us not to worry about a thing, he'd be looking out for us.

Writing and recording

The song "We Are Not Helpless" was wrongly assumed by many critics to be a response to Neil Young's song "Helpless" from the Déjà Vu album. "Love the One You're With," Stills' biggest solo hit single, peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 19, 1970, and another single pulled from the album, "Sit Yourself Down," went to No. 37 on March 27, 1971. "Sit Yourself Down" and "Cherokee" are thought to be written about Rita Coolidge, with whom Stills was romantically involved during 1970. "Do For the Others" was written for David Crosby about the death of his girlfriend Christine Hinton.