release date: Sep. 20, 1976
format: cd
[album rate: 2,5 / 5] [2,55]
producer: Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Don Gehman
label: Reprise, Warner;- nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Long May You Run" (3,5 / 5) - 3. "Midnight on the Bay" (3,5 / 5) - 6. "Let It Shine" - 8. "Fontainebleau"
Studio debut and only release as The Stills-Young Band. The album was apparently intended as a follow-up to Déjà vu from 1970, and more recently as the outcome of the CSNY 1974 live tour where the quartet played stadiums across the US from Spring to Autumn of '74. Several attempts were made to record new studio material, and in the end it became this: an amputated project featuring songs from only Stephen Stills and Neil Young.
The band is enlisted as: Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Joe Lala on percussion and backing vocals, Jerry Aiello on organ and piano, George 'Chocolate' Perry on bass and backing vocals, and with Joe Vitale on drums, flute and backing vocals.
Musically, it's in the tradition of Buffalo Springfield and the two principle band member's solo careers. The result is not convincing, and it really proves how Stills and Young had taken separate roads after the demise of Buffalo Springfield. Young was deeply into folk rock, in various shapes and with influences from rock and country, whereas Stills seems much more of a blues rock person with influences from roots rock and jazz, and here these two trends don't mix that well.
The best tracks are undoubtedly compositions by Young with the rest as mere fillers to add that Crosby, Nash, Stills & Young-feel... but without two members the result seems apparent.
[ allmusic.com 3 / 5 stars ]
