Just Roll Tape April 26, 1968 LP
Stephen Stills
2007 Eyewall/Rhino Records
Amazon.com
The title and cover art effectively tell the
story of this dusty gem. Captured fly-on-the-wall style in an impromptu
live-in-the-studio burst after a Judy Collins session on which the
23-year-old Stephen Stills played, the soon-to-be ex-leader of Buffalo
Springfield (and Collins's ex-boyfriend) unleashes unplugged,
occasionally incomplete versions of songs he had recently written and
wanted to get on tape. Discovered in 1978 and nearly discarded, the
reels found their way to Graham Nash in 2003, who encouraged Stills to
release them. He finally did so in 2007, nearly 40 years after the
original session, and the result is the most revelatory album in
Stills's bulging catalog. Even with remastering, the sound is on the
crude side. Nevertheless, early takes of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,"
"Helplessly Hoping," and "Wooden Ships," all of which would appear in
far more polished versions on Crosby, Stills & Nash's self-titled
debut, are sung with a passion and honesty seldom exposed by the
singer/songwriter. Stills's voice sometimes cracks, his guitar work
intermittently sounds muddy, and these are definitely works in
progress, some of which never appeared on an official release. Yet the
artist is caught arguably at the peak of his substantial talents,
laying down soon-to-be-classic melodies while they were fresh in his
head. Folk/rock historians and Stills fans will surely be thrilled with
this nascent, unvarnished set. Though Just Roll Tape
may be too raw for some, it finds Stills at the crucial stage right
before superstardom changed his--and popular music's--future forever. --Hal Horowitz
   | 1. | All I Know Is What You Tell Me |
| 2. | So Begins the Task  |
| 3. | Change Partners |
| 4. | Know You've Got to Run |
| 5. | Doctor Will See You Now, The |
| 6. | Black Queen |
| 7. | Bumblebee (Do You Need a Place to Hide?) |
| 8. | Judy |
| 9. | Dreaming of Snakes |
| 10. | Suite: Judy Blue Eyes |
| 11. | Helplessly Hoping |
| 12. | Wooden Ships |
| 13. | Treetop Flyer |
Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
- Robert Frost
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
- Samuel Johnson
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