Buffalo Springfield and WOW What Great Groups They Were a Part of

Before Wikipedia, I knew the destiny of the 6 members of Buffalo Springfield, plus or minus a few mistakes. Thanks to Wikipedia, I can show it to you now with 100% accuracy.

During the decade often referred to as the British Invasion, one spectacular North American band (3 Americans, and 3 Canadians), went on to become members of 2 of rocks super groups (Crosby, Stills and Nash, and The Eagles), and one of rocks legendary artists, Neil Young, and a duo that made great music (Loggins and Messina).

Here’s how it happened. Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin joined together to form The Buffalo Springfield in 1967. While the band made some spectacular music, they never quite put together a single album that caught on big. However, when you listen to Retrospective, their Best Of album, one thing is obvious, these guys have talent, both as a group, and as individuals. My favourites are Richie Furay’s Kind Woman, and Neil Young’s Broken Arrow, Expecting to Fly. Of course, For What It’s Worth, because of its appropriateness for the times is another great song from this album. Actually, everything is a great song from this album.

Listen to Richie Furay singing Kind Woman with Poco in 2004 and it sounds like something that could be released today by the likes of Blue Rodeo. Enjoy, and we’ll talk after the song....

Following along the Poco track, just listen to their music and it’s easy to hear what Randy Meisner brought with him to The Eagles. Here is one of my favourite Poco songs, In the Heart of the Night which was from the album Legend, released in 1978 long after Meisner, Messina and Furay were gone. Actually Paul Cotton, writer, and lead singer of In the Heart of the Night, joined the band as the replacement for Jim Messina when he went on to try his hand at a solo career before joining up with Kenny Loggins.

Neil Young deserves his own blog, as do The Eagles so, I will save them for a later date.

That leaves us with David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills. While I love the solo work of Stephen Stills, especially his first album which contained Love the One You’re With, I never paid that much attention to Crosby or Nash, except that I love Almost Cut My Hair (the anthem for all of us freaks in the late 60’s-early 70’s). When Susy and I saw them live a few years ago, David Crosby’s voice is absolutely wonderful.

So, I’ll leave you with this. It’s not the Crosby of the 70’s regretfully, but still wonderful.