Stephen Stills and Manassas - Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 3-22-1972

I spent many a month posting an alternate history of Crosby, Stills, Nash and/or Young, with 20 or so stray tracks albums in that series. Now that I've finished that, I feel free to post various additional music by them, in all their various solo and group configurations.

Here's one such post. In my opinion, Stephen Stills' two years with his band Manassas in 1972 and 1973 was the peak of his long solo career. It was a great group of musicians, but the main feature, in my opinion, was the collaboration between Stills and Chris Hillman, formerly of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. It was Stills' band, but Hillman occasionally wrote and/or sang some of the songs.

If you listen to just one concert from Manassas, it should be this one. It's a bootleg of a long concert, over two hours, and it's in great soundboard sound quality. Manassas had just released their 1972 double album, simply called "Manassas." It's a great album that for some reason has usually gone underappreciated. Even Stills hardly played most of these songs after Manassas broke up in 1973. Naturally, lots of the songs here are from that, but there also are some from Stills' two earlier solo albums, plus his work with Crosby, Stills, Nash and/or Young and Buffalo Springfield, as well as a couple of Hillman's songs from the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers.

There were only a couple of sound issues here. The bootlegger managed to capture the vast majority of the concert, including the talking between songs, but missed a few bits. The encore "Find the Cost of Freedom" was one such miss. It's included, but it comes from a different source, an audience bootleg. The lesser sound quality is obvious, but luckily it's just one short song.

The bootlegger also missed the tail end of "He Was a Friend of Mine," all of "49 Bye-Byes," and the first half of "Song of Love." Since the vast majority of "He Was a Friend of Mine" was included, I just found a good ending point and then added in some applause from the end of a different song to make it sound complete. For "49 Bye-Byes," I found a version from a different show at a similarly high sound quality (recorded at Dania, Florida), matched the song pitch to the next song (since it's kind of a medley), and added it in. For "Song of Love," I found a high sound quality version recorded for the TV show "Beat Club" in Germany. Again, I matched the pitch, then I spliced the two versions together in the middle of the second verse. The additions fit so well that I really don't think you'll notice.

I'm kind of weird in that I've labeled these as "Stephen Stills & Manassas" songs instead of "Manassas" songs. That's because Manassas didn't last long, and I file these in with the rest of the Stills section of my music collection. But whenever Hillman takes a lead vocal, or co-lead vocal, I've added his name to the song info as well. It's also strange that I'm titling this album as being by "Stephen Stills and Manassas," since he was a part of Manassas, but I couldn't think of a better way to do it.

By the way, a big middle chunk of the concert, from about tracks 9 to 25, is in an acoustic format. It's mostly just Stills, but Hillman and/or a couple other band members back him up on some of those songs.

Anyway, this is a great performance with flawless sound, so if you're a fan of Stills' music at all, you should give it a listen.

01 Rock and Roll Woman (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
02 Bound to Fall (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
03 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
04 Hot Burrito No. 2 (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
05 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
06 It Doesn't Matter (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
07 Go Back Home (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
08 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
09 Change Partners (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
10 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
11 Know You Got to Run (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
12 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
13 4 + 20 (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
14 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
15 Blues Man (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
16 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
17 Word Game (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
18 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
19 Do for the Others (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
20 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
21 Move Around (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
22 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
23 Both of Us [Bound to Lose] (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
24 Love the One You're With (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
25 He Was a Friend of Mine (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
26 Fallen Eagle (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
27 Hide It So Deep (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
28 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
29 Johnny's Garden (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
30 Don't Look at My Shadow (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
31 Sugar Babe (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
32 Four Days Gone (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
33 49 Bye-Byes (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
34 For What It's Worth (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
35 Song of Love [Edit] (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
36 Rock and Roll Crazies (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
37 Cuban Bluegrass (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
38 Jet Set [Sigh] (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
39 Anyway (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
40 The Treasure (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
41 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
42 Find the Cost of Freedom (Stephen Stills & Manassas)

https://www.imagenetz.de/jGV9u

For the cover art, I'm glad to say I was able to find a photo of the concert in question. I had several color photos to choose from. I picked one that shows Stills and Hillman (Stills is at the bottom), since the band was a collaboration between the two of them.