January 30th – Depending on who you listen to, Stephen Stills
was born in 1945 but that birthday could have been on either this day or on the
3rd of January. Typical of someone who was given supergroup-membership status
back in the 70’s…confused? You will be…
This proclivity to create a tidal wave of gathering together
musos from different bands and lumping them together into a so-called
supergroup collections was born out of the high regard that rock musicians held
themselves in (let’s face it, their vanity would
allow them to do nothing else) and their fan-base
level of ability that was prevalent back then, almost like modern-day opera
claques the second these ‘rock-gods’ struck a chord the front three rows would
swoon. So it was that musicians who’d already reached a high level of
recognition joined together with others in the same boat and ‘The Supergroup’
was born. The likes of Traffic, Cream, Crosby, Stills Nash & Young (CSN&Y)
(more of them later) Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Blind Faith, all contained members
of what were considered at the time to be other groups who had reached the
apotheosis of musical ability (how wrong we were) and this seemingly proved
that the publicity and marketing departments could sell the dumb-ass record
buyer anything (how wrong they were). The story behind the rise and fall of CSN&Y
(Crosby – Dave Crosby, ex Byrds; Stephen Stills – ex Buffalo Springfield;
Graham Nash – ex The Hollies; Neil Young – also ex Buffalo Springfield) should
serve as a warning to those who would consider it a sensible plan to put four solo
egos in band, send them on tour and then expect them to gel and behave in
anything like normal fashion.
Almost from the get-go with CSN&Y
problems arose as each member’s solo recording projects clashed with band recording
and tour commitments, inter-band bickering (my album’s doing better than your
album) further souring relations and then the on-going struggle caused by disagreements
about work-load allocation and recognition for said work-load allocation…oh, and
drugs (where would most of our tales of the road be without them) all served to
make harmony between the members in this particular outfit, what can we say…?...well,
volatile at best. I think things came to a head when Mr. Young buggered off at
the mid-way point in the ‘76’ tour after several other falling’s-out and
reunions, telling Mr. Stills he wasn't turning up to the next gig…on the day of
that gig…and to go eat some fruit (a peach, I think).
There’s a line in a favourite Frank
Zappa album (‘Mothers of Invention Live at the Filmore East’) where one of the
sexual deviances on offer to the aspiring group member by a lass who refuses to
be called a groupie is the opportunity for said aspiring musician to listen to;
‘…three unreleased recordings of
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fighting in the dressing room of the Fillmore
East.’
Not exactly a flattering use of your
back-catalogue of temper tantrums but I guess, if you make it onto a Frank Zappa
album then you can consider yourself to have arrived, even for reasons as wrong
as this.
I've worked with a good number of
what could be classed as famous musicians over the years (they aren’t they’re
just ordinary folk with an ability…that’s all) both on stage and back stage and
I can say, hand on heart there’s not a one of them who wouldn't share their
last spliff with you if you were without but, if you so much as threatened to
steal what they consider to be their thunder, would rip your heart out (the one
I've just so foolishly put my hand on to indicate where it is…and which would
be a particularly useful geography lesson for any lead guitarist reading this).
With that as a template, it’s no
wonder that things go awry when the hothouse of ego, stardom, a ten-month global
tour, recording demands and legions of hangers-on become the stuff of everyday
life. Many, many musicians much like many, many politicians live in a world
where they become one-step removed from the reality of life. As we all know it’s
a short journey via just one small, pissed stumble from a nightclub into the
field of beginning to believe in your own press cuttings…and then what’ve we
got? I’ll tell y’. We've got the unenviable task of trying to control a
six-foot selfish-machine who’s ego needs a separate truck to tour in and who
wants no brown Smarties in the dressing room and no meat to be sold within 500
yards of the gig venue or they’ll not show up…a management situation much
like Carl Denham had with ‘King Kong’ but with less planes and no tanks to help
out.
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