Buffalo Springfield's brief, influential career was marked by both great music and controversial battles among the group's members.
So it's appropriate that Buffalo Springfield's new, career-spanning, four-disc retrospective, entitled "Box Set," yields both great music and controversy.
Alongside established classics such as "For What It's Worth," "Mr. Soul," "A Child's Claim To Fame," "Bluebird," "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing," "Broken Arrow", and newly unearthed treasures from the band's teeming archive, "Box Set" includes a fourth disc that simply replicates the group's first and second album in their entirety.
The lion's share of those same songs are scattered throughout the rest of the set's chronology of the band's studio output. As well, both "Buffalo Springfield" and "Buffalo Springfield Again" have been reissued in remastered form in recent years, making their inclusion on the fourth disc especially superfluous to many of the band's biggest fans.
Music historian John Einarson, who co-wrote "There's Something Happening Here: The Story of Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth" with band member Richie Furay, calls the Springfield box "marvelous with so many long lost rarities."
But he concedes there's a "feeling of incompleteness about the set -- tracks are conspicuous by their absence."
We asked Einarson, whose most recent book is "Desperados: The Roots Of Country Rock," to prepare his wish-list for what might have made the cut for that fourth "Box Set" CD. Here it is:
"The Hour of Not Quite Rain"
"Carefree Country Day"
"Four Days Gone"
"Pretty Girl Why"
"On The Way Home" (original version with strings and horns)
"Uno Mundo" (single mix)
"Merry-Go-Round" (single mix)
All the above date from the group's posthumous album "Last Time Around." Band members Neil Young and Stephen Stills have expressed their distaste for the record, which may explain why some of these songs were left off the box set. A version of Young's "On The Way Home" is presented on the box set, but without horn and string overdubs heard on "Last Time Around." Einarson said the single mixes of "Uno Mundo" and "Merry-Go-Round" were distinct enough to warrant inclusion on "Box Set."
"Sell Out"
A "rather nasty" song Einarson says Young once described as "The Greatest Song On Earth." "Young apparently winced at the 'la la la's' at the end and removed it from contention," he added.
"Extra Extra"
A song Einarson says dates back to Young's days in the Yorkville folk scene in Toronto.
Live and rehearsal material
Poor quality live tapes have circulated among Buffalo Springfield collectors, and the band's final concert at the Long Beach Sports Arena (May 5, 1968) was reportedly recorded, as was their Young-less performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Likewise, there's a tape of the nascent band rehearsing at the Hollywood Center Motel. So why isn't any of this stuff included?
"Stills and Young always maintained that the Springfield sounded best
live and lamented the fact that they never captured the energy and
excitement of their live sound in the studio," Einarson explains.
"Yet they don't offer any live tracks on the box set when, in fact, there were a number of live tapes unearthed."
The objection to the live material available was lack of sonic fidelity, but, as Einarson points out, "with digital technology this stuff could have been improved."
"Bluebird" (nine-minute version)
Described by Einarson as "much-coveted by Springfield aficionados," the long version of this Stills standout only ever showed up on a now-unavailable 1973 double-album best-of, simply titled "Buffalo Springfield".
TV performances
The band's TV appearances produced what Einarson calls "unusual jam-versions" of "Bluebird" and "For What It's Worth." (Curiously, one of the band's TV spots included a turn on the late-'60s private-eye series "Mannix.")
"Broken Arrow" (demos and separate takes)
Einarson says there likely exist various versions of Young's multi-part, epic sign-off number from "Buffalo Springfield Again," including the "live" section, featuring drummer Dewey Martin performing "Mr. Soul."
Jack Nitzsche sessions
"Begun during Young's time in the group, then carried on after he left for three months in mid-1967," Einarson says. Among the numbers essayed were "Slowly Burning," "High School Graduation, "Whiskey Boot Hill" (later to surface on CSNY's "Deja Vu"), and "the demo version of 'Expecting To Fly,' with the lost final verse intact." This stuff could yet surface on Young's long-planned "Archive" set, which has been promised and postponed numerous times.
"Sit Down, I Think I Love You" (demo)
"Leave" (demo)
"Go And Say Goodbye" (demo)
These Stills songs were "demoed with Furay and Stills together," says Einarson.
"Burned" (alternate version)
"Mr. Soul" (alternate version)
Both of these Young songs were recorded with Furay (or Furay with Stills) trying out the lead vocals. Young's version was ultimately released; Einarson says these versions "were likely erased."
"I Guess You Made It"
A Furay demo that Furay and latter-day Springfield member Jim Messina went on to do with Poco.
"Nobody's Fool" (alternate version)
Furay's song, but with drummer Dewey Martin on lead vocals. "Martin's popular live showcase."
"A Child's Claim To Fame" (alternate version)
"Rock & Roll Woman" (alternate version)
"The original takes," says Einarson, "without Young but with (his replacement) Doug Hastings."
