Born Blue: Neil Young and the Blues Banshee

The tumultuous duo, Neil Young and Stephen Stills, and their musical marriage, is highly praised. Their ups and downs are showcased in articles and documentaries, even after the cruellest actions joined them to one another once again. Though Neil Young is the most commercially successful, Young couldn't reach the sound the way he wanted to encapsulate on tape without the addition of the ‘blues banshee,’ Stephen Stills.

Born on November 12, 1945 to journalist Scott Young and Edna Young in Toronto Canada, Young suffered for the majority of his childhood with severe illness from epilepsy to type-1 diabetes, with the most severe being polio after contracting it. A recovering a 6-year-old Young had to learn how to relearn how to walk. Young's mother encouraged him to pursue his interest in music, with his father gifting him a plastic ukulele and eventually, an acoustic guitar. Young was no stranger to string instruments, as his father played the banjo, exposing Young to string instruments. 

During Young’s parents' divorce, he moved to Winnipeg, meeting garage bands in need of players, before dropping out of high school and moving back to Toronto to sing solo in a coffee house. Not too long later, Young joined the MynahBirds, containing a then unknown Rick James. Young and bassist Bruce Palmer eventually fled the flock, and took off onto the Sunset Strip to find Stephen Stills, who he had met back in Canada. 

Within 6 days, Young had given up on his scavenger hunt for Stills, driving down Sunset Boulevard one last time before heading to San Francisco. Stills, taking the same drive, noticed Neil’s unforgettable hearse stopped in traffic and re-encountered him.

Stephen Stills was everything Young needed. Stephen stills, was born on January 3, 1945, to military building constructor William Stills and mother Talitha Collard. Due to his father's military association, Stills spent his childhood drifting throughout the Southern U.S., and Latin America, eventually graduating high school in Costa Rica. After graduating, Stills took off for college to Florida, finding it not pleasing, and transferred to Louisiana State University and worked in a bar as entertainment. 

Up East, the folk scene was rumbling, putting Greenwich Village on the map. Stills dropped out of college, and like a bluebird, took off for New York. During that time, Stills would be in orbit with the likes of other hungry and imaginative artists like Richie Furray and Gram Parsons. Though the village seemed oh so enticing, once there, some felt the air to be stagnant. Parsons had just given Furray a tape of Stills, as well as a tape of Furray to Stills. Furray convinced Stills to move down west, promising snowless winters and sunshine in Los Angeles.

Neil’s conquest was complete, and Stephen had more pieces to a band. After an invitation to audition, Dewey Martin would complete the band of Buffalo Springfield. It is often told that Young wanted to be Bob Dylan, and Stills wanted to be the Beatles. Throughout Buffalo Springfield's run, the clash of Stills and Young led to Young leaving and eventually releasing his self-titled solo album. The album was a commercial disappointment that was followed by high praise for his album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. 

Stills was still flying high with Crosby, Stills and Nash’s debut album as well as their infamous performance at Woodstock. The duo soon rekindled, with Stills and Young wanting to envelop into one another once more with heavy hesitation from Graham Nash and David Crosby. Once again,just three years later, Young would leave on his solo conquest. During Young’s album, Harvest, the track Alabama would prove why Young needed the ‘blues banshee.’ Alabama, a blues-heavy track backed by the stray gators recorded on Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch inside a barn, the stray gators added to the swampy blues sound, but didn’t quite perfect it. Young lacked the mud that made Stills' blues so tangible.

Stills' solo debut made commercial success. Stills' experience and worldliness bled through his sound, with Latin percussion, folk-like storytelling, rock-and-roll pace and most importantly, his blues guitar. The track "Go Back Home " on his debut album features a blues guitar lick by Stills, smooth, sticky, and dirty. The lick sticks to the track like mud. Stills claims to be a blues man in Stephen Stills 2, on the track " Nothin' to do but today.”

You think I'm not myself

You're confusing me with somebody else

I'm not so easily deceived

I'm a blues man, I know when to leave

Young was a Canadian hermit till his flight to the Sunset Strip, using his sound to create the sound of his interest and envy. Stills sound was versed, and emerged from experience, cultures and knowledge. The mud at Broken Arrow Ranch compacted in the palm, leaving a veil of its trace from California coastal sands, and the Rocky Mountains. The mud Stills knew was hot, sticky and humid, with centuries of moisture and red clay seeping from the cracks sticking to the palm and covering it. Stills was essential to Young’s sound.