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Thursday, June 15th 1995
Neither Snide Nor Soggy, Stills Plays to Nostalgia
by Peter Watrous
It is practically impossible, this late in the century, to sing
"Woodstock" with a straight face, or atleast without irony. But
Stephen Stills, who performed at Tramps Tuesday night, managed
it, and managed to make it seem as if he cared.
The ecstatic reaction to the song from a sold-out audience was
partly emotionalism; these were baby boomers returning to adolescence
that had national importance, a time in which the personal directly
affected the political. But the response also had to do with the
beauty of Mr. Stills handling of the material.
Mr. Stills was a member of two enormously influential 60's groups,
Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. He was
one of the most resourceful musicians of his generation, drawing
on country music, blues, jazz and Latin music for his songs. He
changed meters in his pieces and played quietly and was at times
an impressively distinctive rock guitarist. With his skill in
finding the few right notes for his melodies and the suggestive
open tunings he used on acoustic guitar, he was after a new, straightforward
form of songwriting, confessional, certainly utopian and occasionally
political. His words didn't always keep up with the music, but
he was one of the least soggily optimistic of the musicians he
has worked with.
For the past twenty years, though Mr. Stills has been an erratic
presence on the pop scene. The show on Tuesday, his first New
York solo in memory, found him on this side of the valve, in search
of both beauty and raw rock power. He started the set with a handful
of acoustic pieces, including the pastoral "Johnny's Garden" and
"So Begins the Task", performed as a medley.
His open tunings allowed his strings to ring freely, and he propelled
his songs with finger-picked powerful figures full of descending
bass lines and changing open harmonies. He moved to the electric
guitar to play "Love the One You're With", a hippie anthem if
there ever was one, and was backed for the rest of the brief show
by a powerful trio.
Among the songs he performed was "For What It's Worth", first
recorded with Buffalo Springfield. It is a period piece: "Something's
happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear....." go the lyrics.
The combination of Mr. Stills' dusty, high voice, the song's careful,
limited melody and the guitar hooks made it nostalgia at its most
powerful, a nostalgia whose power comes from a musical beauty
that still holds up.
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