Buffalo Springfield

Buffalo Springfield Again (Atco ‘67) Rating: A-
Buffalo Springfield are primarily remembered today for “For What Its Worth” (from the band’s self-titled debut) and for serving as the launching pad for the careers of Neil Young, Stephen Stills, and Richie Furay. The band possessed awesome talent, led by those three singer/songwriter/guitarists, and Buffalo Springfield Again remains highly enjoyable today, over 30 years after its release. Neil Young delivers “Mr. Soul,” a song that’s still a concert favorite due to its strong melody and grungy guitars, the dreamy “Expecting To Fly,” which is notable for Jack Nitzsche’s string arrangements, and the ambitious, multi-sectioned (and mostly successful) “Broken Arrow.” Neil would rarely go in the direction of these latter two songs again, though he thought enough of all three of them to include them on his own handpicked retrospective, Decade. For his part, Furay’s first steps into songwriting are tentative on “Bad Memory” but yield better results on the energetic “Good Time Boy,” which strangely enough is sung by drummer Dewey Martin. Where he really hits paydirt, however, is on the charming “A Childs Claim To Fame,” which foreshadowed the country rock direction Furay would take with his subsequent band, Poco. Stills checks in with the jazzy “Everydays,” a good song despite being mixed too low, and “Hung Upside Down,” another strong (Furay sung) song with lots of raw guitar and a toughness that many would accuse his later band (Crosby, Stills, and Nash) of lacking. Stills’ song here that most sounds like his later band is the excellent “Rock & Roll Woman,” while “Bluebird” is also one of his best efforts ever, being another intense rocker with pretty harmonies and guitars all over the place - that is until an unexpected banjo interlude takes the song to its conclusion. Throughout this short album the band veers from style to style, and though they don’t all work equally well this was an extremely impressive album that's generally regarded as the band’s best. With Young leaving and rejoining the band continually and bassist Bruce Palmer getting deported on a regular basis, the band would implode soon after the release of Buffalo Springfield Again after a volatile two years together; Last Time Around was then released post-breakup.

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