Stephen Stills “Right by You”
At twenty one, Stephen Stills wrote and performed the era-defining “For What It’s Worth” with Buffalo Springfield. At twenty three, he wrote and performed the otherworldly “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” with Crosby, Stills and Nash. At twenty five, he made his remarkable solo debut, which featured “Love The One You’re With.” That’s quite a career to have before you’re old enough to know anything about anything.
After that, things got progressively worse. Gradually so, at first. And then, as the hour glass tilted, precipitously so. Stills always possessed sufficient talent, versatility and fortune to prosper as a guest musician alongside other stars and as a member of the always revered but rarely active supergroup, CSNY. In fairness, during the Seventies he was exceedingly productive, releasing solo albums, co-leading Manassas, collaborating with Neil Young as a duo, and playing guitar and bass on significant albums from Joni Mitchell, The Bee Gees and countless others.
Yes — Stephen Stills was productive for nearly fifteen years. He had not lost the grip of his instruments. But he was seemingly losing the grip on most everything else. Throughout the decade, his legendary bourbon and cocaine habits ended bands, ended tours and ended relationships. In 1978 he released “Thoroughfare Gap,” a solo album that he proudly described as both “Swamp Rock” and “Disco.” Suffice it to say, it was not well received. Nearly every record Stills released before 1978 — with bands or solo — had been certified “Gold” by the RIAA. Since then, none have. And only two even scraped the bottom of the charts. The broad, if ungenerous, view of Stills is that he was an oversized talent who flourished briefly, then stagnated early, and finally spiraled and regressed through middle age.
It would be six years between “Thoroughfare Gap” and his follow-up, cusp of middle age record, “Right for You.” During that hiatus, Stills was not very musically active. He could be seen speedboat racing in Southern California with Don Johnson, Kurt Russell and Bruce Jenner. If you told me that those boats ran on cocaine, I would question you. He could also be heard faintly in the background of Ringo Starr albums. But, otherwise, it would seem that Stills spent more than half a decade stepping back and considering his life -- the ascent and, more so, the descent.
With so much time to reflect and so much talent intact, Stills finally returned in 1984, on the verge of forty, with “Right by You,” a curious album wrapped in a curious package. The front cover features the artist's name and title in a very modern, vaguely Heavy Metal font. There is a (speedboat?) rocket soaring above planet Earth. The album’s back cover features a photo of Stills and the world’s Speedboat racing champion on the singer’s boat. And yet, as confounding as the album artwork is, I was completely unprepared for the actual music product inside.
“Right by You” consists mostly of synthesizer songs about love from the vantage of a man who has failed greatly and learned something. Although the promise of 80s Fairbanks and Roland synthesizers was, in part, the limitlessness of the sounds they could create, in retrospect, most of the famous music made using these instruments in that decade ended up sounding like scores to “Miami Vice” and “Beverly Hills Cop 2.” The layers of beat-less rhythms. The cold soullessness of a piano that is supposed to sound moody or passionate. It is the tragic sound of Billy Preston and Stevie Wonder’ being handed over to German engineers.
Of the ten songs on “Right By You,” Stills wrote or co-wrote six. They are also, unquestionably, the worst tracks on the record. On “50/50,” “Stranger” and “Love Again,” Stills sounds like a man alone in a suburban mall recording studio, playing with Latin beats, vocal overdubs and “what does this button do” synthesizer tricks in an effort to create texture where melody is absent. The middle of the road, Soft Rock evokes Christopher Cross in a way that confirms just how hard it is to make compelling music that rocks very softly. More than Cross, these songs resemble, say, the themes for television’s “Family Ties” or “Growing Pains.” On the other hand, Alan Thicke, who wrote those themes, seemed to have far more restraint with technology. Lyrically, this trio is frequently trite and occasionally sad. In “50/50,” the singer reveals that true love has to be balanced and that, not knowing this previously, he found himself alone:
Much to my dismay
When I wake up in the morning
No one by my side
Nowhere left to hide
I thought music was enough
I could fill the empty spaces
Wandering the halls
Bouncing off the walls
Too
High to hear the song
Or
Recall the deeper meaning
There is but to seek redress
From is wretched loneliness
With love
That's 50/50 or a hundred at a time
Love
That's 50/50 with both of us this time
What Stills was able to muster on his own sounds competent, but amateurish. None of it compels. Some of it repels. Wherein he did not write the songs and he invites in other collaborators, the results are more interesting, but only marginally. “Flaming Heart” is a Country Rockabilly quickie, with a good enough chorus but also with synthetic beats that evoke a younger Billy Ray Cyrus. Elsewhere, there’s an unnecessary, if not blasphemous, version of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart.” And then he gives us “Can’t Let Go,” an honest to goodness Gospel R&B song that sounds both completely out of place and oddly uplifting. Stills did not write the song. He barely sings on it. The song is mostly spared from synthesizer. It’s soulful and sincere and, unsurprisingly, the best song on the album. “Best” being a very relative term. And, finally — mercifully — there’s titular closer, which while credited to Stills, is really just a highly professional Blues jam, featuring Jimmy Page and some Hammond organ (not played by Stills). It’s a casual and casually enjoyable, but the singer is the song’s least interesting feature.
Many years ago, while on a family cruise, our boat docked in Bermuda. While ashore, we happened upon a hotel bar where Livingston Taylor — brother of James — was playing for a sparse crowd of tourists. Not that Livingston Taylor was ever especially famous, and I expect he was appropriately paid, but I felt sad for him, nonetheless. To see a past prime artist at their bottom can be painful. I obviously have no idea what Stephen Stills was feeling in the making or release of “Right By You.” Perhaps he felt invigorated to be back in the studio and, then, singing his songs for fans. Also, it must be said that his “rock bottom” is softened by pillows of cash. And yet, there is this sad image I have of Stills from 1984: he is on “American Bandstand” with Dick Clark. His hair is stringy. His glasses are tinted. He’s wearing a brown blazer. Nothing about him is young or cool. In the interview, he awkwardly asks people to buy the album so he can go on making records and playing with his toys (synthesizers).
It would be another seven years before he released a solo album. So talented and so successful at his quarter-age, Stephen Stills has not gotten a whiff of the charts in the over forty years since.