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Long May You Run is an album credited to "The Stills-Young Band" but is a de facto collaboration between Stephen Stills and Neil Young, released in September 1976. The Stills-Young Band recorded the album and began a tour in 1976 prior to the album's release, but Young dropped out of the tour when he grew bored with the project, forcing Stills to complete the concert tour solo. The band was together from July through October of 1976. Outside of Stills and Young, the other members of the group came from Stills' solo band.
[edit] Collaboration
"Long May You Run," the first single released, was an elegy for Neil Young's 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse, his first car. The album stemmed from a desire by both Young and Stills to pick up where they left off with their Buffalo Springfield-era guitar explorations. At one point, once their CSNY cohorts David Crosby and Graham Nash got wind of the project, "Long May You Run" briefly became a CSNY album, but not before Young and Stills' impatience got the best of them and they decided to wipe Crosby and Nash's added vocal harmonies from the album tracks in their absence (ironically, Crosby and Nash were busy trying to put the finishing touches on an album of their own.) Crosby and Nash were understandably livid when they found out, and it would be eight years before the quartet even considered working together again (Crosby, Stills and Nash would regroup in 1977 for an album and tour.)
Despite Stills' and Young's good intentions, "Long May You Run" is an album marred by mainly mediocre songs, overblown arrangements ("Black Coral") and slick 70's production ("Midnight on the Bay", "Make Love to You"), although Young's material is characteristically more stripped down than Stills' ("Ocean Girl", "Fountainbleau"). Their trademark guitar duets are in short supply ("12/8 Blues", "Guardian Angel"), mainly due to the fact that the two were rarely in the studio at the same time. Young disapproved of Stills' drug and alcohol abuse; whereas Stills felt that Young wasn't giving his all to the project, submitting lightweight tunes Stills suspected Young wrote on the way to the studio (with the exception of the title track).
The ill-fated duo attempted to take their act on the road in the summer of 1976 for a thirty date American tour that lasted exactly eight decidedly erratic shows before Young decided he'd had enough of Stills and packed it in. While driving their buses to the next gig, Young, fed up with Stills' drunken babbling over the CB radios, instructed his driver to head for Nashville instead of New Orleans, the next stop on the tour. Young then had an assistant send Stills and the rest of the band telegrams, which read, "Funny how things that start spontaneously end that way... Eat a peach, Neil."
[edit] Track listing
- "Long May You Run" – 3:53
- "Make Love to You" – 5:10
- "Midnight on the Bay" – 3:59
- "Black Coral" – 4:41
- "Ocean Girl" – 3:19
- "Let It Shine" – 4:43
- "12/8 Blues (All the Same)" – 3:41
- "Fontainebleau" – 3:58
- "Guardian Angel" – 5:40
- Tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 8 written by Neil Young
- Tracks 2, 4, 7, 9 written by Stephen Stills
[edit] Personnel
- Neil Young: guitar, piano, harmonica, string synthesizer, vocal
- Stephen Stills: guitar, piano, vocal
- Joe Lala: percussion, vocal
- Jerry Aiello: organ, piano
- George "Chocolate" Perry: bass, vocal
- Joe Vitale: drums, flute, vocal
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