Buffalo Springfield: For What Its Worth

The mosaic of the music business is fascinating—and today marked the formation of an influential band whose footprint in popular music was cross-pollinated in several other huge groups.

Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay formed the group “Buffalo Springfield” on this date in 1966. Jim Messina was later a part of the band as well.

So much has happened in the 45 years since—and the travels of each member in and out of other bands have left an indelible mark on music. Although each musician is considered “cool” by almost any standard, the “gotta getta gig” mentality of the time dictated some career moves that in retrospect seem odd.

Stephen Stills, for instance, actually auditioned to be one of the Monkees! That failure probably was the best thing to ever happen to him. Buffalo Springfield’s first producers also considered Neil Young’s voice as “too weird”—and assigned vocal duties for his compositions to Furay. If they only knew what an icon Neil Young (and his weird voice) would turn out to be!

The group’s biggest hit was s song called “For What Its Worth”. Destined to be an anthem for anti-war protesters, Stephen Stills actually wrote the song about police reaction against young people protesting the closing of a NIGHTCLUB on Sunset Boulevard!

Check out a portion of Buffalo Springfield’s performance of that song on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967----and see how Tommy Smothers cracks up Stills in mid-song:




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYYCiaHhnx4

Although the band broke up about 25 months after forming, the DNA of that band found its way into other huge groups. Stills went on to form Crosby, Stills & Nash with David Crosby of the Byrds and Graham Nash of the Hollies. Neil Young launched a solo career, then reunited with Stills in 1969 and tacked his name onto CS&N. Furay and Messina were founding members of the band Poco and of course, Messina later joined with Kenny Loggins to form Loggins and Messina.

In 1997, Buffalo Springfield was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

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