In the summer of 1986, the original members of the Buffalo Springfield met at Stephen Stills’ home to rehearse new material that Stephen and Neil Young were working on and to make tentative plans to reunite for a 20th anniversary reunion tour. The 2 day practice session marked the first time that the five founding members had played together since their break-up in 1967. The rehearsals were kept a secret and my understanding was that management was not keen on having the sessions videotaped. However, after some deliberation, the band over ruled management and decided that they wanted to document the get together.
I’d just finished wrapping a shoot when I received a call with an anxious Bruce Palmer on the other end filling me in- Neil and Richie (Furay) were in town, the Buffalo Springfield were going to be rehearsing, could I make it over to Stephen’s with a camera and lights and be set up in an hour and a half? LMAO! (Nothing like having plenty of advance notice, guys.) As fate would have it, I was on the freeway on my way home from work, I had a camera package in the car and was only 15 minutes away from Stephen’s place. I just happened to be the right person, with the right camera, with the right contacts at the right position in spacetime to record the practice, otherwise we wouldn’t have anything to look at right now.
From what I can remember and from the comments that can be heard on the tapes, at the end of the rehearsal the band was planning on more rehearsals and moving forward w/ the reunion tour. However, the paradigm was about to shift and I saw it happen in front of my eyes.
A couple of weeks later, in wee hours of the morning, I was listening to Stephen laying down some bass tracks in his studio when David Crosby, (who had just gotten out of a Texas jail the day before) made a surprise visit and came through the door with guitar case in hand. I remember the moment as if were yesterday: David: “Hey, Stephen. Do you want to hear some open chords that I’ve been working on in my cell?” Stephen: Uhh…well, hell yeah!” They played together for about an hour and a day or two later Graham Nash showed up. Stephen’s priorities shifted to reuniting with CS&N, in large part, to help out an old friend who was down and out at the time.
A few months later, the Crosby, Still & Nash reunion tour was in full swing, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin were having a successful run with the Buffalo Springfield Revisited, Neil Young was on the road with the Live In A Rusted Out Garage with Crazy Horse tour, Richie Furay was back in Boulder doing his thing and I wrapped up the rehearsal tapes and put them into a box where they were to remain for the next 30 years. For what it’s worth, from what I’ve been able to dig up, this is likely the only rehearsal footage of the original Buffalo Springfield that has ever been recorded.
The practice session began with a “theme" that was in Neil’s head and moved onto Stephen shredding the guitar on a new blues tune that he was in the early stage of conceptualizing. In this clip, the band is working out the nuts and bolts on a new tune of Neil’s that he would later develop into “Road of Plenty” which made its performance debut during the Crazy Horse tour in November of 1986. The song would, subsequently, evolve into its studio version, “Eldorado”, which was recorded 2 years later and released in the states on Neil's Freedom album.
The song's progression~
Road of Plenty ~
...
Eldorado (live) ~
...
If you like this, stay tuned- there will be more to come.
(PS I own the rights.)
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