STILLS LIVE IN ’71, FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

Everything was going Stephen Stills’ way when he went on his first solo tour in mid-1971, vividly documented on the previously unreleased archival set Live at Berkeley 1971, hitting 4/28 from Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group and Cheryl Pawelski’s Omnivore Recordings. He was the engine that drove the massively popular CSN and sometimes Y, and his two solo LPs were hits, the first outselling the solo debuts of his three erstwhile bandmates.

Stills hit the road with a five-man backing band plus the Memphis Horns, but the bulk of each show found him performing acoustically, sometimes accompanied by one or two players. Live at Berkeley 1971 was compiled from the tour-ending two-night stand at the Berkeley Community Theatre, and the album replicates the full 14-song set list. On the lead track, percussionist Joe Lala accentuates the Latin groove of “Love the One You’re With," while on the second just-released advance cut, Stills does a lively solo piano medley of “49 Bye-Byes” and the Buffalo Springfield ’60s anthem “For What It’s Worth.”

The LP also includes duets with David Crosby on CSN’s “You Don’t Have to Cry” and Croz’s own “The Lee Shore,” glorious performances both. Stills is in peak form vocally and instrumentally throughout the set, reminding us what a prodigiously talented musician this two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee was during that vital era.