Last Time Around [Remaster]

Performer: Buffalo Springfield
Producer: Jim Messina
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Buffalo Springfield includes: Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, Jim Messina. Engineers: Phil Lehle, Adrian Barber, Jim Messina. All tracks have been digitally remastered using HDCD technology. The internal dissension that was already eating away at Buffalo Springfield's dynamic on their second album came home to roost on their third and final effort, Last Time Around. This was in some sense a Buffalo Springfield album in name but not in spirit, as the songwriters sometimes did not even play on cuts written by other members of the band. Neil Young's relatively slight contribution was a particularly tough blow. He wrote only two of the songs (though he did help Richie Furay write "It's So Hard to Wait"), both of which were outstanding: the plaintive "I Am a Child" and the bittersweet "On the Way Home" (sung by Furay, not Young, on the record). The rest of the ride was bumpier: Stephen Stills' material in particular was not as strong as it had been on the first two LPs, though the lovely Latin-flavored "Pretty Girl Why," with its gorgeous guitar work, is one of the group's best songs. Furay was developing into a quality songwriter with the orchestrated "The Hour of Not Quite Rain" and his best Springfield contribution, the beautiful ballad "Kind Woman," which became one of the first country-rock standards. But it was a case of not enough, too late, not only for Furay, but for the group as a whole. ~ Richie Unterberger Although this album was made amid the fragmentation of Buffalo Springfield, that fact is not apparent in retrospect. On the contrary, there is an appealingly gentle quality about the group's third and final album. As Jim Messina and Richie Furay (later to join together in Poco) took control of the group, they developed a pronounced country-rock feel. Young's premier contribution is "I Am a Child" and the then-prolific Stills hits the button with four gems: the plea for world unity, "Uno Mundo;" the song of a fugitive, "Four Days Gone;" "Special Care;" and the original "Questions." LAST TIME AROUND is a much better album than we could have expected from a band about to burst apart.

Buffalo Springfield was one of the definitive 1960s folk-rock groups. Their surplus of strong writers and personalities (including Neil Young and Steve Stills) produced some inspired recordings, but there was no way to keep all that talent under one roof. After a brief, sparkling career and three albums, they splintered into Poco; Crosby, Stills, and Nash; and, of course, the mighty Neil's five-decade solo career. Despite the brevity of the group's life, their country/rock/folk hybrid laid the groundwork for much of what followed in the '70s.

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