Buffalo Springfield: Stampede Reconstructed

This is an attempt to reconstruct the second Buffalo Springfield album "Stampede", which was refashioned a few months later into "Buffalo Springfield Again". The initial sessions for "Stampede" ran from January to June 1967 but were effectively derailed after Young left the group in early June. There were a few sporadic sessions without him but it was only after he returned in August that the band were able to focus on completing the album, adding more new songs, discarding others and changing the title for its October 30 release. The group recorded about 15 songs between January and June, along with four March demos found on the band's box set. Of the 15 songs attempted in the studio, I am omitting the Young songs "Whiskey Boot Hill" and "Slowly Burning" as "Whiskey" is a brief instrumental that hasn't leaked yet (although a 1968 re-recording appeared on his solo debut) and "Slowly Burning" is unfinished, existing only as a backing track (though it sounds promising). Another two, "Hung Upside Down" and "Rock And Roll Woman", had backing tracks recorded in late June after Young's exit but were not completed until the fall. That leaves 11, and I wanted to round it out to 12 like the band's debut so I picked "My Angel", one of the four demos. All four demos are quite skeletal, with just guitar and vocal and Furay's two ("Words I Must Say" and "Nobody's Fool") are very brief. Of the two Stills demos I picked "My Angel" as strongest and include it here in that form; while I'm sure a full-band version would have been attempted in the studio, I quite like it here with only Stills and acoustic guitar, much as "4+20" sounds on CSNY's "Deja Vu". The track order follows that of "Buffalo Springfield Again" for the first three songs, before adding in the outtakes. "Expecting To Fly" now closes side one and in the absence of "Broken Arrow", the classic "Bluebird" now closes the LP. Unfortunately, most of the "Stampede" outtakes exist only in mono (someone out there definitely needs to remix them into stereo), so it might be a little jarring moving from those tracks to the stereo numbers taken from "Again" and "Last Time Around". For Young's "Sell Out", I used the complete take that exists on boots rather than the heavily edited, inferior version Young included on his first "Archives" set. SIDE ONE 1. Mr. Soul 00:00 2. A Child's Claim To Fame 02:51 3. Everydays 05:03 4. We'll See 07:47 5. No Sun Today 10:34 6. Expecting To Fly 12:31 SIDE TWO 1. Down To The Wire 16:12 2. Pretty Girl Why 18:42 3. My Kind Of Love 21:10 4. Sell Out 23:25 5. My Angel 26:02 6. Bluebird 29:53 To be honest, "Stampede" wouldn't have been quite as masterful as "Buffalo Springfield Again". Every song here is good--and at least 5 are outstanding--but even better ones like "Rock And Roll Woman", "Hung Upside Down", and "Broken Arrow" ended up replacing a few. That said, this would have still been a very strong album, stronger than the debut.

Added 8 Apr 2026