Stephen Stills

Without Stephen Stills, classic-rock radio would have hardly anything to play — denied his work with Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills & Nash, Manassas, and the Stills-Young band, not to mention his solo career. In Springfield, he went toe-to-toe with Neil Young, turning out traffic-stopping like the spooky, tremolo-laden protest anti-anthem "For What It's Worth." As part of CSN, rock's first real supergroup, he reached for the skies with heaven-bound three-part harmonies and folk-rock fantasias like the epic "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes." And nothing ever celebrated hippie hedonism better than Stills' first solo hit, "Love the One You're With."

In Next Steps, the many faces of Stephen Stills come into clearer view.

The musical personality of Stephen Stills — who traded licks with Hendrix and played almost every instrument on Crosby, Stills & Nash's landmark debut album — has more levels than a suburban mall. Perfect '60s pop nugget "Pretty Girl Why" shows that Buffalo Springfield came damn close to their goal of becoming the American Beatles. "Go Back Home," from Stills' first solo album, is a blues-rock blowout featuring sparring partner Eric Clapton. The spicy Latin-rock blend of Manassas' "Rock & Roll Crazies/Cuban Bluegrass" bears the mark of Stills' teen years in South America as timbales meet Telecasters and everybody wins.

In Deep Cuts, we'll find out how Stills helped lay the foundations for Americana and more.

With Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash (and sometimes Young), Stephen Stills planted the flags of folk-rock, country-rock, and the L.A. singer-songwriter scene. Springfield's twangy "Pay the Price" showed the Bakersfield influence of Buck Owens long before Gram Parsons started crafting his "Cosmic American Music." CSNY's intimate, confessional acoustic weeper "4 + 20" is a prime piece of introspective Laurel Canyon balladeering. Even three decades down the road, Stills was busting out into new territory — he found his way into the hip-hop world with Public Enemy's '98 comeback smash "He Got Game," based around Springfield's "For What It's Worth" and featuring P.E. trading vocals with the original West Coast rabble-rouser.

Even if he never did anything else after Buffalo Springfield folded, Stephen Stills would be hailed as a boundary-bashing musical hero. His creative volcano continued to erupt long after that initial burst, though, burning chapter after chapter of brightly blazing history into the annals of rock 'n' roll. The singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist who scored hits with at least six different outfits absorbed folk, country, blues, soul, and Latin music into his system. What emerged, in turn, was a dizzying parade of tunes that gave a generation its own sonic scrapbook and forged anthems that would still sound vital all the way into the next century. Soul-searching ballads, blistering blues-rock, sparkling slices of pop, it's all in the Stills songbag, and it's all right here in our very essential Stephen Stills Essentials.