''Last Time Around'' is the third and final studio

album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by the Canadian-American

folk rock Folk rock is a fusion genre of rock music with heavy influences from pop, English and American folk music. It arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music re ...

band

Buffalo Springfield Buffalo Springfield was a Canadian-American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1966 by Canadians Neil Young, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin (musician), Dewey Martin and Americans Stephen Stills and Richie Furay. The group, widely know ...

, released in July 1968. The line-up at the time officially consisted of

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...

Stephen Stills Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and Manassas (band ...

Richie Furay Paul Richard Furay (born May 9, 1944) is an American musician and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member (with Buffalo Springfield). He is best known for forming the bands Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Bruce Palmer, and Dewey ...

, Dewey Martin,

Bruce Palmer Bruce Palmer (September 9, 1946 – October 1, 2004) was a Canadian musician best known as the bassist in the folk rock band Buffalo Springfield, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Early years Palmer was born in Li ...

, and Jim Messina, though the band itself was essentially broken up and the album was put together from previous recordings, some made up to a year earlier. Jim Messina acted as the album producer and mixing engineer, with input from Furay, as the two compiled the record to fulfil the band's last contractual obligation to its label. A number of guest musicians (some uncredited) appeared on the album, notably

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a console steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings, enabling more varied and complex music to be played than with other steel guitar designs. Like all steel guitars, it can play ...

player Rusty Young. By the time this album was released, the members were already involved in their next projects: Richie Furay, Jim Messina, and Rusty Young were busy forming the country-rock band

Poco In software engineering, a plain old CLR object, or plain old class object (POCO) is a simple object created in the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) that is unencumbered by inheritance or attributes. This is often used in opposition to the comp ...

, Stephen Stills was forming

Crosby, Stills & Nash Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) was a folk rock supergroup comprising the American singer-songwriters David Crosby and Stephen Stills and the English-American singer-songwriter Graham Nash. When joined by the Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Youn ...

, and Neil Young was performing with a group known as The Rockets which would later become the band

Crazy Horse Crazy Horse ( , ; – September 5, 1877) was a Lakota people, Lakota war leader of the Oglala band. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by White Americans, White American settlers on Nativ ...

. Dewey Martin tried to revive the Buffalo Springfield name with new members, but he was sued by Stills and Young to prevent him from doing so. Bruce Palmer briefly joined Crosby, Stills & Nash, but legal problems kept him from producing much musical output during the rest of the 1960s.

History

''Last Time Around'' was compiled by Jim Messina and Furay to fulfil the band's last contractual obligation to its label. By the time it was completed the group had functionally disbanded, with the cover photo of the group consisting of a montage and the five original members only recording together on one track, "On the Way Home". The album contained songs that were important to the authors.

has performed both "I Am a Child" and "On the Way Home" in concert throughout his career, the latter both solo and with CSNY, the Transband and the Bluenotes. "Kind Woman" became one of

's best known songs; he performed it with

and throughout his solo career.

merged "Questions" into " Carry On," the lead track on ''

Déjà Vu ''Déjà vu'' ( , ; "already seen") is the phenomenon of feeling like one has lived through the present situation in the past.Schnider, Armin. (2008). ''The Confabulating Mind: How the Brain Creates Reality''. Oxford University Press. pp. 167–1 ...

''; it would become a feature of the

concert repertoire. Stills would record "Questions" again with

Judy Collins Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning nearly seven decades. An Academy Awards, Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Awards, Grammy Award-winning rec ...

on their collaborative 2017 album. The lyrics to "The Hour of Not Quite Rain" were the result of an August 1967 contest run by Los Angeles radio station KHJ. Entrants would write a poem to be set to music and recorded by the Buffalo Springfield. The prize was $1000 plus publishing royalties. The winning entry was written by Micki Callen.

Production

The album was recorded between February 26, 1967 and March 1968 at Sunset Sound, Los Angeles. Additional work was done at Atlantic Studios, New York City on "Pretty Girl Why" and "Kind Woman". Jim Messina was the album producer and mixing engineer, with input from Furay. A number of guest musicians (some uncredited) appeared on the album, notably

player Rusty Young. Original bassist Bruce Palmer only appears on "On the Way Home". His face is shown on the back cover photo montage with a humorous, partially obscured, "mad" sign aligned, due to Palmer resembling

Alfred E. Neuman Alfred E. Neuman is the fictitious mascot and cover boy of the American humor magazine '' Mad''. The character's distinct smiling face, gap-toothed smile, freckles, red hair, protruding ears, and scrawny body date back to late 19th-century ad ...

in the shot.

Critical reception

Barry Gifford of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' called ''Last Time Around'' Buffalo Springfield's "most beautiful record" and "a final testament to their multi-talent".

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

, writing for ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentleman ...

'', called it a "beautiful farewell album" of "countrified music", in which "country elements are incorporated into a total style".

Richie Unterberger Richie Unterberger (born 1962) is an American author and journalist whose focus is popular music and travel writing. Life and writing Unterberger attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he wrote for the university newspaper '' The Daily P ...

was less enthusiastic in a retrospective review for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

. He found Young's songs for the album "outstanding", but believed Stills' songwriting was a decline from the group's previous albums. Young has been especially critical of the album, saying in an interview that "It was such a disgraceful mess that I can't bear to listen to it again. The mixes are incredibly awful, a very disturbing point," and saying in another interview that "the Springfield's last real album was 'Buffalo Springfield Again'." It was voted number 505 in the third edition of

Colin Larkin Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British music writer. He founded and was the editor-in-chief of ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. Along with the ten-volume encyclopedia, Larkin also wrote the book ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'', and edited th ...

's ''

All Time Top 1000 Albums ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'' is a book by Colin Larkin, creator and editor of the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. The book was first published by Guinness Publishing in 1994. The list presented is the result of over 200,000 votes cast by the ...

'' (2000).

Track listing

Personnel

;Buffalo Springfield *

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

(1-3, 8, 10-12),

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

(1-3, 5, 7, 10, 12) * Dewey Martin -

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

(1-3, 9, 11) * Jim Messina -

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

(2, 4, 5), vocals (5, 12) *

- guitar (1-4, 6, 8, 10, 11), piano (4, 6, 8), B3 organ (6, 8, 11), bass (6, 8), clavinet (8), vibes (1), percussion (11), handclaps (11), background vocal (1, 5, 8, 10), lead vocal (3, 4, 6, 8, 11) *

- guitar (3, 9, 10),

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

(9), piano (1), background vocal (1), lead vocal (9) *

- bass (1) ;Additional personnel *

Jim Fielder Jim Fielder (born October 4, 1947 in Denton, Texas) is an American bassist, best known for his work as an original member of Blood, Sweat & Tears. Prior to BS&T, he was rhythm guitarist for Frank Zappa's band The Mothers of Invention. Fielder at ...

- bass (3) *

Buddy Miles George Allen "Buddy" Miles Jr. (September 5, 1947February 26, 2008) was an American composer, drummer, guitarist, vocalist and producer. He was a founding member of the Electric Flag (1967), a member of Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys (1969–19 ...

- drums (6) *Jimmy Karstein - drums (8, 10) * Gary Marker - bass (9) *Jeremy Stuart - harpsichord,

calliope In Greek mythology, Calliope ( ; ) is the Muse who presides over eloquence and epic poetry; so called from the ecstatic harmony of her voice. Hesiod and Ovid called her the "Chief of all Muses". Mythology Calliope had two famous sons, OrpheusH ...

, bells (10) * Rusty Young - pedal steel guitar (12) * Richard Davis - bass (12) *unidentified - horns (1), saxophone, clarinet (2), drums (4), bass, drums, harpsichord, orchestra (7), horn (11), piano, drums (12) Track numbers refer to CD and digital releases of the album.

Production

*Producer: Jim Messina *Engineers:

Adrian Barber Adrian Barber (13 November 1938 – 8 August 2020) was an English musician and producer most noted for recording the Beatles '' Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962'', producing the Allman Brothers Band's self-titled debut album, alon ...

, Phil Iehle, Jim Messina

Charts

References

{{Authority control Buffalo Springfield albums 1968 albums Atco Records albums Albums produced by Jim Messina (musician) Albums recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders