Buffalo Springfield "Last Time Around"1968***

Though chosen randomly, "Last Time Around" is a fitting title for my last record presentation of the year. It was the last and probably weakest album released by Buffalo Springfield but that doesn't make it a bad one. It contains two of their greatest songs, Neil Young's "I Am a Child" and Richie Furey's wonderful country rock ballad "Kind Woman". By the time it was released the band had drifted apart with Bruce Palmer deported to Canada and Neil Young often disappearing from view. It was recorded sporadically with everyone bringing his own songs to the mix and singing lead in them while there isn't a single track featuring the whole band together. Neil Young contributed only two songs ("I Am a Child" and "On the Way Home") and bassist/producer Jim Messina one ("Carefree Country Day", the title of which is also descriptive of its content). Richie Furay contributed "Kind Woman","So Hard to Wait","Merry-Go-Round" and the psychedelic"Hour Of Not Quite Rain" while Stills wrote 5 songs of which the best were the Latin inflected "Uno Mundo" and Beatlesque "Pretty Girl Why". He was to join forces with Young again at the supergroup CSN&Y (with the Byrds' David Crosby and Hollies' Graham Nash), unveiled for the first time at the Woodstock festival. Furrey & Messina also resumed their colaboration in the country-rock band Poco.

**** for I Am a Child, Kind Woman

**** for Uno Mundo, Pretty Girl Why, On the Way Home

*** for Carefree Country Day, Special Care, The Hour Of Not Quite Rain, Merry-go-round

** for Four Days Gone, It's So Hard To Wait, Questions

So, the year closes to its end and I'd like to thank everyone who's visited these pages and wish them a very fine 2015 with good health, happiness, peace on earth and hopefully great music. I'll keep on posting presentations of random albums from my collection but on a more leisurely pace. I'm glad I managed to keep my initial goal of 1 album daily until the end of the year but timewise it's impossible to keep up for long, even if that means that it'll take a few decades to finish my task. STAY WELL!