, no other American band had as great an impact on folk-rock and country-rock -- really, the entire Californian rock sound -- than
. The group's formation is the stuff of legend: driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles,
, a Canadian he had crossed paths with earlier. Indeed it was, and with the addition of fellow hearse passenger and Canadian
had just done, to become a rock & roll band.
Buffalo Springfield wasn't together long -- they were an active outfit for just over two years, between 1967 and 1968 --but every one of their three albums was noteworthy. Their debut,
Buffalo Springfield, including their sole big hit (
Stills' "For What It's Worth"), established them as the best folk-rock band in the land barring
the Byrds, though
Springfield was a bit more folk and country oriented.
Again, their second album found the group expanding their folk-rock base into tough hard rock and psychedelic orchestration, resulting in their best record. The group was blessed with three idiosyncratic, talented songwriters in
Stills,
Young, and
Furay (the last of whom didn't begin writing until the second LP) yet they also had strong and often conflicting egos, particularly
Stills and
Young. The group, who held almost infinite promise, rearranged their lineup several times,
Young leaving the group for periods and
Palmer fighting deportation, until disbanding in 1968. Their final album clearly shows the group fragmenting into solo directions.
Eventually, the inter-personal tensions and creative battles led to a perhaps inevitable split, starting with Young's departure for a solo career. He would later reunite with
Stephen Stills in
Crosby, Stills, & Nash, joining the trio once a decade for various projects. In addition to
CSN,
Stills released solo albums and worked with a nother band,
Manassas. Initially,
Jim Messina and
Richie Furay stayed together, forming the country-rock group
Poco, but
Messina left after three albums to team up in a duo with
Kenny Loggins.
Furay himself left
Poco and teamed with
Chris Hillman and
JD Souther in the Souther Hillman Furay Band before pursuing a solo career. Rumors of a
Buffalo Springfield reunion circulated for years --
Young even hinted at it with the song "Buffalo Springfield Again" --and it finally happened in the fall of 2010.
Young,
Furay and
Stills reunited as
Buffalo Springfield for a pair of shows at Young's annual Bridge School Benefit in the fall of 2010. It wasn't a complete reunion, since
Palmer had died in 2004 and Martin passed in 2009, but the three singers used bassist Rick Rosas and drummer Joe Vitale to fill in. The same configuration played six concerts in the spring of 2011, but reportedly did no studio work.
–
Richie Unterberger & Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi