This is a runaway for me, Stephen Stills, "Just Roll Tape." I purchased this album on iTunes without knowing any of the album's history. I think it's important to know:
"The back story goes something like this. Stills was deeply in love with Judy Collins, but the feelings were largely unrequited. He was playing back up on her recording sessions for the album Who Knows Where the Time Goes. After the session ended, Stills paid the engineer a couple of hundred dollars and told him "Just Roll Tape"
and then from Wikipedia...
Stephen Stills was at a Judy Collins session in 1968, and when she was finished, Stills reserved a studio and recorded a tape of new songs. Stills left the masters in the studio, and they were almost discarded when the facility closed in 1978. Musician Joe Colasurdo, who was rehearsing there at the time, was told by the owner that he could cart off any tapes he wanted to before they cleared the place out. After seeing Stills' names on several of the boxes, Colasurdo kept them safe until he could find a reel-to-reel machine to play them on.
Joe began attempting to get the masters safely back into Stills' hands, an undertaking that took 25 years. In 2003, he was connected to Graham Nash after happening to meet a close friend of his. Nash received the tapes, passed them on to Stephen, encouraging him to release them.
The album has some amazing songs, including the first version of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" (made famous by CSNY), "Treetop Flyer", "Black Queen", "All I Know Is What You Tell Me."
Definitely worth checking out
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