Friends of Neil Young Jim Messina
Buffalo Springfield Bandmate
Vintage Guitar Magazine, March 1998
Neil Young News
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 10:44:02 -0500 The current issue of Vintage Guitar magazine has an interview with
Jim Messina where he talks about his musical past. There is also a COOL
photo of the band with a Fender P Bass hybrid in the background....Would any
rusty be interested in this Newsprint picture? If you promise to put it up
on a sight for the rest of us, I'll send it to you. Neil has a pageboy type
haircut and is wearing his buckskin outfit, Stills is in a paisley, cut to the
belly frock over a turtleneck.
Vintage Guitar: How did your association with that group (Buffalo Springfield) come about?
Jim Messina: I was working at Sunset Sound at the time and ran into David Crosby. We spent three hours talking about musicians we had to record with and David said, "Her name is Joni Mitchell". That session was a
prelude, because Neil Young & David were friends, and the Springfield wanted
to book time there, as well. David told Neil he had enjoyed working
, but they had a different engineer assigned to the band. As it turned
out, the other man apparantly had other commitments, and was unable
to do both sessions, so he suggested that they use me, and Neil realized
I was the person he had requested in the first place...the band was also
having some management and production team problems; I don't know what the
details are but Neil started to produce the album. They had a lot of basic
tracks; things that weren't that complete.
So Neil and I began sorting it all out, deciding what we could and couldn't
use, editing, cleaning, and sequencing. We worked at putting 24 tracks
together until we had some sort of semblance of an album, so we could then
start overdubbing and finishing up.
For example, "A Child's Claim to Fame" only had drums, two Dobros, and a
lead vocal track; "Bluebird and "Expecting to Fly" had already been recorded
prior to my being involved, however. I assisted Neil on his stuff like,
"Broken Arrow"
VG: What guitars did you use in Poco?
JM: I'd liked the sounds that Stephen Stills was getting with his Les Pauls, so I
bought
a black one with nickel-plated pickup covers, but I couldn't keep the
damn thing
in tune, no matter what I did. I was recording on Neil Young's first
album, and
he saw the guitar and liked it; he asked if I wanted to sell it but I
said no,
because it was the only one I had at the time. He asked what kind of
guitar I might
want and I said, "I'd like one of those Gretches you've got." So I
traded the Les
Paul to Neil, and I think he's had it ever since. I got an orange
Gretsch with the
horseshoe; it's got a thin body and open f-holes but no pad on the back.
I still have
that one as well.
James Burton was a friend of mine, and I'd worked with him on Buffalo
Springfield Again;
I loved the sound of his instrument. I'd started with the Gretsch in
Poco, but but I
couldn't get anything but Buffalo Springfield sounds out of it...
From: "Chuck W. Singer"
Subject: Jim Messina on Neil (LONG!!!)
From DallasNews.com article by Alan Peppard on Jim Messina and one of Neil Young's guitars:
'I'll take it,' Neil said. 'What do you want for it?'
Jim asked for Neil's Gretsch electric guitar in return. About now, you Neil Young fans are wondering, 'Is that the Les Paul that Neil is playing in all that concert footage during the last few decades and the one he's playing on the album covers of Rust Never Sleeps and Live Rust?'
'Yeah, that's the guitar,' Jim says resignedly. 'Today, my Gretsch is worth about $6,000. That Les Paul of Neil's is worth about $250,000 to $300,000.' "
Also, for more, see the Buffalo Springfield page.
Thrasher's Wheat - A Neil Young Fan Page