Manassas

In 1972 Stephen Stills successfully braided a musical rope that blended strands of folk, rock, country, Latin, blues and bluegrass into one panoramically earthy sound. From the first verse of the opening boogie-rocker “Song of Love,” it’s really easy to imagine how much fun it was to play in a band this amazing and Stephen Stills knows it — you can hear him having the time of his life, especially when “Rock and Roll Crazies/Cuban Bluegrass” makes good on its title and shape-shifts from twangy California canyon biker-rock into a Latin mountain string-band jam. Stills sounds right at home with a band comprising some the era’s best musicians like Chris Hillman of Byrds/Burritos fame as well as drummer Dallas Taylor, guitarist Al Perkins and Byron Berline’s country fiddle. But he sounds completely in his element on the more Latin-tinged tunes like “It Doesn’t Matter,” a percussion-heavy number that grooves on cascading vocal harmonies, watery pedal steel and feverish conga beats that all blend to sound like Matthews Southern Comfort exchanging band members with Malo.