How Buffalo Springfield Formed

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Neil Young, in a 1975 Rolling Stone cover story by Cameron Crowe:

“Bruce [Palmer] and I were tooling around L.A. in my hearse. I loved the hearse. Six people could be getting high in the front and back and nobody would be able to see in because of the curtains. The heater was great. And the tray…the tray was dynamite. You open the side door and the tray whips right out onto the sidewalk. What could be cooler than that? What a way to make your entrance. Pull up to a gig and just wheel out all your stuff on the tray. Anyway, Bruce and I were taking in California. The Promised Land. We were heading up to San Francisco. Stephen [Stills] and Richie Furay, who were in town putting together a band, just happened to be driving around too. Stephen had met me before and remembered I had a hearse. As soon as he saw the Ontario plates, he knew it was me. So they stopped us. I was happy to see fucking anybody I knew. And it seemed very logical to us that we form a band.”

Video: Leonard Cohen, The Poet, Documentary

While Leonard Cohen, of course, didn’t begin his to-be-legendary career as a songwriter until his early 30s, the Montreal born artist was an accomplished and relatively renowned poet/novelist at a young age. This 1965 documentary is a fascinating record of the time, just before he set out on a musical foray that would begin one of the best solo debut LPs of all time, Songs of Leonard Cohen, two years later.

After beginning with a funny speech, the film’s narrator offers this priceless introduction:

“Out of the crowds of Montreal has come a singular talent, with four books under his belt and a growing reputation. He is not primarily a standup comic, but a novelist, a poet, and a very confident young man.”

Watch Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen, which, incidentally, dates back to the same period as the great Bob Dylan documentary Don’t Look Back, above.