Neil Young recalls Buffalo Springfield’s appearance on ‘Mannix’
The 1960s were a strange time for Neil Young. The singer-songwriter had managed to escape the cold recesses of Canada and found himself as a California transplant. Shortly after arriving, he met Stephen Stills and formed Buffalo Springfield in 1966. Almost immediately, culture began to change around Young and his psychedelic folk band.
Young and Stills had a fertile but tumultuous relationship, with each having to make concessions to the other as co-frontmen of the band. Stills was the more aggressive and assertive of the two, but Young would respond by simply not showing up to gigs. In fact, one of the band’s biggest performances, at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, happened sans Young, who was temporarily replaced by future bandmate David Crosby.
Young could barely stand to be in Buffalo Springfield when the spotlight wasn’t on them, so it’s a minor miracle that there’s even footage of him with the band. Strangely enough, the best-preserved footage of Young with the band comes in the form of guest appearances on television. Buffalo Springfield made two notable appearances on late-1960s television: one as the musical guest on The Hollywood Palace and the other as the house band in the detective show Mattix.
While sitting down with Conan O’Brien, Young revealed that he was barely paying attention when he arrived on the set of Mattix. “I don’t think we even looked at it,” Young said. “That’s the thing is that we just kept going. I didn’t watch Mattix. I wasn’t a Mattix fan, but I do know what Mannix looked like. I can picture the show; I’ve seen it.”
Young also revealed that, during the band’s appearance on The Hollywood Palace, bassist Bruce Palmer wasn’t the man on the bass. Young claims that Palmer simply “wasn’t there” and was replaced by a road manager. Palmer had been deported back to Canada after being arrested for marijuana possession, although it’s not certain if this was the reason he was absent or whether Palmer had simply not shown up for the filming.
Check out Young’s recollections of being on Mattix and The Hollywood Palace down below.
