Manassas is the 1972 debut double album by Manassas, a blues rock group led by American musician Stephen Stills, released April 1972. It was a critical comeback for Stills, and continued his commercial success by being certified Gold only a month after being released and peaking at number 4 on the US charts. The album was recorded at Criteria Studio B late 1971, where Stills used his clout to keep the studio and engineers Ron and Howard Albert available around the clock. The band all stayed in a rented house about 30 minutes away from the studio, in Coconut Grove. This allowed Stills to record the album around the clock, waking up band members in the early hours of the morning when an idea struck. Stills would also record in mammoth sessions often going on for days, until Chris Hillman and Stills got into a fight, after which they started to record at regular hours. Al Perkins and Dallas Taylor had a rule where they would not perform any more than seven takes for a single track, so often Stills would stay in the studio editing after having released the band at 4 or 5 am. The band then flew to Stills' house in London in January 1972 to finish recording and mixing the album and to rehearse for an upcoming tour starting in March 1972. It was here that Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones played bass on and co-authored "The Love Gangster" and is reported to have said that he would have left the Stones to join Manassas. At one point Stills put in an unbroken 106 hour stint in the studio, and engineer Ron Albert said he had just gotten to bed after a marathon session lasting 84 hours when the phone rang with Stills summoning him back to the studio with the words: "I know you're tired, but there's this idea I've got for this song that I want to get on tape before I forget it..." Another time, working to Stills' manic schedule, the band cut eight tracks in two days with no sleep. The album was split into four thematic sides. Side 1 - The Raven, is a composite of rock and Latin sounds that the group would often perform in full live exactly as recorded. Side 2 - The Wilderness mainly centers on country and bluegrass. Side 3 - Consider is largely folk and folk-rock, and contains the song "Johnny's Garden", reportedly for the caretaker at Stills' English manor house bought from Ringo Starr. This includes Stills at his most experimental including using a Moog Synthesiser on "Move Around". The closing section, titled "Rock & Roll Is Here to Stay", is a rock and blues set. "What to Do" and "Right Now" are Stills take on the CSNY split and his relationship with Graham Nash. Manassas was an American rock supergroup formed by Stephen Stills in 1971. It was used primarily for Stills' music, the band releasing two studio albums before disbanding in October 1973. They released a 1972 self titled debut and a second album titled Down the Road in 1973. Manassas was formed in the fall of 1971, following Stills' concert tour to support his album Stephen Stills 2 (1971). While Stephen Stills 2 was Stills' second solo album, it was his first completed following the acrimonious 1970 breakup of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY), and was not critically well received. After a chance meeting with Flying Burrito Brothers singer/multi-instrumentalist Chris Hillman in Cleveland, where Stills' tour schedule crossed paths with that of the Burritos – a band that, by late 1971, had undergone multiple personnel changes and was in financial trouble – Stills saw an opportunity to change his artistic direction. He subsequently contacted Hillman, asking him, along with Burritos' guitarist Al Perkins and fiddler Byron Berline, to join him in Miami at Criteria Studios to jam. Stills also invited several members of his touring band (drummer Dallas Taylor, bassist Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuels, keyboardist Paul Harris and vocalist/percussionist Joe Lala) to play at the session. The musicians quickly gelled in the studio, and within several weeks had recorded enough material at Criteria to fill a double-LP album release. The band was capable of a wide musical range, with a repertoire including blues, folk, country, Latin, and rock songs. The Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, a friend of both Hillman and Stills who visited Criteria during the sessions, was an early fan of the band, at one point expressing an interest in joining. Wyman contributed to the sessions by helping Stills re-write an unrecorded song from 1968, "Bumblebee," as the blues/funk tune "The Love Gangster," with Wyman also playing bass on the track. The band named itself Manassas after Stills, who had an interest in American Civil War history, orchestrated a photo shoot for them in Manassas, Virginia, the site of the First and Second Battles of Bull Run (1861 and 1862, respectively).

Good Woman is the fourth studio album by the English band the Staves. It was released on 5 February 2021 by Atlantic Records UK in the UK and Nonesuch Records worldwide. In an interview with Clash, the Staves noted how they finished recording the album in March 2020, but held off on releasing it due to the COVID-19 pandemic: "We were getting ready with our band to start touring the album and we did a handful of shows in the UK right up to the lockdown being announced. We did the 6Music Festival in Camden in March and within like a few days after that everything went into lockdown. It's been really frustrating postponing it and rethinking it and eventually we just said, 'this has to come out!' We didn't want it to be this never-ending postponing album." The Staves announced their first album in six years on 21 October 2020, with the help of Grammy-award winning producer John Congleton. The Staves are an English indie folk trio of sisters Emily, Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor from Watford, Hertfordshire, England. Career The Staves began performing together at open-mic nights in Watford hosted by a local pub, The Horns. Originally performing as The Staveley-Taylors, the trio later changed their name to The Staves. The group appeared on the Tom Jones album Praise and Blame, released in July 2010. They supported Mt. Desolation on their UK tour in autumn 2010. Jessica Staveley-Taylor also performed as part of Mt. Desolation and provided vocals for their eponymous album. The Staves released the Live at Cecil Sharp House EP and the Mexico EP in 2011, and appeared on Fionn Regan's third studio album, 100 Acres of Sycamore. The Staves toured in the United States while supporting The Civil Wars in January 2012. They followed these appearances with performances at South by Southwest and a tour in March and April with Bear's Den, Nathaniel Rateliff and Ben Howard. This tour was the subject of the film, "Austin to Boston", a documentary by Marcus Haney. The band supported Bon Iver on their May and June 2012 US and Canadian tour. The band's debut album, Dead & Born & Grown, was released in November 2012 and produced by Glyn Johns and Ethan Johns. An excerpt from their performance of "Facing West" on Later... with Jools Holland was featured on the This is BBC Two promotional programme. The second full-length album, If I Was, was released 23 March 2015 on Atlantic Records in the UK/EU and on 31 March on Nonesuch Records in the US; the record was produced by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. The album debuted at #14 on the Official UK Album Chart. In July 2015, The Staves performed with Bon Iver as guest artists along with Colin Stetson, yMusic, and No BS! Brass for Bon Iver's return to the stage as part of the Eaux Claires Festival in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. They have also performed as the warm-up act for Florence and the Machine on Florence's How Big Tour supporting How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. The Staves joined the live line-up of Bon Iver for the latter's Asia tour in late February and early March 2016. On 24 November 2017, The Staves released The Way is Read − a full-length album created in conjunction with NYC-based chamber music ensemble yMusic. This album is available on vinyl, via the streaming service TIDAL in both normal and high quality MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) formats, and as an MP3 download. There is no CD version available yet. In October/November 2018 they supported First Aid Kit on their Rebel Heart tour. In January 2020, The Staves announced that Emily Staveley-Taylor would not take part in touring, following the birth of her daughter. In March 2020, The Staves announced they would be performing at the Glastonbury festival in 2020. But due to concerns over the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, the festival had to be cancelled. On 5 February 2021, their third studio album Good Woman was released via Atlantic Records UK and Nonesuch Records. The album was produced by John Congleton and charted at number 13 in the UK albums chart. The sisters learned to play guitar from their father while growing up in Watford. As children, they aspired to create a sketch comedy television programme together. They enjoy Guinness and are vocal in challenging tropes about sensitive wilderness-bound artists that dominate modern folk music culture. In addition to touring with Bon Iver and producing If I Was with Justin Vernon, the sisters have become friends with the Wisconsin-born musician. In summer 2018, the sisters' mother, Jean, a former teacher who had encouraged them to follow their dream of making music, died. In 2019, Emily became a mother to a daughter called Margo.