For What It’s Worth, a Close Look at Buffalo Springfield

Think of the ambitious new Buffalo Springfield boxed set as the record industry’s equivalent of VH1’s “Behind the Music” series.

Where the cable channel gives us a band’s personal history, the Springfield set offers an inside look at the creative process, thanks to extensive use of previously unreleased material.

Capitol Records ignited a mini-debate in the pop world four years ago when it expanded the Beach Boys’ classic, single-disc 1966 album “Pet Sounds” into a four-disc package. The expansion included mono and stereo versions of the original, single-disc album plus all sorts of musical fragments that let you see how Brian Wilson constructed the original work.

To some pop observers, the set was a valuable historical document. Others dismissed it as greedy marketing.

Rhino Records’ new four-disc salute to the Buffalo Springfield may spark a similar argument, even among Springfield fans.

Released in association with Atco and Elektra Records, Springfield’s “Box Set” contains more than four hours of music from a band that only formally released about an hour’s worth of music during its short life in the late ‘60s.

The new Springfield package is an especially easy target because the entire fourth disc contains tracks that are duplicated on the other three discs.

So, is there any defense for the Buffalo Springfield’s “Box Set”?

Absolutely.

Like “The Pet Sounds Sessions,” the Springfield set is designed more for the band’s hard-core fans, but it showcases the imagination and even innocence of a brilliant young band so well that it should appeal to anyone interested in rock history. Of the album’s 88 tracks, almost half are demos or unreleased recordings.

Although the quintet was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, the average rock fan today probably doesn’t know much about the group except for a landmark single, 1967’s “For What It’s Worth,” and the fact that it was the band that launched the career of Neil Young.

Yet the Springfield--which also boasted two other gifted singer-songwriters in Stephen Stills and Richie Furay as well as bassist Bruce Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin--was arguably the most talented lineup of any rock band to come out of Los Angeles.

In retrospect, the band’s musical potential may have been more intoxicating than its actual body of work.

Driven by the same creative tension that eventually split it apart, the Springfield drew on the country, folk and blues instincts of strong-willed members and forged a distinctive brand of rock ‘n’ roll. The music captured the sense of optimism and invincibility that characterized so much of American youth at the time.

“The Rolling Stone Album Guide” expressed the early excitement for the band: “Potentially nearly an American Beatles, the supergroup employed orchestral arrangements, four-part vocals, Wild West mythmaking, unrivaled instrumental progress--and a fertile internal explosiveness along the lines of the Who’s,” Paul Evans wrote in the book’s 1992 edition.

“Only two years after its dazzling start, the Springfield was just a memory. But a memory that lingers: rock & roll this expert and melodic would prove hard to find in the years to come.”

The key decision in the set was to present the Springfield’s music chronologically--not just the tracks that would eventually make the Springfield’s albums, but also demo tracks of songs that would be discarded.

This allows us to follow the band’s progress, free to weigh material and arrangements the same way the band members did after forming in summer 1966. In the process, we hear songs that would eventually make it on an album in different forms and songs (such as “Old Laughing Lady”) that would land on Young’s solo albums.

Even in these early demos, you hear all the creativity of these musicians--the roots of the harmony-rich Crosby, Stills & Nash is evident in Stills’ demo of “We’ll See,” while Furay previews the country brightness he’d bring to Poco in his demo of “Can’t Keep Me Down.” And Young consistently offers the restless introspection that would characterize his solo career.

On the lighter side, we hear a demo of “There Goes My Babe,” a song that Young apparently wrote with Sonny & Cher in mind, and a goofy, almost music-hall excursion by Young titled “I’m Your Kind of Guy.”

If you listen to the first three discs without looking at the track order, the set offers an amazing journey. After listening for years to the band’s highlights on the 1967 “Buffalo Springfield” album and “Buffalo Springfield Again,” later the same year, it’s easy to think that a group’s best work is part of some magical creative roll.

Listening to the actual studio progress, however, you see how the band worked on material of varying quality on the same day. It’s amazing, for instance, when gems--such as Stills’ “For What It’s Worth” and Young’s “Mr. Soul”--seem to come out of nowhere.

Joel Bernstein, production coordinator and researcher for the box, said the band members reviewed the material and decided to sequence it in order.

The most controversial element was the decision to include the tracks for the group’s first two albums in sequence on the fourth disc, even though they already appeared on the three other discs

Young reportedly pushed for that approach, thus allowing fans to listen to the two formal albums without having to program the CD player so you could separate the demos and other material. The fourth disc is a useful feature, but a good compromise would have been to offer it as a free bonus disc.

The absence of some material from the group’s last album, “Last Time Around,” seems odd, although the album was released after the group broke up and obviously doesn’t hold as high a place in the band’s heart.

On last year’s “Silver & Gold” album, Young even saluted the old days with a song titled “Buffalo Springfield Again.”

Don’t, however, look for a reunion. Young has said the chances are slim. So, this boxed set may be as close to the old Springfield spirit as we’ll ever get.

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Robert Hilburn, The Times’ pop music critic, can be reached by e-mail at robert.hilburn@latimes.com.