Bursting with talent, Buffalo Springfield formed in 1966 following a fortuitous encounter in a Los Angeles traffic jam between Stephen Stills and Richie Furay (veterans of the Greenwich Village folk scene) and Neil Young and Bruce Palmer (Canadians drawn to the “hip” epicentre of the burgeoning folk rock movement). Furay, Stills, and Young all wrote songs, provided lead vocals, and played guitar.

Palmer played bass; drummer Dewey Martin had played with country rock pioneers the Dillards. In a six-week gig at the Whisky-A-Go-Go club on Sunset Strip, the band polished their sound and refined their image, later gaining a record label—Atlantic subsidiary Atco. Their biggest hit, “For What It’s Worth” (1967), about clashes between youth and police on Sunset Strip, remains evocative of the era’s spirit and its tensions.

The group broke up in 1968, but post-breakup success came to Furay and Messina in Poco, to Messina in Loggins and Messina, to Young in a prodigious solo career, and to Stills in Crosby, Stills and Nash, which at times also included Young. Buffalo Springfield was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.