Stephen Stills and Richie Furay crossed paths with Neil Young at a club in Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1965 at a club gig Neil's band the Squires was playing. The following year in Toronto, Neil met Bruce Palmer , bassist in The Mynah Birds, a band fronted by Buffalo singer Ricky James Matthews, who 26 years later recording as Rick James would hit it big the song Super Freak. The Mynahs were on the verge of recording an album when Young joined, but it never happened because Matthews went AWOL from the US Navy. When the record deal went south, so did Young and Palmer. The pair hawked the band's gear and bought a hearse to drive to LA in search of Stills. After a week of failing to track him down, Young and Palmer decided to hit the road for San Francisco. On their way out of LA, the sight of their 1953 Pontiac Hearse in the oncoming lane in Sunset Boulevard traffic caught Furay and Still's attention and they recognized Young and Palmer, made a u-turn, pulled them over and reunited. They recruited Standells drummer Dewey Martin and formed Buffalo Springfield, a group named after a steam roller company, on this day in 1966 and started a tour opening for the Byrds that April.
Had that unlikely chance encounter on Sunset Boulevard not happened, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Poco, Loggins and Messina and other off-shoots of that reunion might never have come together.
Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on March 3 include..
1953 REO Speedwagon guitarist Dave Amato is born.
1966 Rolling Stones start recording Aftermath.
1967 Jeff Beck Group does first concert, London.
1967 Ottawa concert crowd riots after the Animals refuse to play because they hadn't been paid.
1967 Jeff Beck Group with Ron Wood and Rod Stewart makes debut.
1968 Grateful Dead perform a Farewell San Francisco concert before moving to Marin County, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.
1977 Bad Company releases Burnin' Sky.
1978 Van Halen open first US tour at the Aragon Ballroom, Chicago.
1983 Mick Jagger's claims the Hell's Angels had targeted him since Altamont concert corroborated by a member who testifies the group had attempted to kill him twice.
1986 Metallica releases Master of Puppets.
1990 Paul McCartney opens a 6 night series of concerts in the Tokyo Dome.
1994 Kurt Cobain goes into coma after taking Valium and over indulging in champagne in Italy.
1995 R.E.M.'s Bill Berry undergoes surgery for a brain aneurysm.
1995 The Foo Fighters do thier first concert in Portland, OR.
2006 Queen opens US tour with Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers on vocals.
2007 Peter Frampton narrates Peter & The Wolf for kids at a library in Kentucky.
2009 U2 releases No Line On The Horizon and Mayor Michael Bloomberg renames part of 53rd St U2 Way in recognition of the band's week long stint on the Late Show With David Letterman.
2012 Ronnie Montrose takes his own life before prostate cancer can take it.
2020 Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain fire Steve Smith and Ross Valory from Journey, claiming they had attempted to take over rights to the band name.
2023 Guitarist David Lindley (Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Rod Stewart, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and many,many more) dies at 78.
2023 Genesis BBC Broadcasts box set gets released...
