Stephen Stills was at work on 1976’s Long May You Run with Neil Young when he ducked across the hall to take an unlikely guest turn: The Bee Gees’ were next door at Miami’s Criteria Studios recording their multi-chart smash “You Should Be Dancing.”
Yes, that’s Stephen Stills on timbales. “You Should Be Dancing” remains a surprising footnote as his most successful song – not Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” his own “Love the One You’re With,” and certainly nothing from Long May You Run, where Young’s title track paid tribute to his first car while only reaching No. 71.
Instead, it was this song.
“You Should Be Dancing,” released as part of the Bee Gees album Children of the World and later showcased in the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, would hit No. 1 on the Hot 100, top the dance club play charts, go Top 5 in the UK and even reach No. 4 on Billboard’s R&B list.
Stills subsequently reunited with Graham Nash and David Crosby in 1976 to create the multi-platinum CSN, released the following summer. Yet Stills says he was certain, even before Tony Manero walked the Bee Gees into superstardom, that his former collaborators were on to something special.
“We were in the studio next door making a CSN album,” Stills later told The Independent, “and David was all full of himself and saying this is going to be the album of the year. I went, ‘No, it’s not. That’s being recorded across the hall.'”
Stills says he’d “heard some of that Saturday Night Fever stuff – and I knew it was totally unique and going to be a monster. So I played timbales and for a long time that was my only platinum single.”
“You Should Be Dancing” actually still is. Stephen Stills ended up notching a number of million-selling albums with Crosby Stills and Nash – and Retrospective: The Best of Buffalo Springfield went platinum, too. But he’s never been involved with a bigger-selling single.
Bee Gees sibling Andy Gibb later returned the favor, adding backing vocals to “You Can’t Dance Alone” and “What’s the Game” on Stills’ 1978 solo album Thoroughfare Gap.
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David Crosby full of himself? Never!