PAUL HARRIS
Manassas and Nick Drake keyboardist
(1944–2023)
PAUL Harris is one of those names found scattered liberally in the small print throughout any good record collection. His most high-profile gig was with Stephen Stills’ Manassas: his piano, organ and clavinet can be heard all over the group’s eponymous 1972 masterpiece, and he also played on the follow-up, 1973’s Down The Road. When the band broke up and Stills returned to the CSNY fold, Manassas refugee and ex-Byrd Chris Hillman took Harris and pedal-steel player Al Perkins with him to join the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, who recorded two country-tinged canyon rock albums before dissolving in 1976.