Monday 16 July 2018

Simon and Garfunkel: Five Landmark Concerts and Three Key Cover Versions


You can now buy 'Patterns - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of Simon and Garfunkel' in e-book form by clicking here







1)  Where: Gerde’s Folk City, New York When: March 31st 1964 Why: First Gig Setlist: Unknown

Mere days after completing work on debut album ‘Wednesday Morning 3AM’, Columbia persuaded Simon and Garfunkel to make their live debut. Promoting them as ‘local lads done well’, Paul and Arty performed a run of shows across the next few weeks to an increasingly bemused folk audience who had never heard of them. The album itself won’t be out until October, thanks to endless tweaking with the cover and recordings, while the last minute decision to use the duo’s names meant that anybody who still remembered them from their days as ‘Tom and Jerry’ were none the wiser. The concerts didn’t go down well: the folk movement wasn’t prepared for so many new songs and the likes of ‘The Sound Of Silence’ were, fittingly, greeted with silence, while many felt that the folk standards were better done by other people. Columbia, who had such faith in the duo, got nervous and this is probably the point at which Simon and Garfunkel decided to split (again), Paul leaving for a solo career in London and Arty going back to college. We don’t have much of a record of this first concert (some sources have it happening at the same venue six weeks earlier, on February 19th 1964, although that seems unlikely given that the first album hadn’t been made yet and Columbia wouldn’t have been promoting a band they hadn’t even auditioned) and we don’t know what the pair played. Chances are they just sang the ‘Wednesday Morning’ album and didn’t play any of their older teenage material to distance themselves from their past. Simon and Garfunkel will get better and though their first audience, curious as to why this duo are being hailed as the best thing to come out of New York’s folk scene may have been surprised to learn it, will soon  be famous around the world.

2)  Where: Monterey Pop Festival, California When: June 16th 1967 Why: Biggest Gig Setlist: [  ] Homeward Bound At The Zoo 59th Bridge Street Song (Feelin’ Groovy) For Emily Wherever I May Find Her The Sound Of Silence Benedictus Punky’s Dilemma

So famous in fact that it’s only three years until Simon and Garfunkel are one of the hottest acts on the planet, chosen to end the first Friday night of the three-day Monterey Pop Festival and with Paul famous enough to be a part of the Monterey panel deciding what acts should appear (although his nomination, ‘Melanie’, won’t be a cult name for another decade yet). Simon and Garfunkel, traditionally towards the nervier end of AAA performers, sound oddly relaxed during the show where they played to easily their biggest crowd of people (some 90,000 ish?) Paul jokingly sings his demo version of new song ‘Punky’s Dilemma’ which catches his partner off guard before he laughingly joins in (‘A bowl of Rice Krispies ain’t what it used to be!’) and laughs about the red lights glaring at him from the side of the stage with a risqué joke (‘I always associate red lights with rather a good time!’) Paul and Arty, caught halfway between ‘Parsley, Sage’ and ‘Bookends’, broke off a holiday to play this gig, which comes pretty neatly in the middle of a ten week gap between tours. They debut two new songs which don’t really go with the hippie mood (the surreal ‘Punky’s Dilemma’ catches the crowd off good, while the sardonic and bitter ‘At The Zoo’ just sounds wrong, even if it also sounds great played with just an acoustic guitar). The old songs, though, sound beautiful: Arty never sings ‘For Emily’ better than he does here, while ‘Feelin’ Groovy’ is the perfect singalong song for the stoned crowd (odd they don’t do [  ] ‘Scarborough Fair’, their other big song of the moment). It’s ‘The Sound Of Silence’ though that impresses most. Suddenly turning solemn, with the lights dimmed, you can hear a pin drop as Paul and Arty get to sing their ‘in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more’ in front of a crowd that are really that big for the first time. At the time Simon and Garfunkel were greeted as the festival’s highlight, but the appearance of Otis and Janis and Jimi the following two nights rather take away their crown. Still, it’s a good gig, available officially in part in the rare ‘Monterey Pop’ film(‘Feelin’ Groovy’) that we still keep saying needs a decent re-issue on these pages, while The Sound Of Solence’ and ‘Homeward Bound’ appear on the three DVD set. Oddly no songs were released in audio form on the four disc ‘International Monterey Pop Festival’ box set, suggesting some contractual wrangling going on somewhere.

3)  Where: Clark Gymnasium, SUNY-Buffalo, New York When: May 2nd 1969 Why: Weirdest Gig Setlist: [  ] ‘Hey Schoolgirl!’ [  ] The Sound Of Silence

The weirdest gig Simon and Garfunkel ever played took place after a chance meeting between Paul and Frank Zappa in a New York music shop. Asking why Paul looked so unhappy, he groaned that he was about to start another tour with Arty and was getting really sick of the old songs. ‘I wish we could just go on somewhere without the pressure, where nobody knew who the hell we were man, like we used to’. Zappa, in need of a support act after another pulled out at the last minute, offered him the slot at a local gif The Mothers Of Invention were due to play the next week and after consulting with Arty the pair agreed on the condition that they could pick their own material and would be billed as ‘Tom and Jerry’ for the first time since 1959. The shocked audience were none the wiser when Paul and Arty sheepishly walked on and said ‘hello’ and promised to play their ‘hit’ before playing a twelve year old song pretty much no one in the audience could remember: ‘Hey Schoolgirl!’ We’re not sure what else they played, but Paul and Arty performed at least a few of their other ‘Tom and Jerry’ collaborations and may well have thrown in a few ‘Tico and the Triumphs’ ‘True Taylor’ ‘Jerry Landis’ and ‘Artie Garr’ songs too. We also know that the duo threw in one of the songs that got them interested in making music named ‘Earth Angel’ by The Penguins – and given that it will have a slot on the coming tour I would be mighty surprised if the duo didn’t do their old favourite [  ] ‘Black Slacks’ in this gig somewhere too. After a shocked half an hour of ‘is it? Isn’t it?’ Simon and Garfunkel came back for an encore that nobody asked for and played ‘The Sound Of Silencre’, just to prove to the crowd that it really was them. The reception was hostile, but more against Zappa than the duo. ‘Very funny’ most of the letters went. ‘You got a duo with the brilliance of Simon and Garfunkel and wasted their talents singing corny 1950s songs for a joke – how could you!’ But for once in his career Zappa was innocent and helping out a duo who had grown fed up and stale touring the same old songs with a chance to recapture their youth.

4)  Where: Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, New York When: July 18th 1970 Why: Last Gig Before Split Setlist: The Boxer 50th Bridge Street Song (Feelin’ Groovy) America El Condor Pasa ‘Rose Of Aberdeen’ Fakin’ It For Emily Wherever I May Find Her The Leaves That Are Green Scarborough Fair-Canticle ‘Put My Little Shoes Away’ ‘A Teenager In Love’ Homeward Bound Punky’s Dilemma So Long Frank Lloyd Wright The Only Living Boy In New York A Poem On The Underground Wall I Am A Rock Bridge Over Troubled Water

The last Simon and Garfunkel show for eleven years (‘The Concert In Central Park’), nobody in the audience knew that it would be a farewell and the duo themselves only had an inkling. By now final album ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ is six months old and the disunity felt when the band were making it in 1969 has, if not entirely evaporated, then dissipated. The last tour in 1970 sounds a much funner tour than the slog of 1969, the only difficulty coming when Arty objected to Paul’s political song ‘Cuba Si, Nixon No’, vetoed from the album on the condition he could sing it on stage (with Arty pointedly leaving at this point). Notably that song has been dropped entiurely by this late stage, replaced by a cute ‘retro’ set that featured one two or three rock and roll standards; this final gig’s improvised choices are a bonkers Everly Brothers song from their 1962 album ‘Songs Our Daddy Taught Us’ about a dying son and a 1959 hit for Dion and The Belmonts. Elsewhere ‘The Boxer’ is an impressive opener, grandiose but building from a tiny humble beginning, while the last song the pair sing on stage together is the alienated ‘I Am A Rock’, followed by Arty alone singing ‘Bridge’ (Paul’s interviews later reveal just how unprepared he is to end the gigs this way, staring off-stage at the fans screaming for Arty and thinking ‘no, I wrote that, yell my name!’) Sadly nobody thought to record this gig for posterity but two bootlegs from the start of the tour in May 1970 (‘Welcome To Holland’ and ‘Live In Paris’) are easily the two best that survive and according to the critical responses this gig wasn’t any worse. As it happens the two men thought they were only taking a break from each other at first, before making the split official a year later. How odd that the Simon and Garfunkel partnership should end at a stadium best known for its tennis; this is the point where most reviewers would be making some joke about this being Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘matchpoint’ where they ‘served’ their last ‘set’ with a [  ] ‘red rubber ball’, but we’re above that on this site, of course we are!

5)  Where: New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival When: April 24th 2010 Why: Very Last Gig Setlist: A Hazy Shade Of Winter I Am A Rock America Keep The Customer Satisfied Slip Slidin’ AwayEl Condor Pasa Mrs Robinson-Bo Diddley-Not Fade Away Scarborough Fair-Canticle Homeward Bound Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes The Boy In The Bubble That Was Your Mother The Only Living Boy In New York My Little Town Bridge Over Troubled Water The Sound Of Silence The Boxer Cecilia

My hope growing up was that as I got older all the AAA bands would realise the threat of mortality on their shoulders, come to term with their legacies and reunite peacefully, putting petty squabbles of yesteryear aside. And then I realised that I was a fan of CSNY, The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd so that really easn’t about to happen. Simon and Garfunkel came closer than most though: they played a hundred and fifty eight reunion gigs in total from ‘The Concert In Central Park’ in 1981 up to this show (actually more than the one hundred and twenty three they played between 1964 and the breakup in 1970), which looks increasingly likely that it will be the very last. The 2009 tour went well, with seventeen gigs played in Australia and Japan, but it was this American homecoming after a six month rest that spelled the end. Arty lost his voice that year and is audibly struggling to get to the end of the gig, something corrected only by the intervention of surgery. But it wasn’t this that spelled the end but a growing feud between the pair that had bickered for years. I’m not quite sure why it exploded here the way it did. The real ending came in 2015 when Arty declared that Paul had a ‘Napoleonic complex’ and that he felt sorry for his talented froend in high school because he was short, before declaring that by praising his friend’s talents ‘I created a monster’. Paul replied when asked about a reunion tour that it would be ‘hard given that we aren’t on speaking terms anymore’. Arty has since debated openly who will sing at which one’s funeral as that it likely to be the only time they are together again. The human comedy rolls on…This show from 2010 exists in part by the way, shot by various members of the audience, but has so far only been released on Youtube. The duo don’t look at each other much (but then when did they ever?) and seem a little weary, but they don’t seem like better enemies either. If this is the end then it’s a sad one for a duo who defied all the critics of their early days to become one of the biggest box-office draws of them all.


That passing on of the musical baton works the other way too and there are lots of acts who were in turn inspired by Paul. Many of them even recorded his songs and we have three of the best examples here, from the very first back in 1964 when nobody knew who the hell ‘Paul Kane’ was (Paul’s pseudonym back then) to one famous and one obscure cover of his material. For the purposes of this article, by the way, covers of ‘The Sound Of Silence’ and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ have been banned – no other versions could possibly compare (although we did toy with including Disturbed’s heavy metal thrash version of the former, purely for being so very different and yet oddly in keeping with the original).
1) [   ] Carlos Dominguez (Val Doonican, ‘The Lucky 13 Shades Of Val Doonican’, 1964)
What with the pseudonym and the fact that Paul’s own version of this song is so hard to find, I wonder how few of the people who owned this highly popular record even realised that it was a Paul Simon record? Certainly not my mother, who didn’t know till I pointed it out (of course I did, that’s what the AAA is there for! Never have an anorak for a kid though folks). ‘Carlos’ is, as far as I’m concerned, Paul’s ‘breakthrough’ song. His first ‘serious’ song, written before ‘The Sound Of Silence’, it’s a very overlooked piece in Paul’s canon as an ‘unhappy man’ with a Spanish name looks for truth and finds only lies, before looking for love and finding only hate. Paul’s interpretation is also his first song influenced by Dylan, with a quiet acoustic intensity, but Val Doonican’s bigger budget version picks up on the South American feel of the name and runs with it. A Samba beat, flamenco horns and a faster tempo all contribute to the ‘Spanish’ feel of the song while Val croons over the top the way he always does. The result is a quiet triumph that must have been a huge boost to Paul’s reputation at the time – it seems strange he never mentions it. The royalties would also have given Paul’s finances just enough of a boost to enable him to stay in England playing tiny clubs and pubs for another year.
2) [  ] Save The Life Of My Child (The Family Dogg, ‘A Way Of Life’, 1969)
What links Hollies hit ‘The Air That I Breathe’ and Paul Simon? Well, ‘The Family Dogg’ was an early project by Mike Hammond and Albert Hazlewood before they realised they were better off writing songs than singing other people’s. Their poor-selling debut record under an odd name features many weird versions of obscure contemporary songs, but the best by far is this big budget make-over for what was always one of Paul and Arty’s more basic recordings. The original is a collage of ideas and lines spoken by characters but all are by Paul or Art. This version replaces them with a choir who intone all the sounds of the ‘crowd’ downstairs or singing a burst of ‘The Sound Of Silence’ in protest at the suicidal teen’s alienated background. The backing is also played not just on fuzz guitar bass and drums but with a squeaky orchestra that’s big and noisy. Do listen to the guitar-bass-drum interplay buried under it all though, as that was made by a pre-fame pre-Robert Plant Led Zeppelin back when they were all session musicians. The best touch of all though is the siren that drifts lazily across the opening verse and perfectly sets the tone (a surprise it wasn’t there in the original) while you also hear more developed background chatter (‘What happened?’ ‘Christ!’ ‘I don’t know…’).

3)  [  ] A Hazy Shade Of Winter (The Bangles, ‘Less Than Zero’, 1987)
I always loved this song, but Simon and Garfunkel’s version is clearly rushed – by their standards in 1968 it features a very light production (just the ‘usual’ plus a snatch of a ‘Salvation Army Band’) and a backing track that’s perhaps another rehearsal or another take away from perfection (not the vocals though, those are spot-on as always). I longed for a re-recording, but those reunions never lasted long enough to make one – instead 1980s girl group The Bangles had a hit with it instead. Completely revising the song, they open with a slow prog rock ghostly opening full of whispering voices before the main part of the song goes all punk in keeping with the urgency of the song, softening again for a choral middle eight. The vocals are, compared to the original, atrocious, but the performance is a good one with snazzy drumming and a gutsy electric guitar part that goes well against the unusually quiet 1980s synths. It’s like a fight between a gorilla and a sloth as the arrangement manages to be simultaneously regretful over wasted youth and desperate to make up for it now time is running out. One of Paul Simon’s most thoughtful songs finally got the performance it deserved – and its notable that the 2010 ‘Old Friends’ between Simon and Garfunkel revives what is to all effects and purposes this version of the song (minus the opening) rather than their own. A shame The Bangles miss out the final ‘ha!’ but they did well enough to deserve their best-selling single behind the eternally popular ‘Eternal Flame’ with this cover, peaking at #2 in Billboard (Simon and Garfunkel’s only made #13).



A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF SIMON AND GARFUNKEL AND RELATED ARTICLES TO READ AT ALAN’S ALBUM ARCHIVES:

'The Paul Simon Songbook' (PS, 1965) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-paul-simon-songbook-1965.html

'Sounds Of Silence' (SG, 1966) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/simon-and-garfunkel-sounds-of-silence.html

'Bridge Over Troubled Water' (SG, 1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/simon-and-garfunkel-bridge-over.html

'Paul Simon' (PS, 1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/news-views-and-music-issue-124-paul.html

'There Goes Rhymin' Simon' (PS, 1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-56-paul-simon-there-goes-rhymin.html

'Angel Clare' (AG, 1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/art-garfunkel-angel-clare-1973-album.html


'Watermark' (AG, 1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/art-garfunkel-watermark-1977.html

‘Scissors Cut’ (AG, 1981) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/art-garfunkel-scissors-cut-1981.html

'The Animals' Christmas' (AG, 1986) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2013/12/art-garfunkel-animals-christmas-1986.html


'Songs From The Capeman' (PS, 1997) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/paul-simon-songs-from-capeman-musical.html



'Stranger To Stranger' (PS, 2016) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/06/paul-simon-stranger-to-stranger-2016.html

Every Pre-Fame Recording 1957-1963 (Tom and Jerry, Jerry Landis, Artie Garr, True Taylor, The Mystics, Tico and The Triumphs, Paul Kane) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/simon-and-garfunkel-every-pre-fame.html




Live/Compilation/Film Soundtrack Albums Part One: 1968-1988 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/simon-and-garfunkel-livecompilationfilm.html



Landmark Concerts and Key Cover Versions https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/07/simon-and-garfunkel-five-landmark.html



AAA Extra: CSNY Projects 'Wasted On The Way' (Revised Edition)


Available to buy now in ebook format 'Change Partners - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young' by clicking here!



Dear all, we'll get back to our 'landmark concerts' and 'key cover versions' next week but we thought you deserved a break about now so instead here is one of our occasional 'extra' columns, this one an extended version of one of our original 'top five' pieces from 'News, Views and Music' issue #33 back in May 2019

Look around you. Look at CSN’s life before you. Shouldn’t this book be even – gulp – bigger? Have you noticed the odd reference to an album you can’t find in this book? Don’t despair because most likely its int his section, a part we’ve dedicated to C/S/N/Y albums that for one reason or another were wasted on the way, these roads apparently unable to be taken after all. Would these alternate C/S/N/Y albums from a parallel universe run rings around the way it could have been? Possibly not – some of these albums were even improved by record company interference or the addition of certain songs – though you have to feel for ‘King Of The Mountain’ and ‘Samurai’ particularly, two Crosby songs that nearly came out on three extra projects before finally seeing the light of day on the box set ‘Voyage’. Other albums feature songs lost that have since been added on re-issues, alternate mixes that have leaked out on Stills and Nash sets ‘Carry On’ and ‘Reflections’ or the CSN box or in the case of the last album on this list have never seen the light of day at all. Here’s our run down of what could have been and where you can hear what’s left of each record.

1)  ‘Human Highway’ (CSNY 1974)

Potential track listing: [215] See The Changes [366] Little Blind Fish [133] Prison Song ‘Human Highway’ [169] As I Come Of Age [198] Time After Time [182] To The Last Whale [173] Carry Me [168] First Things First ‘Pardon My Heart’ [135] And So It Goes [160] Homeward Through The Haze [181] Fieldworker [172] Myth Of Sisyphus [161] Through My Sails Reason Unfinished: Row

We start with the most famous entry on this list. Back in 1970 CSNY split acrimoniously, Crosby and Nash complaining of being ‘Stills’ backup band’ and Young disappearing as quickly as Crazy Horse could carry him, not to mention the love triangle between Stills, Nash and Rita Coolidge. Time, though, is a great healer (as well as [369] ‘The Final Currency’) and by 1973 enough water had disappeared under the bridge for CSNY to be friends again when they met up chance in Hawaii. A favourite spot for all four members – and where Nash ill later make his home for thirty years – Crosby-Nash were taking a break before discussing their second album when they bumped into Stills who happened to let on that he’d seen Young there earlier in the week too. The timing seemed perfect so Nash urged them to shoot a ‘holiday photo’ intended for use as an album cover (you know the one, they’re in holiday gear in the sunset, with Young sporting a rare beard) and they made plans to get back together again soon. Against all odds this happened, the quartet agreeing to take the pressure off themselves by appearing unbilled at the second half of a Manassas show booked at San Francisco’s Winterland Arena. The four men all played new songs as well as a few oldies and they talked openly about wanting to include them on a new album, the honorary follow-up to ‘Déjà vu’. As 1973 turned into 1974 they embarked on a lengthy and lucrative stadium tour playing four hour shows to their fans which started off as warm and snugly and were turning slightly fractious by the end. Undeterred they set off into the studios anyway and got as far as recording the first ‘fast’ version of Stills’ ‘See The Changes’ and Crosby’s ‘Homeward Through The Haze’ (both available on the box set), Young’s ‘Through My Sails’ (released on his 1975 Crazy Horse album ‘Zuma’) and a song of Crosby’s sung by all four members which after a lot of stripping down to the basics will appear on CPR’s first album (1998) – the first version taped in 1974 still hasn’t appeared officially anywhere yet (though it turns up again in our ‘unreleased recordings’ section). The quartet then split, old grievances coming to light a bit too painfully, leaving another album tantalisingly unfinished. We know what would have been on it though thanks partly to the songs played at Winterland and on tour and in discussions and interviews with the four – all agreed quickly that a new country-ish song of Neil’s would be the title (he’ll release this odd song himself on 1978’s ‘Comes A Time’) while other tracks will turn up on Nash’s ‘Wild Tales’, Crosby-Nash’s ‘Wind On The Water’ and ‘Stills’ across 1974 and 1975 (as with all the listings here our running order is a guess based on how the album ‘feels’ and the patterns of CSNY with a song each at the start rather than any actual running order as none of these albums ever got that far). What would it have been like? Superb! A little heavy on ballads perhaps, but almost all the songs here are first class and would have made good use of those famous harmonies with an overall album theme of growing older and going down different avenues, balanced by songs about ecology and Nash’s past.

2)  ‘Long May You Run’ (CSNY 1976)

Potential track listing: [206] Long May You Run [203] Taken At All [209] Black Coral [208] Midnight On The Bay [198] Time After Time ‘No One Seems To Know’ [232] Beaucoup Yumbo [197] Broken Bird [205] Out Of The Darkness [212] Fountainebleau ‘Will To Love’ [214] Guardian Angel Reason Unfinished: Row

This album was even more fractious. Divided into two camps in 1976, Stills-Young were working on their version of ‘Long May You Run’ partly as a kind attempt to boost Neil’s stalling career in the wake of his ‘doom trilogy’ (how ironic does that seem now – Young’s never offered to help Stills the other way around in the forty years since!) while Crosby-Nash were busy making ‘Whistling Down The Wire’. Realising that ‘Run’ was turning out ragged and solid rather than spectacular Stills got on the phone without asking Neil and got hold of C-N at their studios and played them some songs. ‘Hey guys what do you think? I think its lacking something. ‘Yeah’ giggled Nash ‘Us!’ Putting their album on hold (despite a tight deadline) Crosby-Nash rushed to help out singing harmony vocals on at least ‘Black Coral’ (a CSNY mix of which will turn up on Stills’ box set ‘Carry On’ in 2012) and with C-N offering up their own newly written song about the 1974 split called ‘Taken At All’. S and Y add their own distinctive touches to this song – their version will turn up on the CSN box set of 1991, while the pair will re-record it as the highlight of ‘Whistling Down The Wire’. C-N were next in the studio recording harmonies for ‘Guardian Angel’ when Nash admitted he had a problem. ‘I’m sorry Stephen, this is just too hard to sing, is there any way we could change it?’ he asked. It was a big moment: CSNY had never asked each other to change one of their songs before. What he perhaps didn’t realise was that of all of Stills’ personal songs this may well be the most personal – the passionate cry of a man whose drowning in self-hatred and longing to be saved by an outside force and Stills had spent several hours tryin to perfect it already. In a drunken rage he probably feared that his own self-prophecy was coming true but, rather than listen to reason, he started an argument that lasted into the evening when Crosby-Nash were staying at his rented apartment and got so ugly he threw them both out. Legend has it Stills also shredded the mastertapes of everything the duo had added in the past few weeks with a razorblade, though if so perhaps he missed the recording of ‘Black Coral’. ‘I will never work with that man again’ said Nash in the press. ‘The last time I saw him he wiped some very precious work of David’s and mine’. What would this second lost record have been like? Well better than either the way ‘Long May You Run’ turned out when pared back to a very rough and ragged Stills-Young creation that’s for certain and better than the rather lifeless ‘Whistling Down The Wire’ too, with the one recording started from scratch ‘Taken At All’ one of the unheralded beauties of the CSNY canon. But Crosby-Nash had no new material after making their record and the result would still have been a bit cobbled together, with C-N adding to what was already there and sweetening the sour passages of Stills’ darker material rather than starting from scratch.


1)  Untitled (CSN 1978)

Potential Track Listing: [239] Drive My Car [238] Can’t Get No Booty [246] Helicopter Song ‘Mirage’ ‘Jigsaw’

Just a few months after CSN (‘the one with the boat’) the trio were back in Criteria Studios again, having enjoyed that experience so much that they were keen to make up for lost time and make another album straight away. But the band didn’t have enough material yet and had just come off the back of the longest tour they had ever played. Disagreements began to rear their head again with only five songs partially recorded. Interestingly none has yet to appear on bootleg and nobody seems to have a clue what the last two tracks are, except to say that Nash is the author of ‘Mirage’ and ‘Jigsaw’ is a rare Crosby-Nash collaboration. Stills took all his songs with him to CBS to make ‘Thoroughfare Gap’, while Crosby and Nash decided to have a bash at making a fourth joint album. It won’t go well…

2)  Untitled  (C-N 1979)

Potential Track listing: [239] Drive My Car [244] Out On The Island [420] Samurai [247] Barrel Of Pain [241] King Of The Mountain [246] Helicopter Song [411] On The Other Side Of Town [243] Love Has Come  Reason Unfinished: Crosby’s Drug Habit

A tentative fourth Crosby-Nash record didn’t even get that far, being abandoned during its early stages after the moment discussed in depth in the autobiographies of both Crosby and Nash. Rehiring the same ‘Section’ players heard on ‘Wind On The Water’ and ‘Whistling On The Wire’ the band were enjoying a great jam session which Nash was secretly hoping might end up on record. The buzz from the amplifiers was so loud and strong that Crosby’s cocaine freebasing pipe gradually moved its way to the edge of a piano and shattered on the floor. Crosby could have got another one easily – he could have sent off a runner to get one in a few hours – but Croz was by then so secretly addicted that he couldn’t face even that long without a hit and got the band to stop so he could pick the remnants off the floor and smoke them. Nash, already concerned that his best friend was hiding his habit from him confronted him about just how addicted he was and Crosby’s gruff dismissive ‘I’m fine’ reaction cast a pallor over the rest of the sessions which gradually wound down. In truth Crosby didn’t have that music yet – since the CSN reunion in 1977 he’d been struggling to be creative, the drugs filling up his musical veins. Nash wasn’t that worried – Crosby’s songs had always tended to turn up last out of the four (Young wrote approximately ten times as many songs as Crosby in their heyday) but he was still coming up with the lion’s share of songs discussed at the sessions. Most of these will be re-recorded for his 1980 record ‘Earth and Sky’ which duly includes guest appearances by Croz on ‘Helicopter Song’, suggesting that this song at least may have started life at this session. But it seems more likely that everything in this list was started from scratch and it is probably the least likely out of all of these six albums to have been made in the way we’ve listed here. We do know that the charming ‘On The Other Side Of Town’, of Daddy Nash’s guilt over his baby son’s loom of betrayal when he had his first injection, was intended for this album though before being revived for the fourth Crosby*Nash album when it finally appeared much delayed in 2004. Would this record have been a classic? No, but ‘Earth and Sky’ is one of the more overlooked albums in the CSNY canon and could only have been enhanced by the handful of songs Crosby had with him in this period.

3)  Drive My Car (Crosby 1980)

Potential track listing: [239] Drive My Car [263] Might As Well Have A Good Time [241] King Of The Mountain [305] Melody [311] Distances [258] Delta [420] Samurai [312] Flying Man [81] Kids and Dogs  Reason Unfinished: Rejected by Record Company

His options disappearing, Crosby quit Atlantic to sign with Columbia. Intending a whole new sound, full of more up to date technology, Crosby was stymied by his creativity, about two-thirds of the way to an album. Columbia thought so too, rejecting it outright and asking for something more ‘radio friendly’, particularly disliking the choral chant ‘Samurai’ already offered for the Crosby-Nash album. The album was abandoned early on, but not before a few tracks were recorded: ‘Distances’ turned up more or less unchanged on Crosby’s eventual replacement ten years later ‘Oh Yes I Can!’ and this first rockier version of ‘Drive My Car’ on the CSN box set, while this album’s notably mournful ‘Samurai’ is the version included on the ‘Voyage’ box set. The album’s most famous recordings though, ‘Delta’ and ‘Might As Well Have AS Good Time’ were both added to bulk out ‘Daylight Again’ with the addition of a few Stills-Nash harmonies. With the pick of this album’s sessions to choose from I’ve often wondered why the pair didn’t pick ‘Distances’ too – it would have been perfect for that slightly cagey album with its tale of differences between people who used to be close and Crosby sounds far more ‘with it’ than he does on the rest of the album. This and ‘Delta’ would have made the album a mini-masterpiece alone, while ‘King Of The Mountain’ which had been looking for a home for years by this time would have found a particularly welcome home here. The rest might perhaps not have lived up to Crosby’s reputation though, especially if the timid recording of ‘Samurai’ is anything to go by.

4)  Untitled (S 1980)

Potential track listing: [43] Cherokee [256] Southern Cross [262] You Are Alive [424] Feed The People ‘Precious Love’ ‘Dangerous Woman On The Loose’ ‘Streetwise’ ‘One Way Ride’ ‘Palace Of The King’ Reason Unfinished: Rejected By Record Company

Captain Many Digits, meanwhile, became the first musician anywhere in the world to record using digital technology. Always interested in new techniques, The Record Plant in Los Angeles knew that Stills was a likely guinea pig for their new technology – apparently this was the ‘3M’ system of digital recording, which used a whole new mixing board to replace the old analogue one. Barry Beckett was the producer and Michael Braunstein the engineer for this illustrious event and Stills was thrilled, using his short-lived ‘California Blues Band’ with keyboardist Mike Finnigan to back him on some tight and fairly robotic versions of an old friend and a new one. ‘Cherokee’, already released on his first solo album, sounds good in new clothes, the band using the spacey funk arrangement they’d been playing in concert and this song about Rita Coolidge suits the monotony of the extra drums and stylised production values. ‘Southern Cross’ though sounds horrid, a warm song sounding harsh and sterile and lacking both the more ‘human’ verses that make this song the gem that it is and the C-N harmonies. CBS, already underwhelmed by ‘Thoroughfare Gap’, asked Stills to think again and be more commercial – ironically Stills’ sound was just a few years too early and son everybody will be sounding like this. Unwilling to compromise the two agreed to go their spate ways instead and the tapes are still lying in a tape vault to this day (except for two songs on bootleg – one more we know was recorded here and resurrected for ‘Daylight Again’, ‘Feed The People’ will be resurrected a full quarter century later for ‘Man Alive’ and ‘Precious Love’ and ‘Dangerous Woman’ can be heard on live bootlegs, but the other song titles are a mystery, reported as being recorded at the time). Fun as ‘Cherokee’ is, we may have had a lucky escape as a whole album of this would have been hard-going. In the end Ry Cooder became the first artistxto release an album recorded digitally!

5)  Daylight Again (S-N 1981)

Potential Track Listing: [254] Turn Your Back On Love [255] Wasted On The Way [256] Southern Cross [264] Raise A Voice [165] Feel Your Love [259] Since I Met You [260] Too Much Love To Hide [261] Song for Susan [262] You Are Alive [266] Tomorrow Is Another Day [47] Daylight Again Reason Unfinished: Atlantic Insist On Crosby Being Added

An easy one this: ‘Daylight Again’ was a Stills-Nash album up until the eleventh hour, the pair having met up for a conciliatory drink and discussing their fading fortunes in the wake of poor sales for ‘Earth and Sky’ and ‘Thoroughfare Gap’. They even agreed to resign for Atlantic. The drug-taking elephant in the room though was what to do about Crosby. Stills figured his drug problem couldn’t be that serious (and he had a developing one of his own) but Nash had seen it firsthand and claimed that Crosby just couldn’t cut it. The pair made an album without him as their safest option, one which included Stills’ new find keyboard player Mike Finnigan as an extra harmony vocal, while James Taylor and Art Garfunkel played at being ‘Crosby’ on different songs (the title track in the latter’s case). Atlantic weren’t happy though: they figured that actually they’d rather have the full trio or nothing, leaving a sheepish Nash to call Crosby and invite him over; in dire financial straits he turned up with his abandoned album in his hand and gleefully declared that the others couldn’t cope without him. It was all a charade though with Stills and Nash adding vocals to ‘Delta’ and ‘Might As Well have A Good Time’ (their two favourite songs from Crosby’s abandoned album) and Crosby singing small parts here and there to everybody else’s songs. The trio only started one song from scratch and Nash actually wrote [257] ‘Into The Darkness’ after seeing Crosby for the first time in months and being shocked at how ill he looked (it’s a bitter sequel to Croz’s own [205] ‘Out Of The Darkness’). Some songs were in this early line-up were abandoned – for plagiarism reasons in the case of ‘Feel Your Love’ when someone pointed out that Stills had subconsciously nicked a song by Rose Royce of all bands; to fit in Crosby’s work in other cases, with ‘Raise A Voice’ held back for mostly-live record ‘Allies’ in 1983 and ‘Feel Your Love’ and ‘Tomorrow Is Another Day’ finding a release for the first time on the CD reissue of the album in the early 21st century. What would this album have sounded like? Well none of the rejected songs are classics and certainly none of them are up to the beauty of ‘Delta’. But it would have been fascinating to see how a Stills-Nash album might have gone down with the audience and it would have been a much kinder and much more honest album than what we got. Note too that the original version of ‘Turn Your Back On Love’ was quite different to the one that made the finished album, with a different set of Stills words added to Nash’s urgent riff, although knowing Stills he tidied these up long before Crosby turned up! Session tapes also reveal a groovy and very Stillsy untitled instrumental, though whether this song ever had words and how seriously it was intended to make the final cut is a mystery.

6)  Untitled (C-N 1989)

Potential track listing: [315] Live It Up! [319] Yours and Mine [322] House Of Broken Dreams [323] Arrows [321] Straight Line [241] King Of The Mountain [316] Anyone Who Had A Heart [420] Samurai [324] After The Dolphin Reason Unfinished: Atlantic Insist On Stills Being Added

Following ‘American Dream’ in 1988 CSNY went their separate ways again, but Crosby-Nash were both having a particularly fertile period and were enjoying renewing their friendship after the dark days of Crosby’s addiction. Atlantic were interested in a fourth Crosby-Nash album so they duly set off making one. Most of ‘Live It Up!’ was made this way, with the pair branching out to outside artists to fill in the gaps and – according to an interview made in Record Collector Magazine – this set would ‘at last’ have given a home to both ‘King Of The Mountain’ and ‘Samurai’, a song Crosby had always wanted to make as a Crosby-Nash song. Once again Atlantic began to have second thoughts and at the same time Stills turned up asking to hear how the album was progressing and that without a label of his own maybe they could find a home for his new songs. Fearing what happened last time CSN did far more from scratch on the record (to the point where it sounds as if Crosby is pushed to one side, not Stills) and the album is definitely better for the Nash harmony added to Stills solo recording [318] ‘Haven’t We Lost Enough?’, the frenetic Stills guitar solo added to [316] ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’ and lots of Stills harmonies across the songs Crosby and Nash had already taped. The one new song taped at these sessions held the album up weeks, with Nash panicking that they could never get the under-rated [320] ‘Got To Keep Open’ the ‘way we wanted it’ until the trio hit on the brainwave of adding a reggae lilt. The result is a second artificial CSN album in a row, but at least more care was taken making it sound like a three-way effort than its predecessor and arguably the finished product is better than it would have been as a C-N record without an awful lot of changes.

7)  ‘Songs We Wish We’d Written’ (CSN 2012)

Potential track listing: ‘Uncle John’s Band’ ‘Ruby Tuesday’ ‘Love Has No Pride’ ‘Fancy’ ‘How Have You Been?’ [234] Midnight Rider ‘Girl From The North Country’ ‘Close Your Eyes’ ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ ‘A Beatles Tune’ ‘Something By Joni Mitchell’ Reason Unfinished: Row

The album that broke CSN up? All we know for certain is that CSN really didn’t see eye to eye with their new producer Rick Rubin, who had resurrected Johnny Cash’s career quite brilliantly in later life by getting him back to basics and embracing his older age. CSN - reuniting for the first time since 1994 (threesome) or 1999 (foursome) - weren’t quite ready for that just yet and began to get worried when Rubin tried to ‘interfere’ with the album they wanted to make. CSN had been talking about a ‘covers’ album for a while – their cover of [327] ‘In My Life’ had gone down well with fans and the trio had always made a point of highlighting their favourite acts be they known (Dylan, Joni Mitchell) or comparatively unknown (Marc Cohn, Michael Hedges). However they couldn’t always agree on what songs to record (Crosby wanted to do a Grateful Dead song as a tribute to his old friend Jerry Garcia but admitted he hadn’t got a clue what ‘Uncle John’s Band’ meant, while Nash wasn’t all that sure what his choice, The Rolling Stones’ ‘Ruby Tuesday’, was all about either). Without much direction tensions ran high between the trio and the producer – they weren’t yet as hungry or desperate as Cash had been after ten years in the wilderness and had never been used to working with producers. Crosby stifled at Rubin’s suggestion that they keep to just one Beatles cover (‘There’ll only be one Beatles song if we decide there’ll only be one Beatles song! Who the fuck are you to decide?!’) Nash argued that Rubin didn’t get CSN (‘Guide us – yes. Make suggestions – fantastic. ‘Try it this way’ – no problem. But tell us what to do? You can’t!’) However it seems from most sources that it was Stills who lost his temper first and walked out of the project three songs in. Apparently the trio got as far as The Who’s ‘Behind Blue Eyes’, The Stones’ ‘Ruby Tuesday’ and John Sebastian’s lovely ‘Close Your Eyes’ (there’s a gorgeous live version of this song doing the rounds from their 2013 tour) before calling it a day. Most of the other songs listed here are guesswork, but they did play some of them in concert which means they already had arrangements ready for them: ‘Fancy’ is an Iggy Alazalea song CSNY sang when guesting on a period Jimmy Fallon chat show, ‘Girl From North Country’ is a Dylan cover Stills had been doing for years and which CSN had perfected some lovely harmonies on, ‘Love Has No Pride’ is a Bonnie Raitt song the trio once sang with its composer on stage, ‘Midnight Rider’ is an Allman Brothers song Stills had already recorded in 1978 and mentioned in interviews he’d like to do again and I would have been astonished if the trio hadn’t got round to doing a Joni Mitchell song in there somewhere. Some press reports said that the trio were planning to rework older songs from the Byrds (‘Eight Miles High’) and Buffalo Springfield (‘Rock and Roll Woman’ or ‘Bluebird’) days too, though this seems more speculation than promise. Either way this would have been a strange LP. CSN never seemed quite convinced by any of this material live and they remain more of a creative band than an interpretative one. Any CSN is better than none at all however and it seems a shame that what might have turned out to be the last three-way recordings seem likely to end up stuck in the vaults for the foreseeable future. I bet ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ sounded good though, especially if they nailed the sudden switch from drugged out peace to sudden anger!




A Now Complete List Of CSN/Y and Solo Articles Available To Read At Alan’s Album Archives:



'Crosby, Stills and Nash' (1969)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-29-crosby-stills-and-nash-1969.html

'Deja Vu' (CSNY) (1970)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-34-crosby-stills-nash-and-young.html

‘Stephen Stills’ (1970)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/stephen-stills-1970.html

'If Only I Could Remember My Name' (Crosby) (1971)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-45-david-crosby-if-only-i-could.html

'Songs For Beginners' (Nash) (1971)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-46-graham-nash-songs-for.html

'Stephen Stills II' (1971)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-48-stephen-stills-ii-1971.html
‘Graham Nash, David Crosby’ (1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/graham-nash-david-crosby-1972.html

'Stephen Stills-Manassas'  (1972)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-51-stephen-stillsmanassas-1972.html

'Wild Tales' (Nash) (1973)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/news-views-and-music-issue-75-graham.html
'Down The Road' (Stephen Stills/Manassas) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/stephen-stillsmanassas-down-by-road-1973.html

'Stills' (1975)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/review-65-stephen-stills-stills-1975.html

'Wind On The Water' (Crosby-Nash) (1975)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-67-crosby-nash-wind-on-water.html
'Illegal Stills' (Stills) (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/stephen-stills-illegal-stills-1976.html
'Whistling Down The Wire' (Crosby-Nash) (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/david-crosby-graham-nash-whistling-down.html

'Long May You Run' (Stills-Young) (1976)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/news-views-and-music-issue-33-stills.html

'CSN' (1977)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-70-crosby-stills-and-nash-csn.html
'Thoroughfare Gap' (Stills) (1978) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/stephen-stills-thoroughfare-gap-1978.html
'Earth and Sky' (Nash) (1980) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/graham-nash-earth-and-sky-1980.html

'Daylight Again' (CSN) (1982)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/news-views-and-music-issue-131-crosby.html
'Right By You' (Stills) (1984) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/stephen-stills-right-by-you-1984.html
'Innocent Eyes' (Nash) (1986) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/01/graham-nash-innocent-eyes-1986.html
'American Dream' (CSNY) (1988) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-american.html

'Oh Yes I Can!' (Crosby) (1989) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/07/david-crosby-oh-yes-i-can-1989.html

'Live It Up!' (CSN)  (1989)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/news-viedws-and-music-issue-104-crosby.html

'Stephen Stills Alone' (1991) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/stephen-stills-alone-1991.html



'CPR' (Crosby Band) (1998) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/cpr-david-crosby-band-1998.html


‘So Like Gravity (CPR, 2001) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/cpr-just-like-gravity-2001.html

‘Songs For Survivors’ (2002)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/graham-nash-songs-for-survivors-2002.html



'Deja Vu Live' (CD) (2008) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/news-views-and-music-issue-1-crosby.html

'Deja Vu Live' (DVD) (2008)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008_09_21_archive.html

'Reflections' (Graham Nash Box Set) (2009)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/news-views-and-music-issue-22-graham.html

'Demos' (CSN) (2009)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/news-views-and-music-issue-41-crosby.html

'Manassas: Pieces' (2010)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/news-views-and-music-issue-52-manassas.html

‘Carry On’ (Stephen Stills Box Set) (2013)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/stephen-stills-carry-on-box-set-2013.html

'Croz' (Crosby) (2014) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/david-crosby-croz-2014album-review.html
'CSNY 74' (Recorded 1974 Released 2014) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-csny-74.html

'This Path Tonight' (Nash) (2016) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/graham-nash-this-path-tonight-2016.html



‘Here If You Listen’ (Crosby) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/10/david-crosby-and-friends-here-if-you.html

The Best Unreleased CSNY Recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/csny-best-unreleased-tracks-news-views.html
Surviving TV Appearances (1969-2009) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/csny-surviving-tv-appearances-1969-09.html
Non-Album Recordings (1962-2009) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/crosby-stills-nash-and-sometimes-young_6.html
Live/Compilation/Rarities Albums Part One (1964-1980) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/crosby-stills-nash-and-sometimes-young.html
Live/Compilations/Rarities Albums Part Two (1982-2012) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/crosby-stills-nash-and-sometimes-young_20.html
Essay: The Superest Of Super Groups? https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/csny-essay-superest-of-super-groups.html
Five Landmark Concerts and Three Key Cover Versions https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/csny-five-landmark-concerts-and-three.html