Available to buy in ebook format 'Change Partners - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young' by clicking here!
The Au Go Go Singers (featuring Stills and Furay):
"They Call Us The Au Go Go Singers"
(Roulette Records, 'Late' 1964)
San Francisco
Bay Blues/What If?/Gotta Travel On/Pink Polemoniums/You Are There/Oh Joe
Hannah/Miss Nellie/High Flying Bird*/What Have They Done To The Rain?/Lonesome
Traveller/Where I'm Bound/This Train
* = Stephen
Stills vocal showcase
"Lord, look at me - I'm rooted like a
tree!"
Remember that feeling of dread when someone you
love is about to get out the family photo-album and share your happy childhood
memories with a bunch of perfect strangers? That's how Stephen Stills and fellow
Buffalo Springfielder Richie Furay must feel about this album, which has been
long deleted and is now ridiculously rare (alas I'm having to base this review
on a mere three songs, which are all I've ever heard to date; expecting a
fuller update when/if this album ever gets a full re-issue and if I ever win
the lottery - which is unlikely, not just because it's statistically
near-impossible but because I never enter it). Very much in the 'Peter, Paul
and Mary' folky vein, The Au Go Go Singers are effectively a phone-book: a
nine-piece band of earnest folkies who play traditional folks songs
acoustically. They were named after The Whiskey-A-Go-Go, a famous Californian
nightclub where the band formed and will also play major roles in the
Springfield's and even more so The Byrds' histories. Like many similar records
by The New Christy Minstrels (Byrd Gene Clark's first band) and the Serendipity
Singers An interesting snapshot into what most bands started out like in the
few months before The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964
and the world went electric overnight, the odd thing about this album is how
late in the folk era it comes: somewhere in the Autumn, by which time folk is
almost over (until a slight revival when The Byrds and Simon and Garfunkel come
along in 1965). You sense that the band already know that, too, from the sheer
weariness with which the parts of this album I've heard are sung and sounds like
the tail end of the prog rock era when the punks have come along to claim all
the fun - or perhaps what the dinosaurs sounded like when they discovered the
first mammal with a record deal.
Given that they're very much the junior
wannabes (still in their teens at this stage) Stephen Stills and Richie Furay
get very little to do; inaudible amongst the nine-voice chorus and with just
one lead vocal apiece. I still haven't heard Richie's but the few who have
consider it the highlight of the set - the anthem of confused and lost teens
everywhere 'I Don't Know Where I'm Bound', which already showcases Richie's
delicate fragile melodic tones. Stephen Stills' vocal on 'High Flying Bird'
(sensibly used to kick-off the Stills box set 'Carry On' in 2012) is much rougher
and raucous and Stills - aged 19 - already sounds like a wizened blues singer,
packing a real emotional punch the rest of the rather bland material can't
compete with. To be honest this record isn't that essential a purchase and
bears no real links with the Springfield sound (the 'folk' element of which is
mainly brought by Young). However this is a key move -the first time either man
had been inside a professional recording studio - and even on a small
independent label like 'Roulette Records' (biggest star: Tommy James and the
Shondells) it gave the pair a clout that will be useful in their futures with
the band. Just physically, it's worth noting that without this step it's
probably fair to say the Springfield would never have formed. Sensing that he's
jumped aboard the wrong boat, Furay left soon after the band's one and only
recording, but Stills continued with the band playing to smaller audiences and
taking every gig they could find. Canada was a little behind America and hadn't
yet caught on to The Beatles in such a big way, so Stills rejoined the
'new-look' Au Go Go Singers (christened 'The Company') who played all of
Canada's big coffee houses with local support acts opening for them. One of
these just happened to be The Squires, a Shadows-style band with Neil Young on
lead guitar and the start of a love-hate brotherly relationship that's going to
last through two of these Ebooks and counting...
Stephen
Stills: "Just Roll Tape"
(Rhino,
Recorded April 26th 1968, Released July 2007)
All I Know Is
What You Tell Me/So Begins The Task/Change Partners/Know You've Got To Run/The
Doctor Will See You Now/Black Queen/Bumblebee aka Do You Have A Place To Hide?
aka Love Gangster/Judy/Dreaming Of Snakes/Suite: Judy Blue Eyes/Helplessly
Hoping/Wooden Ships/Treetop Flyer
"Can you be believin' what they told you
yesterday?"
A
true revelation, the 'Just Roll Tape'
suddenly came out on archive label Rhino with no warning in 2007, catching all
of Stills' fans off guard. Taped on April 26th 1968, when Stills was guesting
at a session by girlfriend Judy Collins (presumably for her seventh and
folkiest album 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes?' out that November), Stephen
asked engineer John Haeny if he wouldn't mind staying on a bit longer while he
threw together some rough acoustic demos of songs he'd been working on,
'peeling off several hundred dollar bills' as he did so according to the
sleevenotes. Stills then went home, intending to pick the tape up soon after
but he never did (did he and Judy have a row that night? Was it even about him
staying behind instead of seeing her home? The pair have a very on-off
relationship that lasts through most of the first two hundred pages or so of
this book and is the sort of thing you can imagine happening). When the studio
was due to close in 1978 musician Joe Colasurdo happened to be the last
musician in. Heaving out boxes of tapes to the rubbish dump the owners told him
he could have a look inside and hang on to anything he fancied. A big CSN fan
(our kind of guy!) Colasurdo spotted this tape box with just the name 'Stephen
Stills' written on it and took it home, keeping it safe for years (he didn't
even hear it for several years, not having a reel-to-reel machine in his
house). Zoom forward a quarter of a century and Colasurdo is hanging out a lot
at a record shop known as The Mystic Disc Record Store in Connecticut. He
happens to say to the manager Dan Curland that he has a Stills tape reel at
home he rescued back in the seventies - another of Curland's occasional
customers happens to be Graham Nash. The tapes get mentioned, he gets
interested, meets Colasurdo and hires a machine to play them on (most likely
Joel Bernstien's as the pair are already working on 'CSNY '74' at the time).
Nash is awed to hear his partner so young and committed and rings him up
immediately telling him he has to release the tape - now! A surprised Stills
gave them a listen and complied, with a release out in the shops so soon most
people didn't know it was coming - and from a tape source that had never been
bootlegged before. Happy days for CSN fans!
Taped
the week before the Buffalo Springfield's last ever show on May 5th (although
some have doubted the official date given: the Springfield were meant to be
playing a show in Atlanta that day, although I don't see why Stills couldn't
have made both if he was due to meet Judy Collins that night anyway - and it's
also not entirely out of the realms of possibility that the band cancelled that
night as they did often towards the end), the recording is fascinating because
it shows Stills clearly trying to work out what his future might be. At this
point he's friends with Crosby and the pair will spend most of the Summer working
together, but it may be that Stills was toying with a folkie solo album first,
similar to what he'd just seen Judy recording (and perhaps featuring just him
an acoustic - the 'Stills Alone' record some 23 years early). Most of his
biggest songs from the next few years are already here sounding not unlike
their future selves (including a messy but brilliant 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes'
that's only missing the ending, 'Helplessly Hoping' 'So Begins The Task'
'Change Partners' 'Black Queen' and even a tentative version of 'Wooden Ships',
minus the Crosby 'If you smile at me' opening but with most of Paul Kantner's
as well as Stills' bits already intact interestingly, Stills apparently trying
on for size to his own modifications). Even without the glorious harmony vocals
and the overdubs they already sound complete, rounded and whole. Elsewhere we
get very early versions of songs that appear later on in very different form
(the bouncy 'Bumblebee' becomes the more predatory [7] 'Love Gangster' from
'Manassas', while 'Know You've Got To Run' is the first half of [36] 'Everybody
I Love You' heard faster than the 'fuller' reading on 'Stephen Stills II'). (The
odd song out is a 1976 demo of the ubiquitous 'Treetop Flyer', a tale of
Vietnam Veteran gun smugglers, which featured in many a CSN concert until
Stills finally recorded it for 'Stills Alone' in 1991 and seems to crop up in
every rare CSN release somewhere - presumably Stills added it to bulk out the
album and to not get in the way of the planned 'early years demos' CSN CD then
in the works).
The
tape also includes no less than four previously unfinished Stills songs - most
of them unfinished and all of them about Judy Collins. 'All I Know Is What You
Tell Me' 'The Doctor Will See You Now' 'Dreaming Of Snakes' and 'Judy' are not
perhaps up to the greater work elsewhere on the tape but all four are
fascinating songs that lesser singer-songwriters would have turned into
five-star classics, each of them sounding like a 'lost verse' from 'Suite: Judy
Blue Eyes' and further tracing that rocky relationship from delight to
confusion to resentment. 'All I Know Is What You Tell Me' is a sweet, folky
number that would have been right at home on 'Stills II', with only three
simple verses and no choruses clearly lacking something but with some pretty
chord changes. 'The Doctor Will See You Now' is edgier, Stills angrily
challenging Judy Collins after another row ('What do you say after you've said
everything? Whose left to play when you've played all of them? Do you know
better than anyone else?') while his acoustic chugs along in a stop-starty
motion as if trying to get a word in edgeways. 'Judy' on the other-hand is the
most 'natural' love song in the Stills canon (at least till 1975), coming
without any nasty twists or repercussions but coming with a pretty tune and a
first reference to Judy Collins as 'like a bird in flight'. Finally 'Dreaming
Of Snakes' is the sketchiest song here (it only lasts 1:45 and a lot of that is
Stills turning up) but this had the potential to be another prog rock epic
masterpiece, with a bad-is-good lyric where Stills' narrator learns the most
when he'd in danger and on the edge of his faculties, his eyes working better
in 'darkness'. Another verse and a proper chorus (plus the removal of the rather
limp rhymes of 'girl' and 'whirl' in the last verse) and this song would have
been right up there with all those other classic.
The
result, overall, is fantastic - the best Stills CD since 'Stills' in 1975 if
you're counting this as a chronological release and more evidence that the
guitarist was on unbeatable form between 1968 and 1972. Stills' voice is strong
and confident, his guitar playing electrifying and he sounds so relieved to
have the stress of the Buffalo Springfield dropping from his shoulders and his
horizons widening. While the Judy Collins years were difficult from the first
he sounds in love and content with his lot in life (again not unlike 'Stills'
in 1975), eagerly anticipating the future and with his songs a mixture of the
deep and complex CSN tales to come and the frivolous, silly and joyful. You
wonder what the 65-year-old Stills made of this tape when he first heard it,
his young 26-year-old voice hitting him full throttle out of the tape recorder
after so many years of assuming this tape missing or lost. This a time capsule
to be treasured, gloriously cleaned up by Rhino (it sounds better recorded and
mastered than Stills' 2005 record 'Man Alive' actually - how is that possible?)
and given a fun front cover of the simple writing scribbled over the tape box. A
great reminder to many about how glorious CSN at their peak could be - Back
then all Stills needed to create magic was a guitar and a roll of tape.
Mike
Bloomfield/Al Kooper/'Steve Stills': "Super Session"
(Columbia,
July 1968)
Albert's
Shuffle/Stop!/Man's Temptation/His Holy Modal Majesty/Really/It Takes A Lot To
Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry*/Season Of The Witch*/You Don't Love
Me*/Harvey's Tune*
* = songs
Stills plays on
"Play it for me Stephen!"
Jamming
sessions were all the rage for musicians in the late 60s, although most of them
ended up on the cutting room floor to be released forty years later as padding
for some archive set or another. Al Kooper, super sideman to the stars (most
famously the organ lick on Dylan's 'Like A Rolling Stone') and a mere year away
from founding Blood Sweat and Tears had a vision. It wasn't unique: bands like
Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead had been improvising and expanding their
setlists for a good two years by now, but both bands had struggled to get their
sound onto a studio LP basically because nobody trusted the new untested groups
to deliver. Kooper, though, was a respected name in the industry and had the clout to make
such an album - and what's more he knew he could do it cheaply too, booking
just two days' worth of studio sessions to make it. Unfortunately his choice of
companion Mike Bloomfield - between jobs with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
and Electric Flag - didn't share his vision, quitting after the first day (he
infamously left Kooper a note complaining of an in-grown toe-nail and needing
to go back home to sleep)and leaving Al facing something of a problem.
As
luck would have it, he bumped into a very forlorn looking Stephen Stills, who
was kicking his heels outside the studio after another unproductive week
watching the Buffalo Springfield fall apart (this is common practice for
Stills, who will forever be turning up in studio unexpectedly across the
1970s!) The pair didn't know each other personally but knew the other's reputation,
but the chance meeting was a gift and Kooper knew it: Stills was one of the few
guitarists in the business who had the ability to step into someone else's
shoes at the last minute, with almost no rehearsal, and his lengthy jamming
spells with Springfield colleague Neil Young were already the stuff of legend
(with song 'Bluebird' routinely stretched out to twenty msnutes). As luck would
have it he also happened to have with him a brand new toy he'd just bought and
was looking forward to playing around with, a
'wah-wah' pedal that will appear on a lot of Stills recordings over the
next few years. Although Kooper promised a good chance of success, Stills was a
little wary and seems to have treated the session as the sort of rehearsal
session he'd have been practicing at home anyway and letting Kooper more or
less stick with the recordings he had planned anyway. In the end the pair and
their backing band (mainly members of the Electric Flag to be, who'd bravely
stayed on despite their 'leader' going home) had such a fine time that they
taped a lot more than just the ten minutes Kooper needed to complete the album
and the long awaited 2003 CD re-issue reveals that the pair had quite a few
'extra' goes at the songs too in order to use up the designated recording
hours. In the end Kooper decided to use the best of everything he had an
divided the lengthy 50 minute record into two halves - a 30 minute side one in
which he plays with Bloomfield and a 20 minute side two which is purely Stills.
The
results are a revelation. Until now the only jamming session in a studio
environment Stills had taken part in is the less than convincing 'Kahuna
Sunset' and 'Buffalo Stomp Raga' jams from 1967 as heard on the 'Buffalo
Springfield' set. Freed of the need to compete with Neil and with a grooving
well-drilled band behind him (who do largely know what they're doing), Stills
is free to fly safe in the knowledge that if he messes up he's only helping a
friend out - and he still half reckons these tapes will never see the light of
day anyway. The result is some of the greatest Stills guitar solos and proves
for once and all that Stephen is a master of the blues guitar, albeit with the
wah-wah pedal giving his stinging guitar lines a nicely psychedelic sound (and
thus making this album the sound of the first half of 1968: melancholic flower
power). While Bloomfield's 'half' of the record is intermittently interesting
(and includes the jaw-dropping theremin jam session 'His Holy Modal Majesty'),
it's Stills' second half that's the stunning half of the record and it duly got
most of the press attention too. The rocking and rolling Dylan cover 'It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A
Train To Laugh' (with Stills adding falsetto to Al Kooper's vocal)
doesn't sound too removed from the Springfield, with a neat country-rock 'Go
And Say Goodbye' style solo from Stills and a nice cooking rhythm section of
Eddie Hoh and Harvey Brooks. Donovan cover 'Season Of The Witch' is the highlight', stretched
out to seven minutes with Stills' crystal-clear twanging guitar among the best
he ever recorded, the sappy happy clappy original turned into a monster of
cat-and-mouse paranoia and hysterics with a terrific Stills-Kooper guitar-organ
battle in the middle that has to be heard to be believed (this may also be the
start of Stills' love affair with horns, which were added by Kooper in a hurry
before release - this track in particular sounds very like the 'feel' of 1971's
'Stephen Stills II'). Willie Cobbs' 'You Don't Love Me' is arguably the lesser moment of the second
half, a relatively trite blues ballad with an uneasy Kooper vocal but even this
has flashes of style and energy with Stills sounding the most like his old
teenage pal Jimi Hendrix in the solo. Finally 'Harvey's Tune' is a sad and sorrowful blues written
by bassist Brooks and you can start to hear something of the 'bluesman' in
Stills comes out here.
The
result was released in a distinctive sleeve with three pictures of the main
participants and all the writing squirreled away in the top left hand corner,
Stills looking particularly photogenic tinted blue and sweating buckets (and
uniquely he's credited as 'Steve' rather than 'Stephen', perhaps reflecting the
informal feel of the sessions). 'Super Session', which had cost a mere $13,000
to make at a time when this was peanuts (the previous year's Beatles record
'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band' cost around $55,000 and the EMI studios
at Abbey Road were much cheaper than Columbia's!), took off very quickly and
won over some superlative reviews - to this day it's one of the most critically
acclaimed across-the-board albums any member of CSN has ever taken part in,
although it rarely gets mentioned today. Columbia reckoned they'd hit on a
successful formula and persuaded Kooper to do it all over again and he duly
rang up Stills - only to find that he was already in the process of setting up
CSN. Instead he made up with Mike Bloomfield and the pair toured together for a
while, cutting the occasional album although none with the success or the clout
of this debut. Sparking, lively and full of tense drama, 'Super Session' isn't
an album for everyone but if you like your Stills smoking hot and adore the
jamming CSNY sessions released on CSNY's 'Four Way Street' then this is the
album for you, a great showcase for Stills' many talents back when he was young
and hungry.
Various
Artists : "Woodstock/Woodstock Two"
(Atlantic,
May 1970/)
Woodstock: I
Had A Dream (John Sebastian)/Goin' Up The Country (Canned Heat)/Freedom (Richie
Havens)/Rock and Soul Music (Country Joe and the Fish)/Coming Into Los Angeles
(Arlo Guthrie)/At The Hop (Sha Na Na)/I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag
(Country Joe McDonald)/Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man (Joan Baez)/Joe Hill (Joan
Baez)/Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (CSN)/Sea Of Madness (CSNY)/Wooden Ships
(CSNY)/We're Not Gonna Take It! (The Who)/With A Little Help From My Friends
(Joe Cocker)/Soul Sacrifice (Santana)/I'm Going Home (Ten Years
After)/Volunteers (Jefferson Airplane)/Medley (Sly and the Family
Stone)/Rainbows All Over Your Blues (John Sebastian)/Love March (Paul
Butterfield Blues Band)/Medley (Jimi Hendrix)
Woodstock
Two: Jam Back At The House (Jimi Hendrix)/Izabella (Jimi Hendrix)/Get Back
Together (Jimi Hendrix)/ Won't You Try?-Saturday Afternoon (Jefferson
Airplane)/Eskimo Blue Day (Jefferson Airplane)/Everything's Gonna Be Alright
(Paul Butterfield Blues Band)/Sweet Sir Galahad (Joan Baez)/Guinevere (CSN)/4+20
(CSN)/Marrakesh Express (CSN)/My Beautiful People (Melanie)/Birthday Of The Sun
(Melanie)/Blood Of The Sun (Mountain)/Theme For An Imaginary Western
(Mountain)/Woodstock Boogie (Canned Heat)/Let The Sun Shine In (Audience)
"Sing the song, don't be long, thrill me to
the marrow!"
No
wonder CSNY were famously 'scared shitless' in the film version of 'Woodstock'.
Imagine: it's your second ever gig, you've never played to more than a room of
people before, the crowd is full of 400,000 hippies who don't quite know who
you are (not in this combination, anyway) and back stage there's everyone whose
anyone in music in 1969 checking you out. In retrospect it's amazing CSNY
agreed to show - unlike The Beach Boys, The Moody Blues, Jethro Tull and
Crosby's old band The Byrds who were all approached and some of whom were
billed to appear, but all chose not to for one reason or another (how good a
line-up would that have been?) However CSNY 'owned' the festival: their
beautifully warm and soothing acoustic-magic-with-harmonies and their right-on
we-can-change-the-world political mood exactly the mixture that represented
everything that was great about Woodstock. All the papers the next week said
that 'CSNY' were the 'highlight' - all
that stuff about Hendrix being the big hit was rather blown out of proportion
by his sad death the following year (in fact only a tenth of the crowd were
left when Jimi, the last performer, took the stage: by then the organisers were
running so late that everyone had left for work on Monday morning). That many
people being turned on to the same thing at the same time had never ever
happened before - who knew what was going to happen the next time this amount
of people met? And the next? And the next? Unfortunately as soon as four months
later (with Altamont - some might even say the restless and only slightly less
fractious crowd at Big Sur a month later in September) was a game-changer.
'Woodstock' wasn't seen as part of the solution, but as part of the problem and
even with the (in retrospect remarkably) quick turn around to put the first
compilation album out in the shops, 'Woodstock' was already a fading memory, a
stark reminder of what could have been rather than the joy of what was.
In
truth you don't go to dig out the Woodstock soundtrack if you want to simply
hear a classic gig. Nobody, not even CSNY, come out of these sets that well (in
AAA terms this is only a high for Jefferson Airplane, who turned in a stunning
breakfast set - but you can't even tell that from the fragments spread across
these two albums). However you don't turn to 'Woodstock' for the music but for
the vibe: it's there in every note played, from the so-bad-it's brilliant
moment that CSn reach out for a note that isn't there while Stills desperately
tunes his guitar during a ragged-but-oh-so-right performance of 'Suite: Judy
Blue Eyes', a 'Long Time Gone' that sounds as if it's about to topple over
throughout but bravely staggers through to the end, cheap but cheerful low key
versions of 'Marrakesh Express' '4+20'
and 'Guinevere' which reduces some of the greatest music of the eras to the
level of being merely ordinary (and barely audible), with only a fiery 'Wooden
Ships' coming out of the Woodstock fire particularly well cooked. 'Sea Of
Madness' is a special case by the way: until Neil's 'Archives' set (2009) it
was the only place to hear this quirky little Young song, taken at a fierce,
chaotic pace and with Nash's swampy organ and off-key harmonies struggling to
keep up. A real contender for 'Deja Vu' it appears on a lot of CSNY bootlegs
from 1969/1970 and fits the more muddied, paranoid feel of 1970 a lot more than
the 'Woodstock' vibe. While the song was indeed played at 'Woodstock', this
isn't it: it's taken from a gig at the Fillmore, fro either September 19th or
20th (legend has it the tape 'went missing', although it might be simply that
the Woodstock take was even worse). It's also the only appearance of Young on
the Woodstock soundtracks or indeed in the film: fed up of having cramped
stages invaded by diva cameraman he'd refused for his segment of the show to be
filmed and so sadly no visual footage exists (though all the audio, thankfully
does). That explains what always used to bother me when I first got to know the
film: the emcee's introduction that reads 'Crosby, Stills, Nash...' without the
'and', trailing off in mid-air (Young's instructions were to cut all mention of
him out). Luckily for history's sake CSN played their usual opening 20-odd
minute set as a trio and it's mainly that opening half - not the fiery electric
set from later - that's come out on official releases of 'Woodstock' to date.
Even if the performances are dodgy, however, you need to own this set, to see
how CSNY fitted into the cross-section of 1969 music if nothing else (no other
band mixes acoustic and electric songs like they do or sings as sweetly yet
with such rage) .Incidentally only the opening number 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes'
appears in the film (even the extended 'director's cut') although 'Marrakesh
Express' is used in the spin-off three part series 'Woodstock Diaries' made for
the 25th anniversary in 1994 and remixed versions of the studio tracks for
'Long Time Gone' and 'Wooden Ships' appear in the first half hour of the film
when the stage is being erected.
(Atlantic, April 1971)
CD One:
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (Extract)/On The Way Home/Teach Your Children/Triad/The
Lee Shore/Chicago/Right Between The Eyes/Cowgirl In The Sand/Don't Let It Bring
You Down/49 Bye Byes-For What It's Worth-American Children/Love The One You're
With
CD Two:
Pre-Road Downs/Long Time Gone/Southern Man/Ohio/Carry On/Find The Cost Of
Freedom
CD Bonus
Tracks On Disc One: King Midas In Reverse/Laughing/Black Queen/The
Loner-Cinnamon Girl-Down By The River
"America is still the home of the brave - and
we've got to be brave!...And I don't quite know if I want America to remember
or to forget"
The
stark title, the black background and the curious mini shots of the quartet
solo rather sums it up: this band of brothers who used to take a Marrakesh
Express of freedom have been derailed. Temporarily as it turns out, but as with
every CSNY bust up to come it seems like forever. Had CSNY been like every
other band out there and stayed together for longer than two albums (or
arguably one-and-a-half) then this live record would almost certainly never
have existed. When the band set out on the road a second time in 1970 Atlantic
knew that it would be a 'big deal' and arranged to record an impressive run of
shows: five whole dates at New York's Fillmore East between June 2nd and 7th,
Los Angeles' 'Forum' from June 26-28th and The Chicgao Auditorium in, um,
Chicago on July 5th. That's nine shows professionally recorded, back in the
days when every CSNY shows was different and all four men had so many songs
they wanted to sing their solo spots in particularly were in regular rotation.
Fans generally reckon that the first of these is the best, CSNY on a high from
having released the 'Ohio' single the same day while still smouldering with
brotherly hatred for the Nixon administration (this is also the show where most
of the surprisngly kind stage announcements come from: Nash giggling as Crosby
accidentally crashes the opening line to 'Right Between The Eyes' with his
introduction' and Young announcing Stills' solo spot with the line 'we've had
our ups and downs but we're still playing together!'. What nobody in the room
knows is that CSNY will be over as early as July 9th, a 1974 tour aside Neil's
last ride with the quartet for 18 years.
For
all the kind stage announcements you can tell that this CSNY is different to,
say, the one that performed at Woodstock. The banter is heavier, the songs are
more angsty and political than we-can-change-the-world hippiedom and it speaks
volumes that a good third, even two-fifths of the record features CSNY not
together but apart (with each of them getting two songs each in the solo spot
that takes up most of sides one and two). The unlisted person who put this
compilation together (it's unlikely to have been CSN or Y, who were all aghast
to various degrees at it coming out at all - was it even Atlantic boss Ahmet
Etrtegun keen to oversee potentially the label's biggest seller of the year?)
even seems to refer to this during the cruel opening track: a stunning 30
second burst of the 'ba-da-da-das' from 'Suite : Judy Blue Eyes' that feature
CSN at their most together and committed, blown out the water when straight
away Nash announces 'we'd like you to meet our friend Neil Young!' who promptly
sings 'On The Way Home', a troubled song about the Springfield break-up. 'It's
happened again' the record seems to be saying. 'Can you believe it?'
Certainly
the end result is not something that feels like it's 'meant' to be part of the
CSNY canon. For a start none of the 1970 shows on bootleg live up to the
astonishing ones from the second half of 1969 - this tour is a mopping up,
contractual obligation exercise with the magic already gone. The performances
are deeply ragged, in stark contrast to the two studio records to date and
Stills for one claims to have always been deeply embarrassed by how rough and
ready this record is. The two lengthy jams on the second disc (thirteen minute
renditions of 'Southern Man' and 'Carry On' respectively) would surely have
been trimmed had CSNY knew what was going on with this record (and are the
breaking point for many a fan, although the latter especially is the best thing
here, far looser and oppressive than the later more triumphant copycat versions
on the 1974 tour). The sound of Nash pounding out 'Chicago' one heavy chord
after another and the improvised political rant that is Stills' 'America's
Children' tend to be the moment my non-CSNY friends and family leave the room
(even the ones who stay for 'American Dream' 'Live It Up' and 'Lookin'
Forward'!) Had the entire CSN/Y studio canon suddenly disappeared down a black
hole one day and we were left with this I doubt many people would be calling
CSNY the greatest band of their era.
And
yet...there's a certain thrill about 'Four Way Street' that even the studio
records don't have. Stripped to the basics, freed of perfection and recorded
during a grinding tour bookended by the Kent State University riots and extra
troops being sent to Vietnam it sounds intense and powerful even for CSNY.
Considering the band have only just played a note-perfect rendition of it the
live recording here of 'Ohio' is ugly and yet it's every bit as right on the
money, a hoarse Crosby standing away from the mike and screaming the finale and
S N and Y fall into a hypnotic trance of 'four dead in Ohio' over and over, the
horror still in their voices. Songs like the bouncy 'Love The One You're With'
and 'Pre-Road Downs' really benefit from the extra attack of a live band,
especially the first with its many acoustic guitars flying all a-kimbo (the
song so new that Nash can't resist stealing his partner's thunder and
announcing the title to giggled applause). A harrowing 'Long Time Gone' beats
everything, Crosby's voice reduced to an angry whisper as he attacks his
signature tune like never before while Neil's guitar work is a sharp needle
piercing the fragility of the American dream - this is a reading without any
daylight breaking anytime soon and the tune sounds all the better for the mourning
with which it's played. Crosby also turns in beautiful renditions of two 'lost'
songs that never did find a 'proper' home - the single best version of 'Triad',
his rejected Byrds song (demoted by Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman on the
grounds of 'taste' as Crosby delights in a love triangle, although it's really
just a mischievous Crosby asking questions about civilisation rules again
rather than anything 'distasteful') and a lovely version of 'The Lee Shore',
the nautical-but-nice ditty that was attempted for 'Deja Vu' before finally
turning up on the 1991 box set. Nash chips in with his exclusive-till-2009
folkie lament 'Right Between The Eyes'. I personally find Stills' political
rant against 'Richard Nixon and Richard Daley and all the other...well,
whatever you want to call them' hilarious, his political sniping all the better
for coming at the end of a piano singalong of his 1966 warning about all this
'For What It's Worth'. Neil unusually is the only one of the four not to get a
previously unreleased song on the album, but a note-perfect replica of 'Don't
Let It Bring You Down' (his best song from 'After The Goldrush', reckons me!)
and an highly experimental acoustic rendition of 'Cowgirl In The Sand'
(originally a ten minute electric jam with Crazy Horse) proves that his songs
can sound great when played in any form. Add in the two soaring jams with some
of the greatest Stills-Young guitar duelling on record (even if they take a
while to get there - and with the caveat that I still think the sarcastic
audience-pushing 'Southern Man' is one of the worst songs Neil ever wrote till
'Greendale' any way) and a breathtaking all-acoustic finale of 'Find The Cost
Of Freedom' and you have many reasons to love this album.
While it's clearly
not as 'worthy' or as 'finished' as the records, 'Four Way Street' is a long
long way from being 'embarrassing' - instead it's a testament to how brave, how
committed and how 'right' CSNY were then now and always, putting on their tin
soldier suits where audiences could see them and speaking out against Nixon
four years before Watergate where the rest of the world catches on. This is an
important album, made all the better on CD thanks to the addition of four extra
tracks (Crosby's and Stills' aren't up to match, but Nash' revival of one of
his greatest Hollies songs 'King Midas In Reverse' and a three-song ten-minute
Neil Young acoustic guitar medley, all made up of songs better known from
electric firepower are excellent additions to the canon). The 'new' or at any
rate 'exclusive' songs (Including the Neil Young ones not included as part of
the CSNY canon) are reviewed below:
No sooner have CSN arrived on stage with the
'doo doo doos' of 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes' than they're moving centre stage to
hand over to Neil Young. This rather unfortunately sets the tone for CSNY and
their future when they'll always find themselves moving over for Mr Young
whenever things are just getting interesting! Neil's choice of song is interesting.
[85] 'On The Way Home'
had been one of Neil's last pair of songs recorded by the Buffalo Springfield,
but largely in his absence (his demo being turned into a poppy brass-fuelled
pop sang by the band's singer Richie Furay; Stills probably doesn't appear on
it either). That was extremely apt given that, along with 'I Am A Child',
Neil's two finished songs from 'Last Time Around' were both loosely about his
time in the band: 'I won't be back till later on...if I do come back at all'.
Here the song is reclaimed by Neil as a folky song of brotherhood and sounds
far more upbeat and positive, with some lovely partnering guitar work from
Stills and some terrific ragged-but-right CSN harmonies. However there's still
something rather unsettling about the song choice: Neil had two solo albums and
three Springfield recordings to choose from (a CSNY-harmony drenched version of
'Expecting To Fly', for instance, would have been truly sublime), so why choose
this song with defensive lines about 'having a chance to see through me' and
how 'I went insane, like a smoke ring day when wind blows'. The ultimate irony,
of course, is that Neil being 'on the way home' isn't a happy thing like it
sounds: it's more about the sadness left behind him when he suddenly ups and leaves!
It sounds to me as if Neil is already quietly warning his colleagues that he
beats to his own tune and is already looking for a way out of the CSNY dream.
The ultimate irony is, this song never sounded more 'right' than it does here,
with harmonies fully re-instated and the song pared back to its bare basics.
[86] 'Triad' is a Crosby song originally written for The Byrds and
would have made a fine addition to perhaps their greatest album 'The Notorious
Byrd Brothers'. That band were never going to accept this song in a month of
sundays however: with lyrics about how marriage is an outdated concept and how
three-way relationships are the way forward, it seems like typical mischief
from the rhythm guitarist who knew his straighter colleagues would never go for
it. A compromise was reached, of sorts: Crosby could have the song if he agreed
to take part in sessions for his band's cover of Goffin and King's interminable
'Goin' Back'. In the end Crosby was sacked and his song unused, with the
guitarist giving it away to his friends in the Jefferson Airplane (where the
track got a slightly different vibe switched around to the female perspective
and sung by Grace Slick). Crosby reclaimed the song and played it in concert
often, although never again in the studio, with the solo acoustic version from
his solo slot a welcome additional rarity for purchasers of CSNY's 'Four Way
Street'. The Byrds version is upbeat pop, the Airplane's version (on their
fourth album 'Crown Of Creation') a smoky ballad: Crosby's solo reading is
jazzy folk. Like the lyric, which defies all conventions openly ('What we can
do is to try something new!' 'I don't really see - why can't we go on as
three?'), the music in this version beats to it's own inner clock, sometimes
hanging in the air after every line, sometimes running together into a melody.
It remains the definite reading of the song, Crosby pleading rather than
demanding and the slight melancholy underpinning the song ('Your mother's ghost
stands at your shoulder, a face like ice but a little colder!') coming through
louder and clearer. 'We're not sure what mood David's in...' begins Graham at
the start of the song. 'Mischievous' is the word: 'Triad' remains Crosby at his
rabble-rousing peak and still has the power to shock now (or at least 15 years
ago when I adopted this song for a class discussion during my music lessons -
heh heh heh!)
Neil's [87] 'Don't Let It Bring You Down' is one of the more
straightforward songs recorded live for 'Four Way Street'. This solo acoustic
version is near enough note similar to the version recorded shortly before the
'Deja Vu' sessions for Young's record 'After The Goldrush'. While Neil is right
in his jokey introduction (which gets a raucous laugh from Nash!) that this
depressing song is indeed 'guaranteed to bring you right down', he's wrong when
he says that 'it starts off real slow and then fizzles out altogether'. On the
contrary, 'Down' sounds in rude health, a fine recording of one of Neil's
better songs of the period: a hallucinatory Dylanesque lyric about a sequence
of unconnected events that all fuel the narrator's paranoia and sum up
everything that's wrong with modern life ('The buildings scrape the sky' and
the man 'walking dfown the road with the daylight in his eyes', both from the second
verse, are two of his most picturesque images). What a shame CSN don't join in
for a burst of harmonies though - they'd have suited this song's spooky
ambience well.
With so many songs bursting through his veins,
Stills decides to give the crowd no less than three songs, looped together in a
piano melody that demonstrates just how well he's mastered the instrument. [88]
'49 Bye Byes-For What It's
Worth-America's Children' is an interesting collection of the recent,
the very old and the new: 'America's Children' won't ever quite make it into a
full song although Stills soes sing a snatch of it over the final track on his
'Stephen Stills' LP on 'We Are Not Helpless'. The first album's '49 Bye Byes'
was already a song that came in two and sounds quite different without the
punchy 'Bye Bye Baby' ending, nicely pretty with the catchy piano lines Stills
gives it here. Always keener to revive his 'pre-CSNY' songs than the others, he
finds his way into an audience pleasing 'For What It's Worth', Stills getting
what sounds like the entire crowd on their feet clapping. This song too sounds
strangely right pared back to the bare-bones and given a simple choppy piano
chord accompaniment. Stills' vocal is tremendous too, still burning with the
fires of injustice from five years earlier. The song even prompts the
'America's Children' rap - which if it was 40 years later really would be
treated as 'rap, with Stills speak-singing whatever thoughts are on his mind.
With the Vietnam war still raging and Nixon still in office, Stills tells the
crowds to 'Well it looks to me like there's
a few politicians hanging around, children, perpetrating some kind of
myths on us all...telling us what a drag all the kids are, 'cause they got the guts
to get out in the streets and tell the truth every day, making it a little hot
for them...we're all just out there proving to Richard Daley and Richard Nixon
and Spiro Agnew and all them other...well, whatever you want to call
them...that America is still the home of the brave and you got to be
brave...how many of us is that they've shot down already? 17 Of us?...I don't
quite know if I want America to remember or to forget!' While some of Stills'
comments are a little OTT ('Jesus was the first non-violent revolutionary! Dig
it!'), others are spot-on: for all the flower power era and the hippie dream,
principles of love and peace are still getting cast down by violence, ignorance
and hatred from the 'elder' generations, led by Nixon. Despite 'For What It's
Worth' ,Stills has generally been the least political of the foursome down the
years (and when he is Stills tends to write songs about struggling Vietnam Vets
or draft dodgers rather than taking individuals to task the way Crosby and
Young particularly do). This is a rare but welcome exception, labelled
'embarrassing' by future critics and the 'weak link' of the record by others
who don't 'get' how important it was in 1970 that someone was out there saying
what needed to be said: that this was a line in the sand between generations
and returning to the bad old ways of our elders would almost certainly mean a
third world war. This really is a matter of life and death and Stills gets a
gold
medal for being on the front lines here.
[89] Neil's [89] 'Southern Man' - another song from 'After The Goldrush'
- was one of CSNY's lengthy jamming war horses. While the jam itself is
excellent (and near enough up to the highs set by the 20 minute run through
'Carry On'), the song itself isn't right for the band: a violent angry tirade
against Southern America (and the sort of thing only a Canadian can get away)
it stirs up as much violence as it condemns (Lynyrd Skynyrd for example,
outraged at being tarred by the actions of their ancestors, recording 'Sweet
Home Alabama' in direct response to this song, with the line 'we don't need
Neil Young anyhow' - Neil admitted later he considered it a better song). Young
stopped playing it for a while after a fracas broke out in the audience one
night during the song and, with memories of Altamont still in the air, Neil
dropped it and played something else. In truth though he brought it on himself:
while I'm all of or having the 'darker' side of life come through in CSNY
concerts this one goes a little too far with its tale of Ku Klux Klan, crosses
and burning bodies and Neil 'ironically' inhabiting the mind of a racist ('I've
seen your black man coming round, swear by God I'm going to cut him down!') We
know he's being ironic and so hopefully do 99% of the audience - but just as
comedian Al Murray and the TV series 'Till Death Us Do Part' were on risky
ground, making fun of bigots who don't get the humour is aimed at themselves,
so it seems as if Neil is provoking a re-action so subtle that a tiny
proportion of his audience wouldn't understand. A lynching should not beget a
lynching - or am I being ungenerous in how intelligent CSNY audiences are, am
and always will be?
The CD re-issue included three additional
songs, all played solo and with Stills the one losing out. While Crosby gets a
rather average solo version of his exquisite 'Laughing' (not as bad as the
Byrds reunion album version, but not up to the record, badly missing Jerry
Garcia's pedal steel and Joni Mitchell's harmonies) and Stills throws in a
rather tentative version of his classic [6] 'Black Queen', Nash's rare solo
version of his Hollies masterpiece [90] 'King Midas In Reverse' is a
terrific addition to the canon. Tired of writing pop songs, this was Nash's
attempt to write a pop single for The Hollies that cut that little bit deeper.
On those grounds he succeeded admirably: 'Midas' is one of his greatest songs,
telling the believable tale of a man who had everything and lost it, with the
familiar tale inverted with everything he touches falling apart. Dressed up to
the nines with a towering string arrangement and a thrilling counter-part from
Hollie lead singer Allan Clarke, it deserved so much better than a UK chart
high of **#17 and after going out on a limb for Nash and this song, the others
were quick to question his writing abilities from then on in. Crosby,
particularly, loved this song and held it up as an example of why his partner
should leave the Hollies and work with him and Stills; a grateful Nash, who'd
had nothing but criticism for one of his greatest works, became ever closer to
him. Until recently, when Crosby and Nash enticed Allan Clarke on stage in
Manchester to sing 'Bus Stop', it was the only Hollies song ever attempted
during a CSN/Y family gig (though Nash did briefly re-join the Hollies in 1983
for a tour and album). It's odd really that 'Midas' should be given such a
stark solo reading: it's a song built for harmonies and Crosby's in particular
would have sounded perfect here, while the solo - expressed through booming
brass on the record - needs a little something rather than a few strummed
guitar chords. All that said, it's nice to hear 'Midas' without the King's New
Clothes, as it were, and reduced to a state as sad and lonely as the song
really is. A nice and welcome find.
Neil's extra track is clearly the 'selling
point' of the CD re-issue, with Atlantic hoping to draw on his legion of
followers with a nearly ten minute medley of three solo songs, all set regulars
in 1970. [91] The
Loner-Cinnamon Girl-Down By The River combines one song from 1968's
'Neil Young' and two from 1969's 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere', which sound
very different without first the embellishments of Jack Nietzsche and then
Crazy Horse. 'The Loner' is less rocky and more reflective, Neil's funky song
about the slightly angry, paranoid young man no one sits next to on the tube
because of his intense stare sounding less defensive and more pleading. The
joyous 'Cinnamon Girl' loses something without the electric power and the
single best guitar solo in my collection (all played on one note!), but still sounds
like great fun - an apt depiction of a person you want to drop everything for
to spend some time with. The best of the three is the intense drama of 'Down By
The River', which sounds remarkably together without all that fierce jamming,
but still heartbreakingly full of guilt, awe and fright as the narrator's
emotions overpower them. Neil strings all three very different songs together
with some neat acoustic strumming and whole none of the three quite match the
studio originals all three are well worth going out your way to hear.
Crosby-Nash
"Another Stoney Evening"
(Grateful Dead Records/Arista, Recorded October 10th 1971 Released January
1998)
'Anticipatory
Crowd'/Déjà Vu/Wooden Ships/Man In The Mirror/Orleans/I Used To Be A
King/Traction In The Rain/The Lee Shore/Southbound Train/Laughing/Triad/Where
Will I Be?/Strangers Room/Immigration Man/Guinevere/Teach Your Children/'Exit
Sounds'
"I've just played three licks I don't even
know how to do!" or "There's no cure, folks!" or "Isn't it
a good job we don't have a show tonight? If we were to do this in front of
people we'd feel foolish!" or "I spend my time working us up to
church and he goes right back to Disneyland!" (Crosby and Nash are in a
very chatty and quotable mood this gig!)
One
of the very earliest and most fondly regarded CSNY-related bootlegs is 'A Very
Stoney Evening', a Crosby-Nash show from October 10th 1971 where Crosby is in
particularly surreal form, suffering from a high fever which he jokes is
'Lebanese flu' and cracking jokes about his fading memory. Sadly that isn't the
gig re-used on this CD (Crosby and Nash figured, probably rightly, that most of
their audience already had this show anyway) but from the same week with Crosby
slightly more lucid (although he still thinks the whole audience are 'frogs' at
one point and the film cameras - whatever happened to the film? - 'look like
German submarines) and still with a nasty hacking cough. The fact this show
appeared at all, 27 years after being performed, is down to the complicated saga
of what happened to CSN in the mid-70s when they lost their contract with
Atlantic. The band searched long and hard for a new record label but nobody
wanted to know. However one label they knew they could count on was the deeply
successful Grateful Dead label, which had been releasing archive sets at the
rate of at least one a month since the band dissolved in 1995 following the
death of Jerry Garcia. There are literally hundreds of these shows currently
available in legal form and usually at a cheap price, a nice nod back to the
fans who taped them while earning them enough money for the band members to get
by (technically illegally but more often than not with the band's help - their sound engineers
even had a special 'patch' where bootleggers could plug their microphones in to
get really good sound - now that's what I call looking after your fans!) The
CSNY taping industry was never quite that well engineered (like the gigs they
tended to be loose and sporadic, in muddy sound with lots of fans taping one
show and no one the gig after, although I'm often surprised at just how many
1969/70 shows are out there) but many tapes do exist, including some
fascinating souvenirs of the Crosby-Nash gigs of 1971. Self-billed as 'the
loosest show on Earth' this is Crosby and Nash at their most basic, telling
songs and swapping stories with just two acoustic guitars and occasionally a
piano. For most fans that's all they needed.
While
none of the versions of the songs featured here come close to being
'definitive' there's a certain aural spookiness that makes you feel as if
you've come as close as you'll ever come to the 'essence' of each track. The
opening rendition of 'Déjà Vu' is even spookier than band versions of the song,
a brief 'Where Will I Be?' is even creepier than the finished product and even
old warhorses like 'Guinevere' and 'Teach Your Children' sound fresh and new,
as if they've been held up under a microscope. The glory too is of hearing so
many songs either one or the other used on their solo albums and which aren't
ever usually heard as a 'duet': a startling 'Orleans', a gorgeous 'Traction In
The Rain' and a sadly rather tough and ready 'Laughing' (all from Crosby's 'If
Only I Could Remember My Name') really benefit from Nash's high harmonies soaring
away in glorious rapture while in turn
'I Used To Be A King' and 'Man In
The Mirror' (from Nash's 'Songs For Beginners') really benefit from Crosby's
humming and supportive backing. Nash even busks a quick version of 'Bus Stop'
before crying 'no, no - that's yesteryear!' Not everything works and you long
for a final electric set to blow the acoustic cobwebs away as was always the
CSNY tradition, but then the whole point of this gig is that it isn't CSNY:
it's looser, quieter, more spontaneous, even a little weirder - the quartet
re-cast in monochrome and on a no frills budget. The magic is still very much
the same however and for many fans this was the release of the decade in the
1990s. The sound quality is certainly striking - this disc is currently available
only as a DVD audio in surround sound - and strangely enough sounds far better
sound-wise than the two most recent CSN reunions made with much more money and
equipment! However I for one find this slightly annoying - I can't keep this
set with my CDs (the box and packaging won't fit) and yet it's too small to
keep with my DVDs, while the 'extra footage' you get while you watch each disc
and is so often the selling point of these things ends up being...a crumpled
bit of paper with the track listing and a coffee stain in the corner. Gee,
thanks for that guys (there is a set of lyrics as an 'extra' though and a brief
photo gallery too, though as the gig itself was in near-pitch darkness you
can't really see very much!) It also has to be played on a DVD player - fair
enough if you've got 14 of them in each room but I haven't (this also means you
can't play it in the car, rip it onto an mp3 player or lend it to someone
without the right equipment; given the age most CSN fans are please take pity
and release this as a regular compact disc too!)
(Atlantic, August 1974)
DéjÃ
Vu/Helplessly Hoping/Wooden Ships/Teach Your Children/Ohio/Find The Cost Of
Freedom///Woodstock/Our House/Helpless/Guinevere/Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
"You know it does make me wonder what's going
on..."
The
nerve of it! Releasing a greatest hits compilation after a mere two albums -
and then neglecting to include one of the band's bigger hits! ('Marrakesh
Express' which peaked at #28 in the US and #17 in the UK). You have to feel for
Atlantic though: CSNY had all but promised them a new album in 1974 which was
sure to be a big seller and much of the label's finances for the year had been
structured around it (this is the moment when Ahmet Ertegun, the trio's biggest
and loyalist supporter until now, starts having doubts). 'So Far' was an
attempt to regain some of those losses and is actually rather fondly regarded
by many fans who bought it in enough quantities to make it their third
chart-topper in a row. For a start it used to be the only place for album
collectors to hear the single 'Ohio' plus B-side 'Find The Cost Of Freedom'
which was becoming rather rare by 1974. There's also a relatively kind and
sensible tracklisting which gives roughly equal space to each of the four (with
the addition of Joni Mitchell cover and Crosby-Stills collaboration 'Wooden
Ships' left over), although it's a real shame that 'Marrakesh' isn't here as
well as Nash's two songs from 'Déjà Vu'. Best of all the album comes with a
Joni Mitchell drawing that's now become one of the most famous symbols of the
group, a sketchy black and white drawing with colourful touches that does a
fair job at summing up the different personalities within the band (although
interestingly while she gets Crosby's leonine stare, Stills' lost-in-the-music
expression and Neil's folkie balladeer image spot-on, she rather messes up the
drawing of one-time lover Nash who looks more like James Taylor, or possibly a
late 60s Ringo - was she really still that cross?!) The compilation was
re-issued on CD in 1994 as part of the trio's 25th anniversary proceedings
where it won stronger reviews than new release 'After The Storm' out around the
same time, although in truth you don't really need to own it assuming you have
one of the many re-issues of 'Ohio' and 'Freedom' (on 'Carry On' the box set
'Greatest Hits' or even Neil's own compilation 'Decade'); our advice is
download the cover off the internet for a nice poster for your wall (checking
for the copyright first, of course) and then buy the first two albums complete
instead.
Stephen
Stills "Still Stills"
(Atlantic, December 1976)
Love The One
You're With/It Doesn't Matter/We Are Not Helpless/Marianne/Bound To Fall/Isn't
It About Time?//Change Partners/Go Back Home/Johnny's Garden/Rock and Roll
Crazies-Cuban Bluegrass/Sit Yourself Down
"Watching for signals, wearisome vigils, was I
misled? I remember you said that you don't want to forget me!"
Here's
a puzzle: I understand why Atlantic wanted a Stills best-of. After all, Crosby
and Nash had just had one and Stills had been the one with (just about) the
bigger solo hits. But Stills had been a busy boy in 1976 (with a solo and a
Stills-Young Band album) so the market was saturated with Stills at that point
(hey, 'Saturated Stills' - there's a follow-up set right there!) He was also as
unpopular as he'd ever been at that stage, a year short of 'CSN' and critical re-appraisal.
Even the contemporary Stills shot used on the cover (bearded and short-haired)
is a look that he only wore for a few months that year and never went back to
(so at a glance it doesn't even look like him). AS for the music inside, it
doesn't really sound like him either. Admittedly Atlantic have done the
sensible thing and included the songs you'd expect to be here: 'Love The One
You're With' 'Change Partners' 'Johnny's Garden' 'Marianne' (well, technically
it charted, so somebody must have liked it). The rest however seems to have
been selected at random, which means that we get 'Go Back Home' instead of 'Do
For The Others' off 'Stephen Stills', no sign of 'Word Game' from 'Stephen
Stills II' and lots the jamming and not-very-Stills heavy songs from the first
side of 'Manassas' plus cover song 'Bound To Fall' as opposed to, say, 'So
Begins The Task' or 'Both Of Us (Bound To Lose)'. The result is something of a
mess, not worthy of either Atlantic or Stills and quite rightly has yet to
appear on CD. Amazingly it still beats the Crosby-Nash one out the following
year, though, a sign perhaps of just how much scorn Atlantic now treat their
former superstars with.
(ABC Records, Recorded September
1975/September 1976 Released October 1977)
Immigration
Man/The Lee Shore/I Used To Be A King/Page 43/Fieldworker//Simple Man/Foolish
Man/Mama Lion/Déjà Vu
"On the one side truth towers like a cliff -
on the other side love dangles by a thread...both sides, why is it always
bittersweet?"
Meanwhile Crosby and Nash's old record label
ABC - displaying the sort of commercial nous that will see their hit album
'Wind On The Water' re-issued time and time again - were once more in need of
money and thought they'd cash in on the sudden return to form of CSN. On the
plus side they decided to release a live recording from the era in between the
two albums the duo had recorded from them (and featuring a fair mix from both
sets plus older songs) which had been toyed with at the time but rejected for
replicating too much of the studio material. On the negative side, it's yet
another one of those CSN live releases that flipping missed out on something
genius. Just as everyone who saw CSNY live in late 1969 who bought the 1970
live set 'Four Way Street' was disappointed, just as Stills' fans raved about
his 1974 shows but were bored by his 1975 sets (as compiled into 'Stephen
Stills Live') and just as, in the future, fans will worship the bootlegs of the
2000 CSNY reunion tour but care less about their 2006 tour (guess which one
they put out? Yep you guessed it - see 'Déjà Vu Live') so this concert was
deemed less exciting than either the Crosby-Nash live shows of 1971/72 or the
longest tour CSN had yet undertaken across 1977 would have been.
The problem isn't that this record is bad:
there's still arguably the best full-band live version of 'Deja Vu' around,
which starts off in a scream of noise and feedback and only slowly unfurls into
a nicely jazzy beat and then turns into full blown rock somewhere along the
way. There's a nice chance too to hear some of the greatest Crosby or Nash
songs of the period that are rarely if ever played live again: a cracking
'Fieldworker' and a pretty 'Bittersweet' among them. The backing band - the
same band who played on the records and were known unofficially as 'The Mighty
Jitters' generally play well (especially guitarist David Lindley, whose about
as good a substitute for Stills as the pair could have found) although it's true
that they do lack the looseness of more broken in bands like the 'Four Way
Street' team. However few of these live recordings - in fact none of them bar
'Déjà Vu' - add anything that you won't already have heard in better form on
the records. Some songs, like a horribly overblown preview of 'Foolish Man' or
an oddly slick 'Page 43', are Crosby-Nash at their worst, turning art and
inspiration into workaday perspiration. Heard back to back with the official or
unofficial releases from the pair's 'Graham Nash/David Crosby' supporting shows
and this is distinctly underwhelming, with little in-between song chat and no
real sense of danger or mystery. Of course compared to every other slick
arena-filling band on the planet Crosby and Nash can more than hold their own,
but this release is distinctly underwhelming. The CD re-issue of this album
turned up in 2000, oddly late in life for a label with such a background of
re-issues under their belt ('Wind On The Water' had been out under five
separate ways on five separate labels by then) and added a first hearing for
unreleased piano Crosby demo 'King Of The Mountain' later included in shorter
form and on guitar on the 'Voyage' box set (it was actually taped long before
these shows in 1974, but whose complaining - it's a lovely song). However it
says much for the seriousness with which this project was taken that instead of
sticking it at the end where it belongs 'Mountain' turns up unexpectedly as
track four on the album, interrupting the flow between 'I Used To Be A King'
and 'Page 43' (this isn't even the end of the vinyl side, for goodness' sake!)
Thankfully a live version of 'Bittersweet' not heard on the original album
fares rather better and is another of the album highlights, with Nash harmonies
throughout.
"The
Best Of Crosby and Nash"
(ABC Records,
'Late' 1978)
Love Work
Out/The Wall Song/Wild Tales/Carry Me/Out Of The Darkness//Southbound
Train/Laughing/Chicago/Bittersweet/To The Last Whale (Critical Mass/Wind On The
Water)
"A shambling run, a ridiculous dance, like a
scarecrow that's hung up to dry on a fence pole"
With
Crosby and Nash having returned 'home' to Atlantic and their work as a trio
out-selling their work as a duo, this best-of set (from just two studio albums
and a live set!) seems somewhat inevitable. However that doesn't excuse it: for
sheer shoddy packaging (any compilation that features a front cover of its
stars way out in the distance is asking for trouble, especially when it makes
Nash out to look like a scarecreow!) and bizarre track listing (less than half
of these songs were chosen by Crosby and Nash to represent them on their own
solo box sets in thirty' years time so clearly something has gone wrong
somewhere about this best-of gets it's track selection from) this is easily the
worst CSN-related release to date. What makes this set weirder, though, is that
after spending all of a few measly quid on the packaging (there are no liner
notes, by the way) ABC go to all the bother of licensing three songs from
Atlantic. Do they do they obvious and choose the 'Graham Nash/David Crosby'
album thus keeping to the work the pair did together? No, they plump for
Crosby's solo 'Laughing' and Nash's 'Chicago' and 'Wild Tales' title track - three of the very
few solo Crosby or Nash songs not to feature the other as a guest star anyway!
A true oddball, which perhaps mercilessly never appeared on CD.
Various
Artists "No Nukes! The MUSE
Concerts For A Non-Nuclear Future"
(Asylum,
Recorded September 1979 Released November 1979)
Dependin' On
You (Doobie Brothers)/Runaway (Bonnie Raitt)/Angel From Montgomery (Bonnie
Raitt)/Plutonium Is Forever (John Hall)/Power (Doobie Brothers)/The Times They
Are A-Changin' (James Taylor/Carly Simon/Graham Nash)/Cathedral (Graham
Nash)/The Crow on The Cradle (Jackson Browne/Graham Nash)/Before The Deluge
(Jackson Browne)/Lotta Love (Nicolette Larson/Doobie Brothers)/Little Sister
(Ry Cooder)/A Woman (Sweet Honey In The Rock)/We Almost Lost Detroit (Gil
Scott-Heron)/Get Together (Jesse Colin Young)/You Can't Change That
(Raydio)/Once You Get Started (Chakra Khan)/Captain Jim's Drunken Dream (James
Taylor)/Honey Don't Leave L.A. (James Taylor)/Mockingbird (James Taylor/Carly
Simon)/Heart Of The Night (Poco)/Cry To Me (Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers)/Stay (Bruce Springsteen)/Detroit Medley (Bruce Springsteen)/You
Don't Have To Cry (CSN)/Long Time Gone (CSN)/Teach Your Children (CSN)/Takin'
It To The Streets (Doobie Brothers/James Taylor)
"I can see the sea begin to glow, I can feel
it leaking down below, I can barely bear it what we're doing to
ourselves!"
Of all the causes CSN fought against, the dangers
of nuclear power was one particularly close to Nash's heart. After years of
escalating use of nuclear power in a less and less controlled way (as backed by
- who else? - Richard Nixon) the inevitable happened and on American soil too.
On March 28th 1979 a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania (known as 'Three Mile
Island') leaked nuclear reactor coolant after a relief valve got stuck and a
broken light failed to give a warning to the staff working there. No one was
harmed in the incident but they could so easily have been - the incident was
judged a 'five' out of seven on the 'International Nuclear Event Scale' rating
and the 'clean-up job' was only ended in 1993! There was also controversy over
the not-that-well-publicised dumping of nuclear waste off the Furlong Islands in
Hawaii - which unluckily for the authorities concerned took place right outside
Graham Nash's house.
Clearly this wasn't a cause that Nash was going to
slip by - but he had a problem. CSN in 1979 were not the big draw they'd once
been. In fact CSN weren't even together in 1979: a planned Crosby-Nash album
was reluctantly abandoned when Graham felt David's drug-taking had grown out of
control (generally put down to one incident where Croz stopped a 'cooking jam'
in order to pick up a pipe that was beyond repair because he couldn't cope
without it). Nash's answer was to create a series of five all-star charity
concerts that would raise awareness as much as funds and formed MUSE (Musicians
United for Safe Energy) with several like-minded organisers, although he was
always the prime mover behind it. The shows were aimed from the beginning to be
as big as they could get, with as many big names of the day as they could get
(Bruce Springsteen, The Doobie Brothers, Bonnie Raitt) as well as Nash's usual
pro-protest friends from the 'old days' (James Taylor, Carly Simon, Jackson
Browne). The concerts were a huge success at the time, spawning a film and a
two-LP soundtrack album, although sadly they seem to have dropped out of favour
in recent years (the film is currently unavailable, having been shown on TV
only once in the UK, although thankfully the soundtrack was re-released on CD
in 1997).
Originally CSN weren't meant to play at all. Nash
was embarrassed by the state the band was in and thought that asking Crosby
back so soon after their last painful split would give him the wrong impression
that he was perfectly ok and able to work, but was persuaded by Jackson Browne
that the cause was bigger than any personal issues going on and that CSN
together were a bigger draw than Nash apart. In the end, though, CSN turn in a
very ragged low-key set and play a very minor role in the film (a timid
rehearsal of 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes', so different to its last 'movie'
performance in Woodstock) while getting three on the soundtrack album. None are
all that memorable, sadly, with Stills sounding like he's struggling as much as
Crosby. Neil was invited but didn't show - to no one's great surprise as his
Republican in the early Reagan years saw him move the furthest away from his
colleagues in this era - although the presence of Jess Colin Young listed near
CSN's name on the posters gave more than one fan a double take (by this stage
CSNY hadn't been seen together in public for five years - alas it will be
another nine before the next reunion). Nash, however, is on passionate form and
despite being needed backstage a lot (Nash is on charming form in the film,
moving mountains with his loveable mixture of diplomacy and passion) is rarely
off the stage, backing James Taylor and Carly Simon's set and appearing on
stage with Jackson Browne. It's his solo set, however, that's the highlight of
the entire set featuring a gorgeous organ-drenched performance of 'Cathedral'
(the first time most fans had heard this song in concert after a mere handful
of performances on the 1977 CSN tour) and a riveting new song named 'Barrel Of
Pain (Half-Life)' directly inspired by the Three Mile Island incident (it will
appear in lesser re-recorded from on his next album 'Earth and Sky', although
Mike Finnigan's mock-soul second half of the song is a bit of a struggle for
some fans to get through).
You could argue that 'No Nukes', which seemed so
promising at the time and got lots of American talking, ultimately had little
impact on politics and popular culture. Surprisingly few people remember it
today even though it was the 'Concert For Bangladesh' or 'Live Aid' of its day,
uniting people in a cause that politicians so desperately wanted to stamp out
and sweep under the carpet. However MUSE never broke up - the organisation
continued to stand and has had a bigger influence on modern-day politics than
people often think. Democrat John Hall, a 31-year-old politician when MUSE
turned to him for help, continued his campaign into his career and was elected
to congress in 2007 on the back of his plans for alternative energy. That same
year Nash, Raitt and Browne reunited under the MUSE banner to release a cover
version of Stills' Buffalo Springfield song 'For What It's Worth'. Then when
the Fukushima nuclear accident happened in 2011, causing the deaths of several
people and an evacuation of an entire town - exactly what MUSE had feared in
1979 - another benefit concert took place with as many names from the original
gigs as possible back on board (basically everyone but Bruce and featuring
another CSN reunion). All three also took part in a lengthy press conference
about the horrors of nuclear where Nash sounds just as angry as ever (when
asked how to change perceptions of nuclear energy he argues 'We have to stop worrying
about Kim Kardashian's ass and start getting real...we have to stop them
treating us like sheep, saying 'lie down, buy some sneakers, buy this soft
drink, back down and shut the fuck up while we rob you blind!') The 'No Nukes'
set may be about to enjoy a revival in fortunes, despite Governmental attempts
to ignore it and it's well worth reviving, featuring Nash at his bravest and
feistiest, even if in CSN terms it's easily their worst officially available
gig.
Crosby
Stills and Nash "Replay"
(Atlantic, December 1980)
Carry
On/Marrakesh Express/Just A Song Before I Go/First Things First/Shadow
Captain/To The Last Whale (Critical Mass/Wind On The Water)//Love The One
You're With/Pre-Road Downs/Change Partners/I Give You Give Blind/Cathedral
"Trying to give the light the slip"
The
date December 8th 1980 was a terrible day for collectors. Obviously the murder
of John Lennon cast such a long shadow over every other event that day that
nothing can compare, but even without his sad untimely death fans would have
had to have coped with the first ever really stingy CSN release. With CSN
having gone their separate ways and Crosby increasingly fragile Atlantic
suddenly 'demanded' a new compilation for their catalogue despite the fact that
CSN had only managed one more album than the last time they were asked. What's
more, record company politics meant that nothing of Neil Young could be used on
the album (he was now a fully-paid member of rivals Reprise), which wasn't as
big a problem as it might have been for some bands (Neil only played on about
six songs from 'Déjà Vu anyway) but a desire to repeat as little from first
compilation 'So Far' as possible meant the band (namely Stills) had to get the
scissors out for 'Carry On' (which lost the entire second half known as
'Questions' and simply looped round on an extended version of the classic
riff). Stills also had second thoughts about his 1977 song 'I Give You Give
Blind', remixing it without the strings where it sounds much better and rockier,
although oddly perhaps knowing his perfectionist tendencies, he left everything
else alone. The result is a compilation that you don't really need (especially
now the alternate 'Blind' is tucked away safely on Stills' own 'Carry On' box
set) but which does a fair job at adding all the songs that were strangely
missing off the 'So Far' set (including the big hits 'Marrakesh Express' and
'Love The One You're With) while interestingly touching briefly on the
Crosby-Nash years licensed especially from ABC as well as three solo songs (not
always the right ones) from Stills himself. Topped and tailed with a hideous
cover of a Joni Mitchell style painting done by a staff illustrator which
manages to make all three look anaemic.
That might perhaps be a comment on the record which lasts for a mere 38
minutes and despite containing some of the greatest music of the past eleven
years is distinctly underwhelming.
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
'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
'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
'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
'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
'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
'A Thousand Roads'
(Crosby) (1993) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/02/david-crosby-thousand-roads-1993.html
‘After The Storm’ (CSN)
(1994) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-final-review-crosby-stills-and-nash.html
'CPR' (Crosby Band) (1998)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/cpr-david-crosby-band-1998.html
'Looking Forward' (1999) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-looking.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
‘Songs For Survivors’ (2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/graham-nash-songs-for-survivors-2002.html
'Crosby*Nash' (2004) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/news-views-and-music-issue-21-crosby.html
‘Man Alive’ (S) (2005) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/stephen-stills-man-alive-2005.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
'Lighthouse' (Crosby)
(2016) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/david-crosby-lighthouse-2016.html
‘Sky Trails’ (Crosby)
(2017) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/david-crosby-sky-trails-2017.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
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