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Crosby, Stills & Nash
Some albums simply define the times in which they were made, and this happens to be one of those albums. Whatever you might think about the late ‘60s hippie movement, there’s no denying that it provided the perfect groundwork for idealistic expression, and you will find a near-perfect representation of those ideals and beliefs on this album. By 1969, hippie idealism had morphed into skepticism while the youth movement became politicized. Somehow – almost miraculously - Crosby, Stills and Nash walked the fine line between idealistic faith and political activism. At the time, it really did seem like we could change the world, and this album provided the soundtrack, and the impetus, for the spirit of change. While the stage at Woodstock was being built, this album played in near-constant rotation, which is a perfect metaphor for what this album truly represents.
Individually, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash had credentials that virtually guaranteed some degree of success. Crosby had recently been unceremoniously booted from the Byrds, Graham Nash was looking for a way out of the pop-music trap that the Hollies had become, and Stephen Stills was recovering after his previous semi-supergroup Buffalo Springfield splintered into matchsticks. Different backgrounds and radically different personality types made for interesting musical combinations, especially since they all wrote music, but taken together, the combination was nearly lethal. Vocally, they were a unit, or to paraphrase “Helplessly Hoping”, they were for each other. Stephen Stills took control of the sessions for this album, and he provided most of the instrumentation on each track. Four decades on, I now hear that the basic music tracks are a bit claustrophobic, but their voices disguise this so well that it has taken me four decades to even consider the production techniques that were used.
Nearly forty years later, it is obvious that some songs have held up better than others. Virtually everything written by Stephen Stills still sounds fresh, inventive and original. No matter how many times I hear “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, I will always feel compelled to sing along, while “Helplessly Hoping” and “You Don’t Have to Cry” are only marginally less stunning in their originality. Crosby’s tunes have aged a bit, especially the anthemic ‘shot-over-the-bow’ polemics of “Long Time Gone,” but “Guinnevere” has retained its odd individualistic charm. The Graham Nash songs don’t fare as well. “Pre-Road Downs” has grown dated, while “Marrakesh Express” has become one of the most vilified pop songs of the post-hippie era (Iggy Pop referred to it as one of the worst songs he ever heard). Taken as a package, though, “Crosby, Stills and Nash” is a time-capsule item that stands solidly on all three legs.
It might sound a bit ridiculous, but there is one tiny complaint that I have with this otherwise superb re-issue. I have played the original vinyl album so often that every nuance has been committed to memory, and I’m certain that many others have done so perhaps even more than me. Fanatics will surely remember the short bit before “49 Bye-Byes” where David Crosby riffs a vocal line from Robert Johnson’s “Come On In My Kitchen.” It is missing here, and I sense its absence every time the CD reaches that point. To compensate for this gaffe, the disk provides four extra tracks, including a gorgeous version of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talking”, so I’ll consider it a fair exchange.
Grade: 
 
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