Crosby, Stills & Nash Crosby, Stills & Nash by: Tom Bradbury Tue:28-Aug-07 Label: Atlantic Year: 1969 WB rating 87 out of 100

More than any other group, Crosby, Stills & Nash embody the late ‘60s/early ‘70s phenomenon of the Woodstock Nation, where the counterculture spread far beyond its early esoteric, mercurial roots to find more-or-less mainstream acceptance – at least amongst the youth. CSN were hippies, but by no means the most hardcore ones, and while they had left-wing political opinions, they also weren’t about to go rioting in Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue. Helping to enable a flood of down-home, personally reflective singer songwriter clones that would follow in their wake, but for the most part never equal their talent, CSN’s self-titled debut, is a triumph of skill, melody and arrangement, but also an indication of what post hippie America would sound and look like.

Crosby, Stills & Nash is an album brimming with confidence. Graham Nash recalls that they knew it was extremely commercial when they were making it – with members from three massive groups of the ‘60s, their debut album was always going to be successful. CSN had momentum on their side. There were many groups that blended folk, country and rock at the time, but few achieved the sales of CSN – for besides great melodies and proven commercial viability, they also had the best harmonies in the business.

‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’ is a tour de force of vocal bliss. No adjective can adequately describe the beauty created by the sound of CSN’s three voices blended together – it’s quite breathtaking. As they breeze through Stills’ amalgamation of three strikingly different, but somehow seamlessly integrated melodies, a sense of liberation fills the air, no doubt fueled by the joy felt by these three brilliant singers at the sounds they are able to make. Still’s inventive guitar work is instrumental in giving this suite cohesion; his fluid playing enables songs that were written separately to sound as if they were always meant to go together. An exotic tuning and Still’s bend-heavy style gives his guitar playing on ‘Judy Blue Eyes’ the aural quality of the sitar, and in conjunction with gorgeous melodies and perfect harmonies grant the song a transcendent feeling.

Stills isn’t the only one that supplies strong songs to the album. Indeed, all three members have great tracks on here. ‘Long Time Gone’ and ‘Guinnevere’ showcase the other-worldly quality that Crosby has always excelled at, the latter featuring eerie but absorbing 12 string guitar formations under a softly spoken ode to his lover. ‘Long Time Gone’ is homily of political discontent fueled by a menacing cyclical organ riff, containing some of Crosby’s most bitter lyrics: “Don’t try to get yourself elected. If you do you had better cut your hair”.

Graham Nash’s best song on the album is the rocking ‘Pre-Road Downs’ – a precursor to the sound that would come to dominate ‘70s radio. There is something in the melody, an element of fluffiness perhaps, that highly anticipates the pop music of that decade. In contrast to Stills, Nash creates tunes that are wonderfully simple, and he provides balance to the extremes of his band mates. Rather than the melodies, which are of course first rate, it is the dynamic between these three men that provide CSN with their greatest source of power. It is perhaps fitting then that one of the best songs on the album should be ‘Wooden Ships’, which not only feature Stills and Crosby as writers, but also Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kanter. The mish mash of composers on this track highlights the highly collaborative nature of the Californian scene at this time. It bears the thumbprints of both Crosby & Stills, the wistfulness of the verse and the power of the chorus respectively – it’s a snapshot of a beautiful moment of time, when three very different musicians linked in an almost telepathic way. 

Yet Crosby, Stills & Nash also gives voice to some things from the 60s that are probably best forgotten, tracks such as ‘Marrakesh Express’ featuring gimmick instrumentation and also an almost offensive hippie naivety. Iggy Pop once called it “quite possibly the worst song ever”, which may be a tad harsh, but nevertheless ‘Marrakesh Express’ is on the bad side of hippie sentimentality, and there is at times a certain slickness that threatens to diminish the power of CSN’s work. It never quite does, but it hangs over the album like a foreboding harbinger of what the 70s would bring to the singer-songwriter universe.

Crosby, Stills & Nash is really a poor title for this album, for its more than just a compilation and a useful way of packaging three different artists. Together, they are greater than the sum of their parts. Stills’ power, Crosby’s ethereal presence and Nash’s pop sensibility form a compelling and volatile combination, and a more than convincing argument for musical collaboration.