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Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills & Nash
(Atlantic/Rhino)
First Appeared in
The Music Box, January 2006, Volume 13, #1
Written by John Metzger
Crosby, Stills & Nash had a rather inauspicious beginning: David Crosby had
been fired from The Byrds; Graham Nash wasn’t pleased with his position in The
Hollies; and Stephen Stills had been left without an act when Buffalo
Springfield disbanded. Yet, for three strong-willed, impossible-to-satisfy
songwriters, sonic immortality came rather easily. Be it through the intervening
hand of Mama Cass Elliot or Joni Mitchell — Stills believes it was the former;
Crosby and Nash believe it was the latter — once the trio heard the immaculate
convergence of their splendiferous harmonies, their fate ultimately was sealed.
By now, Crosby, Stills & Nash’s self-titled debut is so well ingrained within
the public’s consciousness that it frequently is taken for granted. It commonly
is considered the best album that the trio ever recorded — though its
oft-overlooked effort CSN is equally strong — and despite several less
than stellar reunions, a few sodden side trips, numerous egomaniacal squabbles,
and countless conspicuous, drug-induced meltdowns, the eponymous endeavor has
kept the group aloft for nearly 37 years. What that means, of course, is that
the ensemble’s detractors have taken aim at the collection, dubbing it too
saccharine, too self-absorbed, and too long-haired and leftist. While there is
some truth to all of these criticisms — Lady of the Island is airily
fragile; the alliteration of Helplessly Hoping reads like a high school
poetry project; and Long Time Gone is as much a disgusted and defiant
call-to-arms as it is a mournful ode to assassinated politician Bobby Kennedy —
the music is organic and pure; the vocals are otherworldly.
With the Eastern-tinged modality of its exhilarating folk-rock flair, the
opening Suite: Judy Blue Eyes easily set the stage for the rest of
Crosby, Stills & Nash’s debut by rallying the outfit’s future fans around its
twirling tangle of guitar, bass, and lush three-part harmonies. Drenched in
gleeful lysergic buoyancy, the song’s rainbow-hued, multi-part odyssey perfectly
encapsulated the free-spirited brightness of the ’60s, and after Nash mumbled a
bit of gibberish, the ensemble tumbled into the hashish-stoked journey of
Marrakesh Express, quickly making it crystal clear that the group had
successfully burned its own DNA into the twisted strands of The Beatles’ Sgt.
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Simon & Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage,
Rosemary and Thyme. From Guinnevere’s meditative romantic pull to the
broiling jazz of Wooden Ships’ ominous, aqueous depiction of Armageddon,
the trio’s eponymous effort unquestionably was an Americana-infused masterpiece
that not only provided the framework for the Grateful Dead’s twin gems
Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, but also poured the foundation
for the careers of America, Loggins & Messina, and The Eagles. The HDCD
mastering of the recent reissue sparkles so crisply that it fully enhances the
spiritual qualities of the arrangements, and the quartet of bonus tracks — early
demos of Teach Your Children, Do for the Others, and Song with
No Words along with a despondent cover of Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’
— while non-essential, are no less intriguing. It’s the effortless precision of
the harmonies, however, that truly endures. 
Crosby, Stills & Nash is available from Amazon.com.
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2006
The Music Box
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