By Howie Edelson
By design, Crosby, Stills, & Nash joined forces as equally strong and separate entities. After years being subsumed by the legendary bands they made their bones with – David Crosby as part of The Byrds, Stephen Stills in Buffalo Springfield, and Graham Nash with The Hollies -- using their actual names underscored not only their individual talents, but proved that a group’s musicality and brotherhood was always made up by the people creating the art.
Upon hitting the road in the spring of 1970 behind Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young’s Déjà Vu album, the members splintered off during each show, playing songs alone, as a duo, a trio, and in full, layering and coloring the material as a painter would; a voice here, a guitar line there – a sympathetic organ popping up in the chorus. Despite becoming without question the most beloved group of the 1970’s before the decade was even born, Crosby, Stills, & Nash spent most of that time recording apart from one another solo. In addition to that, Stephen Stills teamed up for one album with Neil Young, and David Crosby and Graham Nash also issued their own works, as well as releasing three studio sets as a duo and hitting the road. As fans soon realized, peppered throughout all these “non-band” albums and live appearances were the other members. Because CSN’s music was based on a shared sensibility, friendship, and love of the craft, they were never that far away from one another’s songs, which added a whole other hidden level to the trio’s output.
November 1970 saw one of Crosby, Stills, & Nash’s most enduring collaborations when Crosby and Nash joined John Sebastian, Rita Coolidge, Priscilla Jones, and Cass Elliot for Stephen Stills’ instant classic, Top 15 smash, “Love The One You’re With” – a tune that had found a permanent home in CSNY’s setlists even before it was released.
Over the years, Crosby and Nash have joined Stills in the studio, most notably on tracks for his 1970 self-titled debut album, and on 1975’s Stills, in which they laid down vocals on the soon-to-be standard “As I Come Of Age,” which featured none-other than Ringo Starr on drums.
The year before, on Graham Nash’s second solo set, Wild Tales, it was a full-on Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young reunion for “And So It Goes” -- featuring Stills on electric piano, Crosby on vocals, and Neil Young on grand piano.
David Crosby’s famed solo 1971 solo debut, If I Could On Remember My Name, opened with a unique Crosby, Nash, & Young confection, titled “Music Is Love.” On the album’s historic 50th anniversary reissue, a demo of Croz’s ethereal “Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves)” featured Graham Nash on second vocal.
The live albums chronicling this era featured solo material tackled by group members spinning a whole new sonic imprint on tunes that automatically seemed custom made for the CSN treatment. These were included on such important archival concert documents as Crosby-Nash’s Another Stoney Evening, which featured Crosby’s “Laughing” and “Orleans,” Stephen Stills Live At Berkeley 1971, featuring David Crosby on “You Don’t Have To Cry” and “The Lee Shore”, and the celebrated CSNY 1974 box set, which showcased full-band versions of and Stills’ “Johnny’s Garden” and “Change Partners,” along with a yet-to-be released version of Crosby-Nash’s ageless “Carry Me.”
Across the group’s live collections, they’ve reinvented songs, whether it be Crosby and Nash tackling a scaled-back, acoustic “Wooden Ships” or CSN reigniting the relevancy of Nash’s “Military Madness” and “Barrel Of Pain,” not to mention Stills’ era-defining Buffalo Springfield call-to-arms, “For What It’s Worth.” On any given night, CSN took these songs from far different corners of their respective catalogues and gave them a home under one roof -- at last.
It's a wonderful note that CSN’s legacy during the “me decade” -- rock’s golden era of both ego and the inevitable “solo career” -- these three bandmates popped up more often than not to create and celebrate in song with such consistency throughout their incredible and largely untapped, expansive catalogue.