10. Everybody I Love You
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
| Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young |
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 2006
Left to right: Nash, Stills, Young and Crosby |
| Background information |
| Also known as |
Crosby, Stills & Nash |
| Origin |
California, United States |
| Genres |
Rock, folk rock |
| Years active |
1968–1970
1973
1974
1977–present |
| Labels |
Atlantic, Reprise |
| Associated acts |
Crosby & Nash, The Stills-Young Band, Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, The Hollies |
| Website |
csny.com
crosbystillsnash.com |
| Members |
David Crosby
Stephen Stills
Graham Nash
Neil Young |
Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) is a folk rock supergroup made up of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, also known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) when joined by occasional fourth member Neil Young.
They are noted for their intricate vocal harmonies, often tumultuous
interpersonal relationships, political activism, and lasting influence
on American music and culture. All four members of CSNY have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, though Young's multiple inductions were for work not involving the group.
History
Formation
Prior to the formation of CSN, each member of the band had belonged
to another prominent group. David Crosby had performed rhythm guitar and
vocals with folk-rock group The Byrds; Stephen Stills had been a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter in the band Buffalo Springfield; and Graham Nash had been a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter with The Hollies, one of the "British Invasion" acts.
Friction existed between David Crosby and his bandmates in the Byrds, and he was dismissed from the band in late 1967. By early 1968, Buffalo Springfield had also disintegrated over personal
issues, and after aiding in putting together the band’s final album,
Stephen Stills found himself unemployed by the summer. He and Crosby
began meeting informally and jamming, and the result of one encounter in
Florida on Crosby’s schooner was the song “Wooden Ships,” composed in collaboration with another guest, Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner.
Graham Nash had been introduced to Crosby when The Byrds had toured
the United Kingdom in 1966, and when The Hollies ventured to California
in 1968, Nash resumed his acquaintance with Crosby. At a party in July 1968 at Cass Elliot's
house, Nash asked Stills and Crosby to repeat their performance of a
new song by Stills, “You Don't Have To Cry,” with Nash improvising a
second harmony part. The vocals jelled, and the three realized that they had a unique vocal chemistry.
Creatively frustrated with The Hollies, Nash decided to quit the band
and work with Crosby and Stills. After failing an audition with The Beatles' Apple Records, they were signed to Atlantic Records by Ahmet Ertegün, who had been a fan of Buffalo Springfield and was disappointed by that band's demise. From the outset, given their respective band histories, the trio
decided not to be locked into a group structure, using their surnames as
identification to ensure independence and a guarantee against the band
simply continuing without one of them, as had both The Byrds and The
Hollies after the departures of Crosby and Nash. Their record contract
with Atlantic reflected this, positioning CSN with a unique flexibility
unheard-of for an untested group. The trio also picked up a unique
management team in Elliot Roberts and David Geffen, who had engineered their situation with Atlantic and would help to consolidate clout for the group in the industry. Roberts kept the band focused and dealt with egos, while Geffen handled
the business deals, since, in Crosby’s words, they needed a shark and
Geffen was it. Roberts and Geffen would play key roles in securing the band’s success during the early years.
When it was announced that the band was forming, they ran into a slight contractual problem. Nash was already signed to Epic Records,
the North American distributor of records by The Hollies, while Crosby
and Stills were signed to Atlantic. In order to resolve this problem,
Geffen engineered a deal whereby Nash was essentially traded to Atlantic
for the rights to Richie Furay's band Poco; Furay was signed to Atlantic as a result of his membership in Buffalo Springfield.
Initial success
The trio's first album, Crosby, Stills & Nash, was released in May 1969 and was an immediate hit, spawning two Top 40 hit singles and receiving key airplay on the new FM radio format. With the exception of drummer Dallas Taylor,
Stills had handled the lion's share of the instrumental parts himself,
which left the band in need of additional personnel to be able to tour,
now a necessity given the debut album’s commercial impact.
Neil Young joins the group
Retaining Taylor, the band decided initially to hire a keyboard player. Stills at one point approached Steve Winwood who was already occupied with newly formed group Blind Faith. Atlantic label head Ahmet Ertegün suggested former Buffalo Springfield member Neil Young, also managed by Elliot Roberts, as a fairly obvious choice. Initial reservations were held by Stills and Nash, Stills owing to his history with Young in Buffalo Springfield,
and Nash, due to his personal unfamiliarity with Young. But after
several meetings, the trio expanded to a quartet with Young a full
partner. The terms of the contract allowed Young full freedom to
maintain a parallel career with his new back-up band, Crazy Horse.
The band initially completed the rhythm section with bassist Bruce Palmer, who previously played with Young in the short-lived Mynah Birds (fronted by a young Rick James)
and with both Young and Stills in Buffalo Springfield. However, whether
due to Palmer's persistent personal problems (he had a tendency to get
busted for drugs and get deported back to Canada) or due to the simple
fact that, with Stills, Young and Palmer handling the instruments, the
band looked and sounded like Buffalo Springfield with Crosby and Nash
doing little more than some background vocals. Whatever the true reason,
Palmer was forced out of the band, and, at Rick James' recommendation,
nineteen-year-old Motown bassist Greg Reeves replaced him.
With Young on board, the restructured group went on tour in the late
summer of 1969 through the following January. Their first gig was on
Aug. 17, 1969 at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago with Joni Mitchell as
their opening act. They mentioned they were going to some place called
Woodstock the next day, but they had no idea where that was. They began
their second set that night with the same line they uttered at
Woodstock, "This is only the second time we've performed in front of
people. We're scared shitless." They opened with "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" before launching into a harmony-drenched version of The Beatles' "Blackbird".
Their second show was a baptism by fire at the Woodstock Festival. CSNY's recording of the Joni Mitchell song memorializing Woodstock
would later become a hit and the recording most associated with the
festival. By contrast, little mention is made of the group's following
appearance at the violence-plagued Altamont Free Concert,
with CSNY having escaped mostly unscathed from the fallout of the show.
The group's Altamont performance was not included in the subsequent
film Gimme Shelter, at the band's request. Two performances from the Big Sur Folk Festival, 13-14 September 1969, appear in the movie Celebration at Big Sur.
Great anticipation had built for the newly expanded supergroup, and their first album with Young, Déjà Vu, arrived in stores in March 1970 to zealous enthusiasm, topping the charts and generating three hit singles. Déjà Vu
was also the first release on the Atlantic Records SD-7200 "superstar"
line, created by the label for its highest-profile artists; the
subsequent solo albums by Crosby, Stills, and Nash would also be the
next releases in this series.
In April 1970, Greg Reeves began behaving erratically and was fired by Stills. Reeves was replaced by Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuels.
Young and Crosby were staying at a house near San Francisco when reports of the Kent State shootings arrived, inspiring Young to write the protest song "Ohio", recorded and rush-released weeks later and providing another Top 20 hit for the group.
However, the deliberately tenuous nature of the partnership was
strained by its success, and the group imploded after their tour in the
summer of 1970. Concert recordings from that tour ended up on the 1971
double album Four Way Street; years would pass between subsequent trio and quartet recordings.
Shifting configurations
Between September 1970 and May 1971, each of the quartet released high-profile solo albums: Young's After the Gold Rush in September; Stills' eponymous debut in November; Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name in February, and Nash's Songs for Beginners in May. All four solo LPs placed in the top 15 on the Billboard 200, with Stills' entry peaking the highest at No. 3. Stills released an additional record in 1971, Stephen Stills 2,
which also went top ten. Crosby and Nash embarked on a successful
acoustic tour accompanied only by their own guitars and piano, captured
for the 1998 documentary Another Stoney Evening. For a while, it seemed as if the group could simply not fail, either singly or in any permutation.
Though there were no official CSN or CSNY projects during the year,
1972 proved a fruitful year for all the band members in their solo
efforts. Young achieved solo superstardom with the chart-topping Harvest and its attendant No. 1 single, “Heart of Gold”. Stills joined with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form the country-tinged band Manassas, releasing a self-titled double album; counting the three CSN records, Manassas became Stills' sixth top ten album in a row. Nash also joined Young to record Young's single "War Song".
On tour, Nash and Crosby rediscovered the joy they had originally felt
with CSN, minus the egotistic in-fighting that had made the last CSNY
shows so difficult. That enthusiasm led to their first album as a duo, Graham Nash David Crosby, which peaked at No. 4 on the pop album chart.
The group members fared less well in the following year. Young
embarked on a solo tour noted for its dark tone, with Crosby and Nash
joining in mid-tour for recordings that would be issued on Time Fades Away; his Crazy Horse bandmate Danny Whitten had died of a heroin overdose before the tour. Crosby spearheaded a reunion album
of the original Byrds quintet which sold only marginally well. Nash
delivered his second solo album, and Stills released a second Manassas
record; neither disc sold to expectations.
In June and July of that year, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young met at Young's ranch and recording studio in Hawaii for a working vacation, ostensibly to record a new album, tentatively titled Human Highway. However, the bickering that had sunk the band in 1970 quickly resumed, scattering the group again.
Shaky reconciliation
Roberts finally prevailed upon the group to realize their commercial
potential. The quartet reassembled once again in the summer of 1974,
with sidemen Tim Drummond on bass, Russ Kunkel on drums, and Joe Lala on percussion, to embark on the first-ever outdoor stadium tour, arranged by San Francisco impresario Bill Graham, fresh off the large-scale indoor arena tour he had developed for Dylan’s return to the spotlight
earlier in the year. The band typically played three and a half hours
of old favorites and new songs, many of which never appeared in a
definitive CSN or CSNY studio format.[16] Graham Nash's unreleased film of the Wembley Stadium
show highlights the scope and quality of these performances; the four
principals would often switch instruments within the context of the same
song.
While they would have the press believe that their characteristic
arguments were a thing of the past, excesses typical to the era took
their toll. Stills began supplementing his trademark wardrobe of
football jerseys with military fatigues, insinuating that he was a
deep-cover CIA
agent. Crosby's entourage included two quarreling girlfriends,
furthering the tension. Throughout the tour, Young isolated himself from
the group, traveling in an RV with his son and entourage and was
reportedly resentful that his songs made up the bulk of the group's new
material. An attempt at the new CSNY LP in the fall was scrapped, the
label having compiled So Far
to have something to promote during the tour. Nash viewed the
re-shuffling of items from only two albums and one single as absurd; it
topped the charts anyway. Songs performed on the 1974 tour later appeared on various releases including Stills, Zuma, American Stars 'n Bars, Long May You Run, Comes a Time, Hawks & Doves, Wind on the Water, Earth and Sky, and Whistling Down the Wire.
Reaching an impasse with the parent band, Crosby and Nash decided to re-activate their partnership, inaugurating the duo act Crosby & Nash, touring regularly, signing to ABC Records and producing two additional studio albums, Wind On The Water in 1975 and Whistling Down The Wire in 1976. They continued to use the sidemen known as “The Section”
from their first LP. This crack session group contributed to records by
many others of similar idiom in the seventies, such as Carole King, James Taylor, and Jackson Browne, in addition to the CN concert album released in 1977, Crosby-Nash Live.
Crosby and Nash also became a cottage industry themselves, their vocal
prowess adding to the appeal of various songs, including hits like
Taylor’s "Mexico" and Joni Mitchell’s "Free Man in Paris."
Stills and Young returned to their own careers, with Young gaining in
critical accolades during the remainder of the century and beyond. The
non-aligned pair also united for a one-off tour and album credited to
The Stills-Young Band Long May You Run. At one point in the spring of 1976 in Miami the album promised to be the third attempt at a CSNY reunion, but when Crosby and Nash were bound to return to LA to finish Whistling Down the Wire, Stills and Young wiped the vocal contributions of the other pair off the master tape. The old tensions between the pair, dating back to the Buffalo
Springfield days, resurfaced, exacerbated by Stills’ choice of
professional studio musicians to back them rather than Young’s preferred
Crazy Horse. After their July 18, 1976 show, Young's tour bus took a
different direction. Waiting at their July 20 show, Stills received a
laconic telegram: Dear Stephen, funny how things that start spontaneously end that way. Eat a peach. Neil. Young's management claimed that he was under doctor's orders to rest
and recover from an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually
bound to finish the tour, though Young would make up dates with Crazy
Horse later in the year.
Crosby & Nash's album Wind On The Water was the only disc
by any member of the quartet to fare well in the marketplace during the
period from 1973 to 1976. Stills approached the pair at one of their
concerts in Los Angeles, setting the stage for the return of the trio.
CSN Redux
In 1977 Crosby, Stills & Nash released CSN.
It was propelled by solid songs from all three principals, trademark
vocals, contemporary production, and as usual a hit single from Nash in “Just a Song Before I Go”.
The album soared up the pop albums chart, just missing being their
fourth number one in a row, held off the top slot by one of the
best-selling LPs of all time, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. The meticulously crafted CSN fit right in with the ruling commercial sounds of the day, just as Young was imagining his reaction to punk with the Rust tour and albums, illustrating how far the two camps had diverged.
Regrouping as a regular touring unit, after a five-year lay-off
between releases which saw a solo album apiece by Stills and Nash, they
hit the top ten one more time with Daylight Again
in 1982. Complications were brewing due to Crosby's increasing
dependence on freebase cocaine, making his participation problematic.
The Nash record of 1980, Earth & Sky, was to be another Crosby-Nash project, but Crosby’s participation discontinued due to excessive drug use. Daylight Again
was initially undertaken by Stills and Nash alone owing to Crosby’s
subsequent decline in productivity; however, Atlantic Record executives
refused to release the latter LP until Crosby was reinstated. Crosby joined his partners for the tracks “Delta” and "Might as Well
Have a Good Time", and the album contained two hits, Nash’s “Wasted on
the Way” and Stills’ “Southern Cross,” the latter accompanied by a
popular video on the nascent MTV
network. But the group now relied on outside composers and singers to
augment their material and had thus all but ceased to be the force they
had been ten years past. The trio continued to tour, but the bottom fell
out for Crosby, arrested and jailed on drug and weapons charges in Texas in May 1982. Having recorded a potential title song for the film WarGames
that was never used, the band released it as a single and hastily
assembled concert recordings around two studio tracks for the album Allies,
their lowest-charting record to date. Crosby was sentenced to two
terms, but the conviction was overturned; arrested several more times,
he finally turned himself in to the authorities in December 1985. He would spend eight months in prison, and Nash and Stills released another round of solo albums in the mid-1980s.
Based on a promise he made to Crosby should he clean himself up,
Young agreed to rejoin the trio in the studio upon Crosby’s release from
prison for American Dream
in 1988. Stills and Crosby were barely functioning for the making of
the album, and the late eighties production completely swamped the band. It did make it to No. 16 on the album chart, but the record received
poor critical notices, and Young refused to support it with a CSNY tour.
The band did produce a video for Young’s title-song single, wherein
each member played a character loosely based on certain aspects of their
personalities and public image.
CSN recorded two more studio albums in the 1990s, Live It Up and After the Storm, both low-sellers by previous standards. A box set arrived in 1991, four discs
of expected group highlights amidst unexpected better tracks from
various solo projects. Owing to certain difficulties, manager Roberts,
no longer with the trio but still representing Young, pulled most of
Neil’s material earmarked for the box; only seven CSNY songs in total
remained to be included. However, the CSNY version of "Human Highway"
did leak to the internet.
In 1994, CSN collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Alison Krauss, and Kathy Mattea to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization.
After the Storm barely made the top 100 on the album chart,
and by the late nineties CSN found themselves without a record contract.
They began financing recordings themselves, and in 1999 Stills invited
Young to guest on a few tracks. Impressed by their gumption, Young
increased his level of input, turning the album into a CSNY project, Looking Forward,
released on Young's label Reprise Records. With writing credits mostly
limited to band members, the disc was better received than the previous
three albums, and the ensuing CSNY2K tour in 2000 and the CSNY Tour of
America of 2002 were major money-makers.
CSN was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in 1997; CSNY is the only band to have all its members inducted into
the Hall twice. Crosby has also been inducted as a member of the Byrds
(1991), and Stills as a member of Buffalo Springfield (1997). In 2010,
Nash was inducted as a member of the Hollies. Young has been inducted
for his solo work (1995) and for Buffalo Springfield (1997), but has not
been inducted with CSN.
The CSN logo that Crosby, Stills and Nash have used since the mid-1970s was designed by comedian Phil Hartman.
Various compilations of the band’s configurations have arrived over the years, the box set being the most comprehensive, and So Far
being the most commercially successful. Individual retrospective sets
have either been released or are still in progress. In 2007, David
Crosby's well received box - Voyage - chronicled his work with
various bands and as a solo artist. Graham Nash's 'Reflections' appeared
in early 2009 under the same auspices, quite near his 67th birthday.
The box set for Stephen Stills is still forthcoming. Compilation and
oversight of these releases has largely been delegated to Nash himself.[25]
2006 "Freedom of Speech" Tour. One of the backdrops, as shown here, were
the photos of American soldiers who had died in the war in Iraq.
In 2006, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young set off on their "Freedom of Speech" tour in support of Young's album Living with War. The long setlists included the bulk of the new protest album as well as material from Stills' long delayed solo album Man Alive! and newer material from Crosby and Nash. On May 16, 2006, Crosby, Stills & Nash were honored as a BMI
Icon at the 54th annual BMI Pop Awards. They were honored for their
"unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers." In February 2007, CSN were forced to postpone a tour of Australia and New Zealand due to David Crosby's illness. Also in 2006, long-time manager Gerry Tolman died in a car accident.
The popular song, "Teach Your Children" was performed by Crosby, Stills, and Nash on The Colbert Report on July 30, 2008 with host Stephen Colbert
filling in the fourth harmony (Neil Young's portion) and wearing a
Young-mocking outfit and being referred to by Nash as "Neil." In 2009,
Crosby, Stills & Nash released Demos, an album made up of demos recordings of popular group and solo songs. In June 2009 Crosby, Stills and Nash performed at the Glastonbury Festival, England. Stephen Stills was praised for his exceptional guitar playing. Neil Young did not appear onstage with them but did perform as a solo artist. In July 2009, they headlined the 14th annual Gathering of the Vibes festival. Halfway through their set, they enthusiastically announced to the crowd that they would be back next year.
Crosby, Stills & Nash toured the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil in 2012 and released a 2CD/DVD entitled CSN 2012 on July 17, 2012.
Political activism
CSNY during their 2006 tour; L to R: Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, Neil Young and David Crosby
CSNY's music unerringly reflected the tastes and viewpoints of the counterculture in the late 1960s and early 1970s. With protest against the Vietnam War gearing up in 1970, the group (Crosby in particular) made no secret of their political leanings.
The group recorded two songs in response to political events. The first was "Chicago." The reference here is the trial of the "Chicago 7,"
seven anti-war activists indicted for their role in the demonstrations
and police riots in downtown Chicago during the Democratic National
Convention of 1968. One of the defendants, Bobby Seale,
was disruptive in the court room and, as a result, was gagged and bound
to his chair during the trial. The second song, "Ohio," was written in
response to the deaths of four students at Kent State University. The students were shot by Ohio National Guardsmen during an anti-war protest on the campus in May 1970.[citation needed]
The release of "Ohio" marked the boldest musical statement made to that date regarding the Vietnam War, calling out Richard Nixon
by name and voicing the counterculture's rage and despair at the
events. Between "Ohio", their appearance in both the festival and movie
of Woodstock,
and the runaway success of their two albums, the group found themselves
in the position of enjoying a level of adulation far greater than
experienced with their previous bands, as evidenced by the 27 Platinum
certifications they received across 7 albums.
The band has been continuously associated with political causes
throughout its existence, the latest example being the song "Almost Gone
(The Ballad Of Bradley Manning)" which focuses on the length and
conditions of Bradley Manning's pre-trial confinement.
Influence
The collective abilities allowed CSN&Y to straddle all the flavors of popular music eminent at the time, from country rock
to confessional balladry, from acoustic guitars and voice to electric
guitar, and three-part harmony. with The Beatles break-up made public by
April 1970, and with Bob Dylan in reclusive low-key activity since mid-1966, CSNY found itself as the adopted standard bearers for the Woodstock Nation, vouchsafing an importance in society as counterculture figureheads equaled at the time in rock and roll only by The Rolling Stones. CSNY was originally commissioned to create the soundtrack for Easy Rider, but Stills' offering, "Find the Cost of Freedom", (on the flip side of "Ohio") was also rejected.
An entire sub-industry of singer-songwriters
in California either had their careers boosted or came to prominence in
the wake of CSNY. In part, many musicians lived in or near Laurel Canyon, in California. They ranged from Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Frank Zappa and The Eagles.
Discography
For individual discographies, see entries on David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young. See also Crosby & Nash for duo discography.
Studio albums
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