Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Deja Vu

One of the most hotly awaited second albums in history – right up there with those by the Beatles and the Band – Déjà Vu lived up to its expectations and rose to number one on the charts. Those achievements are all the more astonishing given the fact that the group barely held together through the estimated 800 hours it took to record Déjà Vu and scarcely functioned as a group for most of that time…

When David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash created this pop super trio in 1968 after their splits from the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and The Hollies, respectively, it would have been a pipedream that a hits package released 37 years later would sound as eternal and essential as this one. The 19 songs straddle the four-album, landscape-altered timeframe between 1969's post-Woodstock debut Crosby, Stills & Nash and 1982's Daylight Again, which helped inaugurate the MTV era. Unbalanced sequencing–which randomly bounces 12 years ahead and five years back–is rescued by the superb harmonies, unique songwriting and divergent personalities of the three members. With politics and culture always at the forefront, Stills bookends the band's trademark canon with "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "Southern Cross," Nash incorporates Eastern influences to "Marrakesh Express" and folk timber to "Just a Song Before I Go" and "Teach Your Children," and the ever-capricious Crosby leads the way lyrically with the lingering "Delta" to the Robert Kennedy tribute "Long Time Gone".

Based on the title, it's hard not to think that Déjà Vu Live finds Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young reaching back into their past, perhaps even performing their classic 1970 album in its entirety. That's not true, although there is an album that comes close to being performed in its entirety here, and that's Neil Young's 2006 political manifesto Living with War, a controversial record that Young supported by re-teaming with CSN for a tour — a tour that was documented in the Young-directed feature documentary Déjà Vu Live. Got that? It's a series of circumstances a bit too confusing for music that's so straightforward, as the Living with War tour was as direct as the album itself.

The war in Iraq is the backdrop as the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young "Freedom of Speech Tour" crisscrosses North America. Echoes of Vietnam-era anti-war sentiment abound as the band connects with today's audiences.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - CSNY 1974 (2014) {3CD + DVD5 NTSC - Rhino R2-541729)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.14 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 466 Mb
DVD5 -> 2.02 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 4:3 | Dolby AC3, 2 ch | ~ 44m | ISO Image
Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 48 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1974, 2014 CSNY Recordings / Rhino | R2-541729
Rock / Folk Rock / Contemporary Rock / Singer/Songwriter / Soft Rock

It was, at the time, one of the highest-grossing rock tours ever, grossing over 11 million dollars in an era when such figures were uncommon. Such success camouflaged the chaos behind the scenes – the bitter fights and feuds, the excess and indulgence that led to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young pocketing about a half million dollars each, when all was said and done. Big bucks were the reason the CSNY 1974 tour even existed. Efforts to record a new album in 1973, their first since 1970's breakthrough Déjà Vu, collapsed but manager Elliot Roberts and promoter Bill Graham convinced the group to stage the first outdoor stadium tour in the summer of 1974, with the idea that CSNY would test-drive new material in concert, then record a new studio album in the fall, or maybe release a live record from the historic tour. Neither happened.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - 4 Way Street (1971) {2CD Set, Atlantic 7567-82408-2 rel 1992}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 702 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 306 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 21 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1971, 1992 Atlantic / Warner | 7567-82408-2
Rock / Folk Rock / Contemporary Rock / Singer-Songwriter / Album Rock

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young had come out of Woodstock as the hottest new music act on the planet, and followed it up with Deja Vu, recorded across almost six months in the second half of 1969 and released in March of 1970, supported by a tour in the summer of that year. As it happened, despite some phenomenal music-making on-stage that summer, the tour was fraught with personal conflicts, and the quartet split up upon its completion. And as it happened, even Deja Vu was something of an illusion created by the foursome – Neil Young was only on five of the album's ten tracks – which meant that an actual, tangible legacy for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young was as elusive and ephemeral to listeners as Ahab's Moby Dick.