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. Déjà Vu worked as an album, a product of four potent musical talents who were all ascending to the top of their game coupled with some very skilled production, engineering, and editing. There were also some obvious virtues in evidence - the addition of Neil Young to the Crosby, Stills & Nash lineup added to the level of virtuosity, with Young and Stephen Stills rising to new levels of complexity and volume on their guitars…
In the early and mid-'70s, the years between the live FOUR-WAY STREET and 1977's CSN, there were plenty of albums which were supposedly begun as Crosby Stills Nash and Young projects but collapsed. The Stills and Young Band's LONG MAY YOU RUN is a legendary example, as is 1975's David Crosby and Graham Nash album WIND ON THE WATER, the record the duo made after the early sessions that eventually became LONG MAY YOU RUN fell apart.
Listening to this album, it's easy to hear how different these songs would have sounded with Stills and Young's input, and indeed, the best songs from these two records would have made a killer CSN&Y release. On their own, Crosby, Nash, and the usual heavy friends–Jackson Browne, Carole King, James Taylor, etc.–have made a fine mid-'70s mellow California rock album.
Essential: a masterpiece of country-rock music
Like a super-stoned campfire jam with an A-list of Cali hippie-rockers – including Joni Mitchell and most of the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and CSNY – this hazy solo project by the altered-consciousness overachiever sounds like it was pretty much made up on the spot.