Crosby Stills Nash Young Greatest

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.

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.

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…

Unbeknown to most fans, So Far was a stopgap release, undertaken by Atlantic Records in the absence of a new Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album to accompany the reunited quartet's summer 1974 tour. At the time, the members thought it was ridiculous to release a greatest-hits/best-of compilation distilled down from two in-print LPs plus the single sides "Ohio" and "Find the Cost of Freedom"; but propelled by the publicity surrounding the group's massive stadium tour (the first exclusive stadium tour ever done in rock), So Far topped the charts and sold hundreds of thousands of copies, all without containing so much as a single new note of music. Ironically, the quartet had been working on what would have been, by all accounts, the best album in their history; as with so many other projects attempted by the four-man lineup, however, that album fell apart halfway through, amid clashes of egos and creative differences, and so there was So Far…

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".

Unbeknown to most fans, So Far was a stopgap release, undertaken by Atlantic Records in the absence of a new Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album to accompany the reunited quartet’s summer 1974 tour.

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.