Crosby, Stills & Nash: “Crosby, Stills & Nash” (1969)

The supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash debuted with “Crosby, Stills & Nash” on May 29, 1969. It was a trio with very strong songwriters and vocalists - to put it mildly.

By Martin Johannessen

David Crosby had enjoyed enormous success with The Byrds but left the band in 1968. Stephen Stills had participated in a couple of very good albums with Buffalo Springfield. Graham Nash had released several fine albums with The Hollies. Crosby, Stills, and Nash were a trio with very strong songwriters and singers.

That didn't mean the trio entered into a frictionless collaboration, but they still made good music. Impressive music, in fact. Graham Nash explains: “We were new friends discovering new parts about each other, and we had songs. And we had the ability to translate those songs into records that was astounding, and we knew it.”

Change the Musical Landscape
The album was recorded at Wally Heider's Studio III in Los Angeles, with the band as producers. Ahmet Ertegün is listed as “spiritual guidance.”

“When we walked out of the studio with that two-track under our arm, we knew what it was going to do. We knew that it was going to be a hit. We knew that we had nailed something that wasn’t really that popular kind of then. It was all Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and stuff, and here comes this little acoustic record,” says Nash.

Along with albums like The Byrds' “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” (1968) and The Band’s “Music from Big Pink” (1968), this debut by Crosby, Stills & Nash helped change the musical landscape at the end of the 1960s.

It's not a pure country album. There's a bit of rock, folk, and country, and even a touch of jazz. And there are very many beautiful vocal harmonies.

Read more: Track by Track: Crosby, Stills & Nash on Their Self-Titled Debut

Full of Gems

It wasn't that all the artists played on each other's songs, and the one who played the most instruments was Stephen Stills. He played most of the parts on both his own songs and the others'; bass, organ, lead guitar, and acoustic guitar. But not on every song. Stills explains: "The other guys won't be offended when I say that one was my baby, and I kind of had the tracks in my head.”

The album is full of gems. “Hopelessly Hoping” is definitely one of my favorites. The song was written by Stephen Stills and is beautifully spiced with some of the most exquisite harmonies of the 60s. David Crosby says: “I loved it as a song and I loved what happened with it. We got very lucky, very fortunate with the harmonies on that one.”

“Long Time Gone” is another favorite, written by Crosby after the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968: “I wrote that right after they assassinated Bobby Kennedy. It was a result of losing him, of losing John Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I started to feel overwhelmed. It seemed as if it was ballot by bullet.”

“Wooden Ships” is also cool. The whole album is cool. It's one of those albums where you constantly discover new things. It's an impressively good production that has held up for over 50 years. That's not bad at all! The album did very well and reached number 6 in the US.

By the end of the year, they had recruited Neil Young. They appeared on The Tom Jones TV show and performed "Long Time Gone" with Tom Jones on vocals. And the following year, they released “Déjà Vu” and conquered the top spot in the US.