Review Summary: Slightly flawed as it is, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's best-known record still stands firmly.
Supergroups have often enough failed to actually live up to their name. Seemingly cursed with a short lifespan and incoherent collaborative skills, both those of new and old didn’t quite turn out to be the sum of their parts, in most cases. To say Crosby, Stills & Nash (better remembered as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Neil Young being the occasional fourth member) were an exception isn’t true. CSNY created quite some gems, and almost always cited as their greatest achievement is
Deja Vu, their second, and the first time Young joined the trio.
These four musicians found each other because they were put out of their respective groups around the same time. David Crosby got kicked out of The Byrds, Graham Nash was fired from The Hollies, and Stephen Stills and Neil Young had no group in particular to go to after Buffalo Springfield dissolved. Unfortunate is the fact that they never really
wrote as a group; each member would somewhat equally contribute their individual pennings. Gifted musicians as they are, this approach to writing led to incoherency and inconsistency, also apparent on
Deja Vu.
Nash’ contributions are quite easily the weakest and most dated: the country-tinged
Teach Your Children and almost childish
Our House don’t give the album most of its credit, even though they are some of the group’s best-known songs. Newcomer Young created some of the finer moments here, for
Helpless and
Country Girl are two classic CSNY tunes with some great piano work. More beauty is to be found in the title track and the harmony-focused
Carry On, but those boys didn’t forget to rock. Crosby’s
Almost Cut My Hair is an electrifying ode to the famous hippie attitude, and, of course, hairstyle. Fitting with this theme is of course
Woodstock, penned by Joni Mitchell who didn’t make the festival in the summer of ’69. Still as a trio, Crosby, Stills & Nash performed their second gig there.
Young would not do a full album with Crosby, Stills & Nash until the late 80’s, and given that it’s no surprise
Deja Vu is always mentioned as the group’s quintessential record. It could have been more consistent in style or collaborative as a whole, but as it is, there are some pretty damn good tunes on here. Maybe Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young didn’t write together well, at least they played together well. It’s all that
Deja Vu seems to need to work.
Nag recommends:
Carry On
Almost Cut My Hair
Woodstock
Deja Vu
Country Girl
