#161 Crosby, Stills & Nash, 'Crosby, Stills & Nash' (1969)

Previously #262

The debut album by one of music’s first supergroups, Crosby, Stills & Nash was the perfect blend of David Crosby’s social conscience, Stephen Stills’s virtuoso musicianship and Graham Nash’s ability to craft the perfect pop melody for radio. The band was brought together after Crosby was fired from The Byrds, Stills’s band, Buffalo Springfield had broken up (a band which also featured later member, Neil Young) and Nash’s departure from The Hollies. The three decided to form a band after an informal jam led them to discover how well their voices harmonized. Released in May 1969, the band would perform 9 of the album’s 10 songs at Woodstock, which was the second ever did, in August of the same year.

The album features some of CSN’s most well known and iconic songs; ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,’ ‘Marrakesh Express,’ ‘Guinnevere,’ ‘Wooden Ships,’ ‘Helplessly Hoping’ and ‘Long Time Gone.’ This album saw a shift in sound to what was popular at the time – Blues based Rock, opting for a more Folk Rock, and sometimes Jazz-based sound. It would lay the foundations for the California Sound that would be popularised out of Laurel Canyon in the ‘70s. Artists like The Eagles, Jackson Browne and Fleetwood Mac would take inspiration from the sound of this record. Lastly, I really love the shot on the album cover, taken by legendary music photographer, Henry Diltz, a man who documented so much of the LA music scene over the ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond. He allegedly has 800,000 music photos on his archives (bearing in mind, this was before digital photography).

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