Keno's Classic Rock n Roll Web Site

ALBUM REVIEW

CROSBY, STILLS & NASH

Released - May 29, 1969, Atlantic Records. Produced by David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash

David Crosby - Lead and Backing Vocals; Rhythm Guitars
Stephen Stills - Lead and Backing Vocals; Lead, Acoustic and Bass Guitars; Percussion; Organ
Graham Nash - Lead and Backing Vocals; Acoustic Guitar on "Marrakesh Express" and "Lady of the Island"

Additional Personnel:
Dallas Taylor - Drums
Jim Gordon - Drums on "Marrakesh Express"

All songs written by CS&N (see below).

Remastered CD comes with four bonus cuts: Do for the Others, Song with No Words, Everybody's Talkin' and Teach Your Children

REVIEW

As even they themselves have said, David Crosby, Steven Stills and Graham Nash were meant to sing together. On this their very first album, you can't deny that their voices blended together just perfect.

There are four masterpieces on this album. Starting off with its first cut, "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes", a song written by Stills about his breakup with former girlfriend, singer Judy Collins. The harmonies on this tune couldn't be better, and the song just builds up to its excellent close. Then the very next song on the LP  "Marrakesh Express" is another winner. A happy-go-lucky sounding song written by Nash, about an actual locomotive trip he took in 1966 between Casablanca and Marrakesh. Nash offered this song to his old group, The Hollies, but they rejected it, saying it wasn't commercial sounding enough. No wonder he quit that band shortly after.

"Wooden Ships" and "Long Time Gone" are the other two great ones on here. "Wooden Ships", written by Crosby and Stills, with a couple of lines of the song written by Paul Kantner, is an excellent anti-war song, about two survivors of a nuclear war from opposite sides, meeting by chance on a boat and who plan to start a new civilization together. A real sixties song, to say the least. "Long Time Gone" was written by Crosby about the assassination of Bobby Kennedy; excellent lead vocals sung by Crosby, but Stills' playing of several different instruments makes this one extra special.

All of the other songs on this LP are above average, other than a couple of fillers (see ratings). The remastered CD that came out in 2006 has four extra cuts (noted above). The most interesting one is the very first studio take of "Teach Your Children", which only features Nash, who wrote the song, along with Crosby.

This album is a must for fans of CS&N, but I don't have to tell such fans that now, do I.

- Keno, December 2009

To listen to some soundclips from CROSBY, STILLS & NASH, or to purchase it click on: Crosby, Stills & Nash (1st Album, Expanded and Remastered)

Return to Rock Album's Reviews