Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) were a folk rock supergroup made up of American singer-songwriters David Crosby and Stephen Stills, and English singer-songwriter Graham Nash. When joined by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young as a fourth member, they are called Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY). They are noted for their lasting influence on American music and culture, and for their intricate vocal harmonies, often tumultuous interpersonal relationships, and political activism.
CSN formed in 1968 shortly after Crosby, Stills and Nash performed together informally in July of that year, discovering they harmonized well. Crosby had been asked to leave the Byrds in late 1967, and Stills’ band Buffalo Springfield had broken up in early 1968; Nash left his band the Hollies in December, and by early 1969 the trio had signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records.
Their first album, Crosby, Stills & Nash, was released in May 1969, from which came two Top 40 hits, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” (No. 21) and “Marrakesh Express” (No. 28). In order to tour the album, the trio hired drummer Dallas Taylor and session bassist Greg Reeves, though they still needed a keyboardist; Ahmet Ertegun suggested Neil Young, who had played with Stills in Buffalo Springfield, and after some initial reluctance, the trio agreed, signing him on as a full member. The band, now named Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, started their tour, and played their second gig at the Woodstock festival in the early morning hours of August 18, 1969. The first album with Young, Déjà Vu, reached number one in several international charts in 1970, and remains their best selling album, going on to sell over 8 million copies with three hit singles: “Woodstock”, “Teach Your Children”, and “Our House”. The group’s second tour, which produced the live double album 4 Way Street (1971), was fraught with arguments between Young and Taylor, which resulted in Taylor being replaced by John Barbata, and tensions with Stills, which resulted in his being temporarily dismissed from the band. At the end of the tour the band split up. The group have since reunited several times, sometimes with and sometimes without Young, and have released eight studio and four live albums.
Crosby, Stills & Nash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and all three members were also inducted for their work in other groups: Crosby for the Byrds; Stills for Buffalo Springfield; and Nash for the Hollies. Neil Young has also been inducted as a solo artist and as a member of Buffalo Springfield but not as a member of CSN. They have not made a group studio album since 1999’s Looking Forward, and have been inactive as a performing unit since the end of 2015. Whether or not this break is permanent remains to be seen, as the group has often been inactive for years at a time.
Carry On is the twelfth album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, issued on Atlantic Records in 1991, generally for the European and Australian markets. It is a two-disc sampler of their four-disc box set, CSN, released two months previously in the United States and the United Kingdom. It features material spanning 1968 through 1990 from their catalogue of recordings as a group in addition to selections from Crosby & Nash, Manassas, and their individual solo albums. It was reissued on 30 June 1998 on the WEA International record label. This compilation should not be confused with the Stephen Stills box set of the same name released in 2013.
Where the box set is a more comprehensive overview, this one focuses on previously unreleased tracks, hits, and favorites. Of its 36 tracks, 13 had been unreleased previously, and nine contain all of the group’s Top 40 hits from the Billboard Hot 100. The group’s some-time partner Neil Young appears on eight tracks, including his own songs “Helpless” and “Ohio”. The previously-unreleased material includes studio recordings by the full quartet of “Helplessly Hoping” (originally released by the trio), “Taken at All” (originally by Crosby & Nash), and “The Lee Shore” (previously available only live).[2] The set also includes both the demo of “You Don’t Have to Cry”, the first recording they made as Crosby, Stills & Nash, and the three tracks from their most recent studio album as of 1991 that are also on the box set.
The original recordings were produced David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young, with assistance from Howard Albert, Ron Albert, Stanley Johnston, and Paul Rothchild. Audio engineers on the original recordings include Stephen Barncard, Larry Cox, Russ Gary, Don Gooch, Steve Gursky, Bill Halverson, David Hassinger, Andy Johns, and Jim Mitchell. The original masters were recorded at the following studios: Devonshire Sound Studio, Wally Heider Studios, The Record Plant, Rudy Recorders, the Sound Lab, Sunset Sound, Sunwest Studio, and Village Recorders in Los Angeles; United Studio in Hollywood; The Record Plant in New York City; Wally Heider Studios, His Master’s Wheels, and Rudy Recorders in San Francisco; Criteria Sound Studios in Miami; Island Studios in London; and Stephen Stills’ late 1960s home in Laurel Canyon. The selections were compiled for this set by Crosby, Stills, Nash, Gerry Tolman, and Yves Beauvais, with additional research by Joel Bernstein. (wikipeia)
This two-CD set, issued for the European and Australian markets, has proved among the most popular of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s imports since its release in 1998. Not as hefty, physically or monetarily, as the 1991 four-CD box, it limits itself to the group’s hits and popular and important LP cuts — many represented by outtake versions and alternate mixes — interspersed with popular tracks from the work of Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and David Crosby (solo and partnered together), and adds what is mostly the best of the previously unissued Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young material from the box. It’s a good survey of the trio’s best moments and the three members’ most effective solo outings, and presents their most appealing side — one assumes that a future Graham Nash compilation will include room for tracks like “I Used to Be a King” or “Military Madness” and that Crosby’s best stuff off of his first solo album will be compiled that way as well. The inclusion of Crosby’s 1968 version of “Guinevere,” the early alternate mix of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” and a handful of additional outtakes that surfaced on the box are the places where the set departs from a standard best-of, but that departure is justified and welcome, separating this set from the So Far album, and anyone who didn’t spring for the four-CD set will be delighted. There are no notes, but none are needed either, and the only drawback for some will be the fact that the stuff isn’t presented in remotely chronological order. (by Bruce Eder)
Personnel:
David Crosby (vocals, guitar, keyboards)
Graham Nash (vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion)
Stephen Stills (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass, percussion)
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Neil Young (vocals, guitar, harmonica, keyboards)
*
guitar:
Joel Bernstein – Danny Kortchmar – Michael Landau – David Lindley – Michael Stergis – James Taylor
bass:
Jack Casady – Tim Drummond – Bob Glaub – Bruce Palmer – George “Chocolate” Perry – Greg Reeves – Calvin “Fuzzy” Samuels – Leland Sklar
keyboards:
Richard T. Bear, – Joel Bernstein – Craig Doerge – Mike Finnigan – Paul Harris – James Newton Howard
drums:
John Barbata – Russ Kunkel – Dallas Taylor
percussion:
Michael Fisher – Joe Lala – Efrain Toro, Jeff Whittaker
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Tony Beard (drum programming)
Cyrus Faryar (bouzouki)
Jerry Garcia (pedal steel-guitar)
Wayne Goodwin (fiddle)
Branford Marsalis (saxophone)
John Sebastian (harmonica, backround vocals)
Joe Vitale (drums, percussion, keyboards, synthesizers, vibraphone, flute)
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background vocals:
Joel Bernstein – Rita Coolidge – Venetta Fields – Priscilla Jones – Clydie King – Sherlie Matthews – Dorothy Morrison – Timothy B. Schmit
Tracklist:
CD 1:
01. C S N & Y: Woodstock (Mitchell) (1969:**) 3.54
02. C S & N: Marrakesh Express (Nash) 2.36
03. C S & N: You Don’t Have To Cry (Stills) (1968:†) 2.41
04. CS N & Y: Teach Your Children (Nash) )1969) 2.54
05. Stephen Stills: Love the One You’re With (Stills) (1970) 3.06
06. CS N & Y: Almost Cut My Hair (Crosby) (1970; †) 8,51
07. C S & N: Wooden Ships (Crosby/Kantner/Stills) 5.27
08. C S & N: Dark Star (Stills) (1983; *) 4.58
09. C S N & Y: Helpless (Young) (1969) 3.37
10. Graham Nash: Chicago/We Can Change The World (Nash) (1971) 4.00
11. C S & N: Cathedral (Nash) (1977) 5-28
12. Stephen Stills: 4+20 (Stills) (1969; **) 2.11
13. C S N & Y: Our House (Nash) 2.59
14. David Crosby & Graham Nash: To the Last Whale…” (Crosby/Nash) (1975) 5.31
15. Stephen Stills: Change Partners (Stills/Crosby) (1971) 3.16
16. C S & N: Just A Song Before I Go (1977) 2.14
17. C S N & Y: Ohio (non-album single) (Young) (1970) 3.06
18. C S & N: Wasted On The Way (Nash) (1981) 2.50
19. C S & N: Southern Cross (Stills/R.Curtis/M.Curtis) (1981) 4.39
CD 2:
01. C S & N: Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (Stills) (1969; ** ) 7.29
02. C S N & Y: Carry On/Questions (Stills) (1969) 4.27
03. C S N & Y: Horses Through A Rainstorm (Nash/Reid) (1969; ‡) 3.39
04. Manassas: Johnny’s Garden (Stills) (1972) 2.47
05. David Crosby: Guinnevere (Crosby) (1968: †) 4.46
06. C S N & Y: Helplessly Hoping (Stills) (1969: †) 2.32
07. C S N & Y: The Lee Shore (Crosby) (1969; †) 5.30
08. C S N & Y: Taken At All (Nash/Crosby) (1976; † ) 2:54
09. C S & N: Shadow Captain (Crosby/Doerge) (1977) 4.33
10. C S & N: As I Come Of Age (Stills) (1981; †) 2.49
11. David Crosby: Drive My Car (Crosby) (1978; †) 3.51
12. Steve Stills & Graham Nash: Dear Mr. Fantasy (Winwood/Capaldi/Wood( (1980;‡) 7.04
13. C S & N: In My Dreams (Crosby) (1977) 5.12
14. C S & N: Yours And Mine (Crosby) (1990) 4.28
15. C S & N: Haven’t We Lost Enough? (Stills/Cronin) (1990) 3.07
16. C S & N: After The Dolphin (Nash) (1989) 4.54
17. C S N & Y: Find the Cost Of Freedom (B-side of the “Ohio” single) (Stills) (1970) 1.59
An asterisk (*) indicates a live recording, two asterisks (**) a previously unreleased mix, (†) a previously unreleased version, and (‡) a previously unreleased song.
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