Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young- Deja Vu

David Crosby has died, aged 81.

As you hear during this In The Studio  Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young classic rock interview regarding making  Déjà Vu,  rock myth collides head-on with fact regarding Neil Young’s initial integration into Crosby, Stills, and Nash.  Young was two years and two albums into a budding solo career  after leaving  Buffalo Springfield when  former bandmate Stephen Stills, ex-Byrd David Crosby, and Graham Nash  from the Hollies all realized that the three of them could not pull off the song arrangements live that were on their 1969 debut album. So Young was recruited for the first Crosby, Stills, and Nash tour, not a permanent member of the band.

After Neil Young sat in with David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash at the trio’s second gig, some people noticed. The fact that the gig was the Woodstock Festival in 1969 might have had something to do with it.  Where the trio’s debut had few expectations and surprisingly little fanfare, all of that quickly changed for the February 1970 follow-up as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. But after trotting him out on tour, the trio felt that Young needed to be on their sophomore release Déjà Vu. 

Deja Vu  contained Stephen’s “Carry On”, the definitive version of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock”, Graham’s “Our House” and “Teach Your Children”, David’s “Almost Cut My Hair”, and Neil’s “Helpless”. Young  contributed only two songs, no doubt saving even stronger material for his own third solo album After the Goldrush  barely five months later. David, Stephen, Graham, and Neil all weigh in for the album as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young ( This edition dedicated to the quartet’s late drummer then, Dallas Taylor, on the far right ). –Redbeard