As a bootleg collector
and a fan of CSNY, I've been well acquainted with their fabled 1974
tour. I've heard complete audience recordings of three or four of the
performances and parts of at least a dozen more. Underneath the hiss
and audience chatter that pervade every bootleg recording of a
stadium concert from that era, it was clear to me that the band was
in better form than most rock historians would tell you. While every
concert was far from flawless, they were still probably about on par
with their shows from the original days of the band in 1969 and 1970.
Even 4 Way Street, their official live album from 1971,
supposedly showcasing their best concerts in 1970, suffers from
missed notes, off-key harmonies, and flubbed lyrics. In the 1974
bootleg recordings, as with the 1971 album, the flaws aren't enough
to truly dampen the magic. The ability of four clashing rock monsters
to yield any amount of impressive results is something to marvel at,
and the fact that more often than not they are right on the mark is
amazing. Plus, in concerts from both 1970 and 1974, alternate
arrangements and rare or otherwise unreleased songs are offered all
over the place.
I was happy enough with
my bootlegs, and knowing how slow and reluctant certain members of
the band are to retrace their history, I never expected to hear an
official release of recordings from the tour. Even when I heard that
the project was in the works, I just assumed it would never actually
come out. So, after numerous delays, when it finally did, I couldn't
resist purchasing it. I had to hear it. And now that I've heard it, I
want to share some insight from the perspective of someone that has
heard the raw, untampered bootlegs. A word of warning, though: this
review is long and detailed, which may be tedious for the casual
reader, but hopefully will be of particular interest to the dedicated
fan. Because of the length, I have used section headers and boldface
to make the article easier to scan and search.
[CSNY 1974.]
Artist: Crosby, Stills,
Nash & Young
Album: CSNY 1974
Release Date: 8 July
2014
Label: Rhino Records
Producer: Graham Nash
and Joel Bernstein with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Lists and Numbers
Below, I provide the
complete tracklist annotated with first album appearance, authorship,
and additional contributing members to the original version. I have
not listed cowriters outside of the four core CSNY members. Tracks in
bold had not been released at the time of the tour. Note that Young's
On the Beach was released during the tour (July 16, 1974). For
the DVD, I have listed only the songwriter, since all of the tracks
already appeared in the CD tracklists with full details.
Disc 1:
01. Love the One You're
With (Stephen Stills, 1970, by Stills, with Crosby and Nash)
02. Wooden Ships
(Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969, by Crosby and Stills, with
Nash)
03. Immigration Man
(Graham Nash David Crosby, 1972, by Nash, with Crosby)
04. Helpless (Déjà
Vu, 1970, by Young, with Crosby, Stills, and Nash)
05. Carry Me
(Wind on the Water, 1975, by Crosby, with Nash)
06. Johnny's Garden
(Manassas, 1972, by Stills)
07. Traces
(unreleased, by Young)
08. Grave Concern (Wild
Tales, 1973, by Nash)
09. On the Beach (On
the Beach, 1974, by Young, with Nash)
10. Black Queen
(Stephen Stills, 1970, by Stills)
11. Almost Cut My Hair
(Déjà Vu, 1970, by Crosby, with Stills, Nash, and Young)
Disc 2:
01. Change Partners
(Stephen Stills 2, 1971, by Stills, with Crosby)
02. The Lee Shore (4
Way Street, 1971, by Crosby, with Nash)
03. Only Love Can Break
Your Heart (After the Gold Rush, 1970, by Young)
04. Our House (Déjà
Vu, 1970, by Nash, with Crosby and Stills)
05. Fieldworker
(Wind on the Water, 1975, by Nash, with Crosby)
06. Guinevere (Crosby,
Stills & Nash, 1969, by Crosby, with Nash)
07. Time After Time
(Whistling Down the Wire, 1976, by Crosby, with Nash)
08. Prison Song (Wild
Tales, 1973, by Nash, with Crosby)
09. Long May You Run
(Long May You Run, 1976, by Young, with Stills; alternate
version from Decade (1977) also features Crosby and Nash)
10. Goodbye Dick
(unreleased, by Young)
11. Mellow My Mind
(Tonight's the Night, 1975, by Young)
12. Old Man (Harvest,
1972, by Young)
13. Word Game (Stephen
Stills 2, 1971, by Stills)
14. Myth of Sisyphus
(Stills, 1975, by Stills)
15. Blackbird
(Allies, 1983, written by Lennon/McCartney, performed by
Crosby, Stills, and Nash live since first concerts in 1969)
16. Love/Art Blues
(unreleased, by Young)
17. Hawaiian Sunrise
(unreleased, by Young)
18. Teach Your Children
(Déjà Vu, 1970, by Nash, with Crosby and Stills)
19. Suite: Judy Blue
Eyes (Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969, by Stills, with Crosby
and Nash)
Disc 3:
01. Déjà Vu (Déjà
Vu, 1970, by Crosby, with Stills and Nash)
02. My Angel
(Stills, 1975, by Stills)
03. Pre-Road Downs
(Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969, by Nash, with Crosby and
Stills)
04. Don't Be Denied
(Time Fades Away, 1973, by Young)
05. Revolution Blues
(On the Beach, 1974, by Young, with Crosby)
06. Military Madness
(Songs for Beginners, 1971, by Nash)
07. Long Time Gone
(Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969, by Crosby, with Stills and
Nash)
08. Pushed It Over
the End (Heritage box set, 1981, by Young, with Crosby,
Stills, and Nash)
09. Chicago (4 Way
Street, 1971 / Songs for Beginners, 1971, by Nash)
10. Ohio (Single, by
Young, with Crosby, Stills, and Nash)
DVD:
01. Only Love Can Break
Your Heart (Young)
02. Almost Cut My Hair
(Crosby)
03. Grave Concern
(Nash)
04. Old Man (Young)
05. Johnny's Garden
(Stills)
06. Our House (Nash)
07. Déjà Vu (Crosby)
08. Pushed It Over the
End (Young)
There are many reasons
for me to provide the tracklist with these annotations. It's worth
noting how the songs get divided up. For example, I have tabulated of
some of the above information below. The first number is the number
of songs written by the member; the second number is how many songs
they performed on; third is how many of the original released
versions they performed on; and last is how many of the songs on the
DVD were written by that member.
Crosby: 8.5 / 34 / 14*
/ 2
Stills: 8.5 / 35 / 11 /
1
Nash: 9 / 35 / 15* / 2
Young: 14 / 34 / 1 / 3
Notice any trends? I
should make a couple notes. First, the asterisk represents the fact
that "Long May You Run" originally featured Crosby and
Nash, but the first official release did not, so if you want to count
that, just add one. Second, the fractions represent "Wooden
Ships", the only true collaboration that appears here. Third,
many of these songs had been performed by the group live in 1969 and
1970, so even if the first released version didn't include other
members' contributions, they may have already performed the songs
live together before this tour. This discrepancy is not accounted for
in my tabulation. Fourth, "Pushed It Over the End" was
previously only released on an obscure Italian box set, and in fact
was a recording from one of the Chicago dates of this very tour. It
is a different recording than the one that appears here, and the
sound quality is significantly inferior. Many ignore that release and
considered the song essentially unreleased until now.
At any rate, the
incongruity is obvious: Neil contributed the most songs (and
especially the most then-unreleased songs), yet he appeared the least
on other member's released recordings. However, the total live
performance appearances (the second column) are almost even. As might
be expected, the members were more collaborative when they shared a
stage than they were when recording in the studio.
Songs and
Songwriters
At first glance, the
setlist/tracklist is undeniably impressive. It balances the original
two CSN(Y) studio albums, various solo (and band) efforts, and a slew
of newly written material. Neil offers a bunch of otherwise
unavailable (or exceptionally rare) songs, which is an obvious treat,
but also of special interest are the many rearrangements of
previously-available material. One might complain that the box set
doesn't include every single then-unreleased or rare song that was
performed on the tour, but what is there is notable nonetheless. To
discuss the specifics of what songs and performances are noteworthy
(or forgettable), as well as what's missing, I will break the setlist
down by bandmember.
I'll start with Graham
Nash. As always, Nash tends to be the most consistent and stable.
His voice is in good form, and while his songs never falter, they
also rarely grow and change. Similarly, his musicianship is never
showy but also never exceptional. Nash appears on many songs just on
vocals, but he can be found on rhythm guitar or keyboards on plenty
others.
Nash's highlights are
"Fieldworker", a moving, newly-written song played just
once on the tour in a simple arrangement; "Grave Concern",
whose strong live performance greatly improves upon his solo studio
recording; and "Teach Your Children", which risks being a
cliché today, but is presented here with a louder, clearer mix of
the counterpoint vocals in the second verse, which might be the best
part of the song. "Pre-Road Downs" is given a thoroughly
rocking take, but the vocals suffer a bit and lose clarity. "Military
Madness" is a little weak, but "Immigration Man" is
great, and "Chicago" features some great lead guitar from
Nash's bandmates. Nash's songs have the least low points and the
least high points, and the only real complaint is that his song "It's
All Right" (unreleased until Earth & Sky in 1980)
didn't make the cut.
Both of David
Crosby's new songs for the tour appear on the album: "Carry
Me", which turned out surprisingly good; and "Time After
Time", which didn't. Crosby consistently played rhythm guitar
throughout the album, often on an electric 12-string, and his vocals
grace almost as many songs as Nash's. However, Crosby was the only
principal member not to offer any keyboard parts. While his vocals
are generally very strong, they do sound just a notch less consistent
than Nash's.
Crosby's "Déjà
Vu" is one of the highlights of the entire collection,
rearranged in an extended, powerful, electric style. It may drag on
just barely too long, but it's a cool enough take that I can't
complain. Conversely, "Long Time Gone" loses some of its
strength compared to the superb studio version. Somewhere in between
is the lethargic take on "Almost Cut My Hair", which
certainly loses some energy, but gains some depth and moodiness. In
general, Crosby fared well, although his rampant hard drug use and
general poor decision-making contribute to the feeling that these
performances perhaps marked the end of his prime.
Stephen Stills
is the least-favorably represented of the group. His guitarwork is in
great form, and he even plays some decent keyboard parts, but his
vocals suffer substantially compared to performances even a couple
years prior. His voice might not have been as bad as it was when I
saw CSN this year in Austin, but it is probably
comparable to or worse than when I saw CSN two years ago in Kentucky. This has clearly
been a long-standing problem. His poor showing mars "Love the
One You're With" and brings down the otherwise excellent
"Johnny's Garden". The vocals on "Black Queen"
are abhorrent, but thankfully the electric guitar arrangement makes
for a cool jam, even if it is a little ostentatious and drawn out.
Somehow "Blackbird"
was left unscarred, and it remains a showcase for the band's vocal
prowess and harmonic arrangement skills. The bridge is particularly
transcendent and the performance is clearly superior to the version
on the mediocre Allies (1983). However, two centerpiece
performances for the band, "Wooden Ships" and "Suite:
Judy Blue Eyes", suffer just a touch from Stills' vocal
inability. Otherwise, those two songs sound superb and stand as
strong as ever. For better or worse, the band hadn't started the
trend of letting Nash sing most of Stills' parts in "Judy".
That song has long served as a guidepost to the quality of a live
performance by any group featuring Stills, and the ability of the
members to harmonize correctly on it varied widely throughout the
band's early years and just as much through the 1974 tour. (During
the brief Stills-Young Band tour of 1976, the two principals
consistently utterly failed to nail it. No wonder Young jumped off
that sinking ship.) The performance on this album may have been
edited or "tuned", but I'll address that notion in greater
detail below.
The one pleasant
surprise for Stills is "Word Game", which borrows a
rambling, affected, somewhat annoying style borrowed from "Black
Queen" but takes it in a better direction. It's on the line of
showiness, but since the lyrics are actually meaningful (almost
preachy, in fact), it works. A point of confusion for me is that many
bootlegs and setlists denote that the song was played as a medley
with Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me". Neither this album
nor any bootleg from this tour that I've heard appear to include that
additional material, although the Stephen Stills Live album
(recorded in 1974 before the CSNY tour, released in 1975) includes a
medley of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" with "You
Can't Catch Me" as a separate track from "Word Game".
Less pleasant are
Stills' new songs, "Myth of Sisyphus" and "My Angel",
both later released on Stills (1975). Both are bad, but the
latter is despondently terrible. I appreciate the attempt at offering
new material, but when it's that worthless, it's hard to enjoy.
Stills played three further songs on the tour that would later also
appear on Stills: "My Favorite Changes", another
bland song played just once on the opening night of the tour (and
thus not recorded); "First Things First", which is just
barely better than mediocre; and "As I Come of Age", which
is actually pretty good, but which had been played live with CSNY
since 1970. A big deal was made in the press about the lack of "Carry
On", a traditional Stills showcase in the form of a
hyperextended jam. I don't think the absence is much of a loss, but
its inclusion may have helped bring up the average quality of Stills'
material on the album.
The best showing was
clearly given by Neil Young. I may be biased, but even the
most precursory examination of this collection would bring most
listeners to the conclusion that Young was the only member concerned
with exceeding expectations. He brought the most songs, the biggest
share of great songs, and the most proficient instrumental
contributions.
His vocals are mostly
in good form, and although they do stretch across a spectrum reaching
from excellent to totally off (i.e. "Helpless"), his
backing vocals are a welcome and distinctive addition to many of the
other members' songs ("Love the One You're With",
"Immigration Man", "Change Partners", "Prison
Song", "Teach Your Children", et cetera). On bootlegs,
his backing vocals were extremely hard to hear, if they were even in
the mix at all. The presence of these additional vocals is one the
best hidden treasures on this album.
Neil's guitarwork
matches Stills', or perhaps even exceeds, in that Neil tends to be
less flashy and more subtle and expressive. "On the Beach",
"Don't Be Denied", "Revolution Blues", and
"Chicago" all feature great improvisational work from the
two guitarists, but sadly the number of truly shared or dueling
guitar solos is fairly limited. The two clearly play off of each
other and bring out interesting parts of each other, but even when
left to their individual devices, Neil still never disappoints here.
Young's keyboard work also graces many songs to good effect.
Some of Neil's most
notable performances are the fuller, harmony-drenched renditions
of songs like "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", "Old
Man", and "Mellow My Mind". The former two might be
predictable, but the a capella chorus of "Only Love" is
transcendent nonetheless, and this early live take on "Mellow My
Mind" is better than the version on Tonight's the Night.
A couple of Neil's
hitherto-unreleased songs are a bit lightweight, but they're still
likable. "Goodbye Dick" is a brief, throwaway joke, and
"Hawaiian Sunrise" is only saved by the great harmonies,
but "Traces" (which appears on some bootlegged early
acetate versions of Tonight's the Night) is good, and
"Love/Art Blues", a song about finding balance in life, is
even better. (It features the hilarious couplet, "my songs are
so long / my words are all so sad".) "Pushed It Over the
End" is the true lost treasure, an epic with both great guitar
breaks and solid harmonies.
"Long May You Run"
appears here performed as a duo with Stills, which is how the song
would first see release two years later on the otherwise terrible
Stills-Young Band album named after the song. Stills manages some
great guitar runs, but he also misses the "Oh, Caroline, no"
cue, and Neil even hits a wrong note on the harmonica. One longs for
the full CSNY harmonies that grace the alternate mix heard on Decade.
Similarly, "On the
Beach" and "Revolution Blues" do not feature
any harmonies, but the brief dueling guitar solos from Stills and
Young are a pleasure to hear. It's hard not to feel that an
opportunity was missed, but the manic, paranoid intensity of both
songs comes alive well here anyway. At least "Don't Be Denied"
takes advantage of the full band: the harmonies in the third and
fourth verses and the great guitar duels elevate the song to match or
best the live version from Time Fades Away.
If all of Neil's
unreleased material, early versions, and rearrangements weren't
enough, it is worth noting that there was even more done on the tour
that doesn't appear on the album. Most importantly, several songs
intended for the scrapped Homegrown album first appeared
publicly on this tour. "Homefires" has never seen release
in any form (although it has been sporadically played live since
then); "Love Is a Rose" debuted here; one of two
performances ever of "Pardon My Heart" was on this tour;
and "Star of Bethlehem" and "The Old Homestead"
were both performed three times on this tour and never again. "Human
Highway" was performed in an excellent sparse arrangement with
great harmonies, far superior to the overdone version that would
later turn up on Comes a Time. "Roll Another Number"
was a drunken tune from Tonight's the Night that was already
recorded and done live but still hadn't seen release. Also notable
were "Walk On" and "For the Turnstiles", both
from the contemporaneously released On the Beach. The latter
was treated well by the full CSNY arrangement, but I can't speak to
the latter, as it was only performed once (and not played again until
1987!), and that show was neither officially recorded nor bootlegged.
[An acoustic number in Houston.]
History vs.
Post-Production
Moving on from the
specific songs and songwriters, there are a few bigger-picture issues
to consider. My first question is how well this album represents what
actually happened on the tour. I've covered the song choices in great
detail, and I think it's fair to say the producers did a good job
constructing a fairly accurate representation of the setlists. An
equally important issue is how much the recordings were altered to
create a more perfect version of the past. All four members and
archivist/producer Joel Bernstein have frequently derided the quality
of the performances in the past, so it is not without irony that this
album sounds as good as it does. There are minor flaws, such as
static (during "Love the One You're With" and "Suite:
Judy Blue Eyes"), occasional bum notes, missed cues, and off-key
vocals, but they aren't common enough to detract from the
performance. In fact, they may even contribute to an air of
authenticity. However, Nash mentions "tuning" the songs in
interviews, and he also discusses editing together multiple takes,
sometimes even flying in individual lines from other shows.
While this sort of
post-production is certainly no crime, and I don't believe any
overdubbing was involved, one does have to wonder how far they went.
Nash has also stated that "Guinevere" is actually from a
Crosby & Nash concert later that same year (judging by the liner
notes, December 14 at a United Farmworkers Union and Project Jonah
benefit in San Francisco), because Crosby demanded that it be
included despite that none of the CSNY shows recorded featured it.
Since neither Stills nor Young ever performed on the song, this may
not be a big deal, but it does damage the reputation a little bit. If
you listen for it, you can actually hear the audience and ambient
sound conspicuously change at the end of the song during the
transition to the next. And if they were willing to take recordings
that weren't even done on the tour in question, what else might they
have done that they aren't willing to publicly admit? Do we have any
reason to trust their word?
Supposedly the final
show of the tour at Wembley Stadium in London was a catastrophe, and
the next day, the band couldn't even sit through a complete playback
of the recorded performance. I've heard a bootleg, and while the
awful sound quality doesn't help, the performance itself is indeed
middling at best. However, Wembley is credited as one of the
recording locations and the DVD includes four songs shot there. So
did they manage to salvage a couple golden tracks from the mess, or
was the whole thing better than everyone remembered?
Based on the bootlegs,
most nights of the tour were a mixed bag, with some songs turning out
great, some falling apart, and most ending up somewhere in the
middle. I suspect if one were to make a compilation of the best
performances from the bootlegs, you could probably find good enough
versions of all the songs to make a convincing case that the tour was
an unqualified success. Maybe that's what actually happened: everyone
remembers all the lows, but when you put together all the highs, you
get a pretty good package. It's hard to know for sure just how much
additional tinkering was done in the studio, but at least the final
results are believable.
It is a real joy to
hear these recordings in soundboard quality, even if they do
represent an idealized concert. The bootlegs all show their age. They
were mostly recorded in the bleachers, far away from the stage and
speakers, and the huge outdoor spaces translated sloppily on to the
primitive bootlegging equipment of the day. The acoustic songs in
particular suffered; they were usually mostly inaudible to start
with, and the audience noise only compounded the problem. Even when
the band was in top form, the low recording quality made it hard to
enjoy the show or accurately evaluate the performance.
We know from 4 Way
Street that even when CSNY was at their peak, they still made
mistakes. Their first live album is surprisingly earnest in revealing
the flaws of the performers. This time around, they couldn't help
themselves from revisionism, but it does make for a more consistently
enjoyable listening experience. The lack of most of the stage banter
is also somewhat welcome, as the quartet had a well-established
history of rambling and ranting, or just mumbling and grumbling. One
of the only sections that did make the cut (at the end of "Traces",
leading into "Grave Concern") was the hilarious Nixon spoof
in which the band tries to convince each other that "I just
don't recall", "I wasn't there", and so on. That was
well worth keeping, especially considering the band's fascination
with the Nixon proceedings at the time.
Locations
Another big question
that I've alluded to is the matter of where the individual songs were
recorded. Apparently, nine concerts at the end of the tour were
recorded (in addition to the aforementioned benefit appearance by
Crosby and Nash from which "Guinevere" was taken): two in
Uniondale, New York; three in Landover, Maryland; three in Chicago;
and the finale in London. However, to name a specific location to a
specific song, there aren't many clues available. All I can find are
a couple shouts from Graham Nash to the audience, mentioning Wembley
in "Almost Cut My Hair" and Maryland in "Military
Madness"; the stage announcements after "Ohio", which
address Chicago; and the fact that a few songs were only performed a
single time during the recorded part of the tour ("Goodbye Dick"
and "Mellow My Mind" on August 14 in Uniondale and
"Fieldworker" on August 20 in Landover). The rest is
anyone's guess, and if the recordings really are composite edits,
even comparing with the bootleg versions won't help. In the worst
case, if the edits were extreme enough, it might not even be possible
to name a single night as the source of a performance.
While we don't know the
specific locations of the audio tracks, nor just how much editing
really was done, we do know the locations and dates of the video: the
first four are from Landover on August 20 and the last four are from
London on September 14. One can speculate about how much audio
editing was performed on the DVD tracks, and even wonder if the audio
(or parts of it) originate from other shows. However, other than a
brief moment in "Grave Concern", I failed to observe any
conspicuous incongruities between sight and sound, so I believe that
any such post-production was minimal. But the real question with the
DVD is why there are only eight songs. Is it too much to ask for
more? Were those really the only eight songs worth providing video
for? The liner notes make a big deal of the fact the these kinds of
video recordings were very new and not of very high quality, but
certainly most fans interested in this album would understand and
just want to see what's there.
The Mix
One last concern is the
quality of the mix. This is an easy matter to address: the album
sounds great. The instrument separation is about as good as
one could get with four guitars, bass, and two percussionists. Crosby
and Nash's guitars are sometimes hard to distinguish and low in the
mix, but it is well recognized by everyone involved that most of the
time they were just strumming along. Neil and Stephen's guitars are
usually prominent, and can be distinguished in that Neil is usually
in the right channel and Stephen in the left. The various keyboards
are usually distinctive; the drums are present but not too loud; the
bass is maybe a bit soft, but thankfully not buried, either. The
vocals are always clear and usually everyone credited with singing
can be heard distinctively.
The only odd thing
about mix is that just a few songs have little oddities that can be
heard most easily when listening on headphones. "Pre-Road Downs"
has several points where there is a weird imbalance in the right
channel, which might be bad edits or just an odd drum pattern. "Black
Queen" has some similar effects halfway through, as well as some
volume swelling in the first half, and "Don't Be Denied"
also suffers from some of the same imbalance issues.
Conclusion
It's clear that a
project like this had a huge scope and took a massive amount of
effort. The results might actually manage to live up to the recent
hype, and they absolutely paint a better picture than what history
would have led you to believe. The bootlegs have always told a part
of the hidden truth, i.e. that the performances were better than the
band remembered, but the official release seals the deal. One will
always wonder how much doctoring was done, but since little about it
feels artificial or overdone, it's an easy album to enjoy. The songs
are good, the performances are strong, and it sounds superb.
Score: A-
References and
Further Reading:
P.S. Note that the discogs.com page erroneously lists Stills as performing vocals on "On the Beach". There may be other inaccuracies that I haven't noticed.
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