Graham Nash
puts it quite simply. Crosby Stills & Nash doesn't have to tour
anymore. The trio doesn't need to record and release albums. The group
is secure enough financially to retire.
But here it
is summer 2009, and again, as it has been for most years during the
past decade, Crosby Stills & Nash is back on the road, covering
most of the United States and Europe.
"We're
musicians and songwriters, and we want to communicate," Nash
says. "The first thing you do when you write a new song, once
it makes it past your filters, is to play it for your wife and friends
and family. Then you want to play it for people on a tour."
Actually, Crosby
Stills & Nash doesn't have many new songs to play. Nash's anti-war
ballad, "Not In My Name," is the most recent arrival, having
debuted on Reflections, his three-CD box set covering his
entire musical career and released in February.
But a new Crosby
Stills & Nash CD is out. Called Demos, it's both new
and about as old as it gets for CSN.
The disc release
features the demo versions of 12 songs David Crosby, Stephen Stills
and Graham Nash recorded for the trio's 1969 self-titled debut; for
the 1970 Crosby Stills Nash & Young debut, Déjà
vu, and for various solo and duo releases of the early '70s.
For CSN fans,
it's a chance to literally hear Crosby Stills & Nash finding their
harmony-filled, folk-influenced sound.
"In December
of '68, Crosby Stills & Nash were in New York, and we went into
the studio at the Record Plant with Paul Rothschild, who had produced
the Doors and Janis Joplin," Nash says. "We went in there,
and that was the first time Crosby Stills & Nash had ever recorded.
On the previous box set, the large square one that we put out in,
what was it, '91 or something, we used one of them [the demos], I
think 'Helplessly Hoping.' And we had another one."
Nash says in
this interview that that song was "You Don't Have To Cry."
That demo is included on the new album, except it's Stills' original
solo version of the song. The actual performance he remembered was
of "Marrakesh Express," and that tune leads off the Demos
CD.
And indeed,
this is the sound of Crosby, Stills & Nash, accompanied only by
acoustic guitar, capturing the vocal arrangement and the three-part
harmonies that became such a signature for the group four months before
the song appeared on the Crosby Stills & Nash CD in a
far more elaborate instrumental arrangement.
In any event,
the Demos CD accomplishes the very goal Nash set for himself
in putting together the album.
"My original
idea that maybe people would be very interested in seeing, if not
the very first time a song was put down on tape, but very early in
the version and see how it flowers into the record people know and
love," he says. "I thought that would be a very interesting
thing."
It seems highly
likely that fans will be drawn to the album for at least a few of
the rarities it contains. There's Crosby's solo demo of "Almost
Cut My Hair," as well as his version of the song "Déjà
vu," which finishes with Crosby scatting the vocal melody as
he plays the remainder of the song. "Long Time Gone," a
staple of CSN and CSNY shows since it arrived on the Crosby Stills
& Nash album is performed on Demos by just Crosby
and Stills. Meanwhile there are several familiar solo songs, including
Nash's piano version of "Chicago" and Stills' demo of his
hit single, "Love The One You're With." "Music Is Love,"
a song that ended up on Crosby's 1971 solo debut album, If I Could
Only Remember My Name, marks an early appearance by Neil Young,
who joins Crosby and Nash in singing the demo version.
Nash said he
uncovered 53 early demos in his archive of recordings by the various
band members. He is already working on a second album of demos culled
from the remaining tracks.
Demos
is far from the only musical project Nash has spearheaded lately.
Of course, there was the box set, Reflections, which follows
a Crosby box set released in 2006. Nash has also begun work assembling
a Stills box set that could include unreleased tracks from sessions
he recorded with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.
The Reflections
set traces Nash's career from its beginnings with the British pop
group the Hollies, into Crosby Stills & Nash and through material
he recorded for his five solo albums and four studio records with
Crosby.
Nash thinks
he chose a group of songs that accomplished the goals he had for the
set, which he sees as document that will give present and future music
fans insight into what he has been about musically.
"First
of all, I hope the people enjoy it," Nash sahs. "I didn't
want it to be so esoteric or out of left field that people couldn't
relate to it. I'm a very simple man, as you know. To me I'm a very
normal person. I do something very well, and several things rather
well, but to me I'm a very normal person. And I want people to understand
that I tried my best to communicate. I tried my best to make myself
happy about my music. I tried my best to make my friends happy about
it and my audience happy about it. I think I accomplished that."
Crosby Stills
& Nash, meanwhile, have been busy selecting songs for their next
CSN CD, a collection of outside material performed very much in what
Nash says will be CSN's harmonized style. Recording of the CD with
producer Rick Rubin is scheduled to start in the fall.
An initial
list of 50 songs has been trimmed to 18, and Nash says the group will
try out a few of the candidates each night on tour this summer.
"Right
now we know about eight or 10 of them enough to play them live for
people," he says. "So we'll be dropping [in] and changing
songs] every night, putting new songs in there. So it will be very
interesting."
The group's
concert set, though, will mostly stick to familiar material. And the
trio will perform in several settings.
"We're
going to actually start acoustic," Nash says. "The first
song will be with the band, but very gentle. Then me and David and
Stephen will sing for six or seven great acoustic things, some new
songs that we've learned, other peoples' that we're going to be doing
for this Rick Rubin record we're going to record after the tour, and
then a couple of other ones with the band, but gentle. Then we'll
finish up the acoustic set with something like 'Southern Cross.' And
we'll take a break and come back and play electric for an hour or
so."
