4 Way Street - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Author: Jim White
Journal: Q Magazine Issue #72
Date: September 1992

This digitally remastered version of the 1970 live album has, like David Crosby's girth, somewhat swollen over the years. Graham Nash, the band's archivist, has added four tracks which were, perhaps wisely, over-looked first time round. The new tracks don't add much to a collection which already offered more than 90 minutes of the boys doing what they did best, twanging their guitars, twinkling their harmonies and whinging on about quaint historical figures like Mayor Daly and Spiro T. Agnew. "We can change the world", they boast, by which they probably didn't mean swapping Richard Nixon for George Bush. Curiously, the folkier elements—such as "Cowgirl In The Sand" and "Love The One You're With"—have withstood the ravages of time better than rockier numbers like the interminable "Carry On." Wisely, this two CD set has been arranged with all the rock numbers on one disc, which can be discarded without any regret, leaving a fine eulogy to a band who ought to have died with an era but just keep coming back.