GRAHAM NASH & DAVID CROSBY
[Atlantic K 50011]
STEVE STILLS & MANASSAS
[Atlantic K 60021]
Author: Andrew Weiner
Publication: Creem
Date: June 1972
I never really understood Crosby Stills & Nash. First of all,
it was an unlikely combination. Stills was just fine with the mostly unrecognised Buffalo
Springfield, clearly a character on his way up. But Crosby in the long run had done much
more harm than good to the Byrds. And Nash, though he helped make some nice singles for
the Hollies was no great songwriter, and he always did sing flat.
So Stills was really carrying the weight, and for all his overdubs and
multitracks the first CSN album was no more pleasant. Yet it was a vast seller, which is
the second thing I don't understand.
The rest is history. When CSN went out on the road their sound was
lightweight and flimsy (as in the movie Woodstock) so Stills had to rope in his old friend
and enemy from The Springfield, Neil Young. On Deja Vu and then on the 'live' album Stills
and Young came close to transforming the group into a really solid electric rock 'n' roll
band. But not close enough. Those cottoncandy harmonies and acoustic pretensions kept
dragging them back into the mire.
When it got to be solo album time, it was clear who had profited most
from the CSNY show: none other than Neil Young. And it was equally clear who had profited
least: Steve Stills. Nash stuck with the style of the first CSN album - and then, that
style as its most insipid but he did alright. Crosby came up with If I Could Only Remember
My Name, a north Californian supersession set which was a musical disaster area but sold
enormously, while Young's albums have been consistently good or excellent. But Stills who
was a more important figure than Young in the old Springfield, cut 'One' and 'Two', both
astonishingly mediocre sets in a very strained sort of white soul style.
Now everyone's changed around a little. Crosby and Nash have teamed up,
which makes some kind of sense. Nash on his own was inoffensive but, well, very flimsy.
Crosby's one album as positively excessive. On this album, together, some kind of balance
seems to have appeared. Though that could be illusory because they still write and sing
their separate songs: it's just that they're all mixed up over the record, so that before
you can get bored with Nash you have to start getting bored with Crosby. And they at least
have very individual styles of boring you.
Of the two it's Nash whom I find the more tolerable. There's not one
Nash song here to equal 'Bus Stop', but then Nash neither wrote nor sang lead on 'Bus
Stop', and the Hollies never equalled it either. (Which is quite enough said about the
Hollies). Best is 'Southbound Train' which has positively Dylanesque harmonica and classic
Hollywood steel guitar, from Jerry Garcia, but Nash sings without a trace of Dylan's
toughness, and the Iyrics are fairly tame in the first place. 'Immigration Man' could be
an out-take from Abbey Road, but though Nash sings flat, he can't sing as flat as George
Harrison. Nice guitar here (from Dave Mason interestingly enough.)
Crosby's doing somewhat better here than of late, mostly because he's
gone back to writing songs, instead of computer programmes for Jefferson Starship. He's
still got that habit of making everything sound totally dramatic, where his Iyrics just
aren't managing to tell the same story. 'Almost Cut My Hair' on Deja Vu is the classic
example of this. But the same thing happens here on 'Where Will I Be?', which has simple
Iyrics and should have been sung simply or not at all. Crosby's voice just can't handle
the things he tries to do with it, and he ought to know that by now.
'Nash and Crosby' is not what I'd call a bad album. These things are
relative, after all, and when you consider the amount of no-chance product churned out
every month, this could appear as a masterpiece. The backings are consistently tight and
pleasing, and the songs are at least songs. But compared to the Byrds of 1967, or the
Springfield or even the Hollies, it's dull stuff, and surely only for the devoted. I just
wonder how long they're going to stay devoted.
Meanwhile Stills, perhaps the most maligned superstar in recent rock
history, has finally - and against all odds - got it on. As a solo songwriter performer he
just didn't fit, and now he's finally seen the error of his ways and got himself a band.
Not a supergroup, just a band. And though Stills is clearly the leader, he's well aware of
the responsibilities of leadership. Ol' Colonel Stills takes notice of his second in
command, who is none other than Chris Hillman.
Now Hillman is best remembered - if at all - as a great bass player for
the Byrds. But he's been leading his own band, the Burritoes, these past three years. And
he was a greatly under-recognised songwriter for both bands. Here he's no longer playing
bass - which is a pity, but not a tragedy, because he's a good guitarist too - and he's
only been with Stills long enough to co-write two songs. But both these songs are terrific
and, hopefully, point to a great future. 'Both of Us' has harmonies like you never heard
since the old Byrds and allows Stills to show us what a good guitarist he really was all
along. 'It Doesn't Matter' could be an out-take from 'Younger Than Yesterday' and it's
weird how the Byrds are surviving better with Hillman and Stills than the now apparently
comatose Roger McGuinn.
But that's all by the way in the sense that 'Manassas' all four sides
and 23 songs of it - is the first of all a Steve Stills album. And Stills has written too
many good songs here to even try and count them. They cover the whole range of country,
folk, rock 'n' roll and all combinations of the three. The band, who include a conga
player and pedal steel (Al Perkins briefly with the Burritoes) are with him all the way,
and he sings better than at any time since the Springfield. 'What To Do' is probably the
outstanding rock cut. 'Colorado' (not the Rick Roberts song) the best on the country side.
I do have one reservation though. Good though this double set is, I
can't help feeling that it's excessive (and, no doubt, excessively priced). The music is
consistently fine, but the melodies and riffs don't manage to vary that much. And Stills
just isn't that much of a lyricist, (though he's distinctly okay). While I never could
listen to his solo albums, I did like hearing 'Love The One Your With' and 'Change
Partners' on the radio. And before I heard this album, I hard 'It doesn't matter' on the
radio too and it sounded great. So maybe that's what Stills should really be doing: making
great singles, like they used to in the old days before Scott McKenzie.
That said, I like 'Manassas' better than any Crosby/ Stills/ Nash/ Young individual or
collective production, excepting only Young's 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere'. Stills
and Hillman have taken us all the way back to 1967, to the year when the Byrds and the
Springfield fell apart, the year the music began to die. And that's at least a good place
to start.
