On the way home

I've been on a music memoir/biography kick lately. The most recent book I read was Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, a 2019 biography by Peter Doggett. It focuses on the years between 1969, when David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash formed the band and released their first album, and 1974, the year of the last tour that wasn't actually more like a reunion.

In 1969, I was at the beginning of high school. In 1974, I was in the middle of university. The book covers so many events that are touchstones in my early life. Most of those are events in music and in the wider world, but many relate directly to those four guys and their music.

The book yanked me back to when I was 10, hearing and seeing the Beatles for the first time, to when I was 12, absorbing AM radio, to when I was 14, seeing my heroes murdered and the world lose its mind, to when I was 16, seeing university kids gunned down, to when I was 18 and the goddamn war had only gotten wider, to when I was 20 and spending a great deal of time ostensibly for school on making music instead.

I remember when Crosby, Stills & Nash came out. At the time, I was really into harmony groups, like the Seekers, the Mamas and the Papas, and Simon and Garfunkel. The CS&N harmony sound was astounding. I didn't own the album, but the singles got a lot of airplay. It was similar when Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released Déjà Vu, a good half of which was a CS&N follow-up.

I knew who these guys were too, having been a fan of the Byrds, the Hollies, and Buffalo Springfield. "For What It's Worth" and "Mr. Soul" were two of my favourite songs. And this idea of being a kind of collective was intriguing.

A curious thing happened in the midst of this harmony fest. I remember going to buy the first CSN album and being mysteriously drawn instead to Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, which is pretty much Neil Young's antithesis to CSN. That album, which Neil did with Crazy Horse (a stripped-down Rockets), was one of the most wonderful mind-bending records I had ever heard. I didn't have an electric guitar yet, but later on both my playing and my aesthetic drew heavily on EKTIN.

And then, my young mind got well and fully blown again in 1971 when my sister brought home a college radio promo copy (possibly purloined) of Four-Way Street, which she didn't like and passed on to me. I devoured all four sides of that double album on the parental stereo until it had pops and scratches pretty much everywhere.

I was learning to play guitar, and this album was perfect for me. These guys had a sound I could aspire to. The acoustic side was very influential, since I had only an acoustic guitar. I learned to play "On the Way Home," "Teach Your Children," and "The Lee Shore." I thought it was cool that they would play a concert with half acoustic music and half electric. I didn't know about David Crosby's tunings yet, but from hearing the sound I learned how to play open ninth chords that sounded ringy but slightly unsettling. I still do that a lot.

The electric sides were glorious in their spirited sloppiness. I have always found this live version of "Long Time Gone" to be superior to the rather turgid studio version on CS&N, despite its marginal high harmonies (the version on Spotify does not say "remaster," but I'm pretty sure Nash's missed high harmonies, thanks to the poor stage monitors of the time, are mixed lower). "Ohio" was a mess but still astounding and hugely influential on my playing and my youthful politics. And that 14-minute "Carry On" with the interplay of the three guitars is just magnificent.

And after that album, there was no group thing that I really cared about. I followed their individual careers for a while. Neil is the only one I've stuck with, maybe because he and Crazy Horse got to my brain first, maybe because he's the only one who continued to produce great music (most of the time). By the time I bought my first electric guitar in 1973, I had moved on to other things. But CSN and CSNY when they were together making great music were cemented into my life.

The book was not just a nostalgia trip. I learned a lot of details about a story I knew only the general outline of. Did you know that Cass Elliot was responsible for bringing Stephen, David, and Graham together, and that originally she wanted to sing with them? I also hadn't known how CSN were persuaded to add Neil to the mix after being a huge hit on their own. And it's easy to tell that the guitar in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" is in some kind of open tuning, but I had never known that the tuning was EEEEBE, and that it was Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer who showed it to Stills.

Reading the book was an incredibly enjoyable ride, even the bad parts, of which there are many. I had always known about how much weed tended to be smoked, but I had not known that they were all into cocaine so early, and that the albums were as cocaine-fuelled as they were. I think of coke more as a 1970s and 80s drug. I guess they could afford to be early adopters. It had a lot to do with why they broke up and/or never really came together.

Doggett is a critical fan. He doesn't gloss over the low points, but he also cites the many high points. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the people or the time they lived in. And if you lived through that time yourself, it's a must.