With the recent release of the Crosby Stills Nash & Young album Live At Fillmore East, 1969, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash have been doing some interviews.
Stills (79) was interviewed by Variety & The Globe And Mail, and Nash (82) was interviewed for the Song Exploder podcast. As you’ll see, the two sometimes had slightly different takes on some of the topics.
The Stills’ interviews included comments comparing the new release of the 1969 concert with the 1971 live album 4 Way Street.
Stephen Stills was blunt… “I Always hated 4 Way Street, and I love this record (Live At Fillmore East, 1969). The singing on 4 Way Street is awful. Everybody refused to dub any voices, which sometimes got spectacularly out of tune. We were brand new (in 1969), and all that enthusiasm and warmth is apparent. 4 Way Street is more ‘Okay we’re a big deal now’, and it showed.”
About the 1969 concert, Stills said… “The vocals were really tight. Later on, when we quit singing on one mic, the blend sort of suffered…singing 10-feet apart and in front of really loud amps in very big places.”
Among his recent interviews, Graham Nash was a guest on the excellent podcast Song Exploder. It’s a clever program that details how popular songs were recorded, and interviews the artist about the creative process. In this case, the song was “Our House”. The half-hour interview goes beyond just the song, as Nash talks about the beginnings of CSN&Y, and the fairly recent death of David Crosby (January of 2023).
Nash tells the now familiar story of writing ‘Our House” when he and Joni Mitchell were living together at Joni’s place in Laurel Canyon in 1969. They had returned to the house after a shopping trip during which Joni had purchased a vase at a local shop. Graham said…”Why don’t I light a fire, while you put some flowers in that vase you bought today”…and that was the beginning of the song. The host of the podcast is Hrishikesh Hirway, and in this one-minute excerpt, he plays the voices of CSN.
It sounds so good to hear the vocals highlighted in that way. You can hear the careful harmony parts that make up the CSN sound. This type of vocal and instrumental isolation on a selection of songs would have made great additions to the Deja Vu box set. After the segment played, Hirway asked Nash his reaction. Graham said he was concentrating on David Crosby’s voice and how much he misses him. Nash went on to explain that he and David were mending fences and were scheduled to video-chat together, but that David passed away before it happened.
Nash also told the story of how Crosby Stills & Nash first sang together during a gathering at Joni Mitchell’s house. Stephen Stills says that’s not the way it happened.
Stills says he has a very clear memory of Mama Cass Elliot bringing the three men together at her house, and that’s where they first sang. Stills thinks it’s Nash’s romantic nature that makes him want it to have been at Joni Mitchell’s place.
Another way there’s disagreement between S&N is that Nash believes the surviving group members, Stills Nash & Young, will never perform together again, because Crosby’s not with them. Stills, who has recently performed for charity with Neil Young, says there could be a cause for which they might perform, so he wouldn’t rule it out.
It’s obvious that Graham Nash has great affection for all of his CSN&Y buddies, but his description of Neil Young gave me a chuckle. He said…”Neil Young is an incredibly great guitar player, and I think he’s a decent singer.” Maybe he should have mentioned that Neil is a tremendous songwriter, instead of characterizing his singing voice.
Stephen Stills closed one of his interviews with a little extra hope for CSN&Y fans. He said there’s a locker with a lot more unreleased tapes that could someday be turned into albums. He said, “There’s some magic in there.”
For the review of Live At The Fillmore East, 1969, click here: https://ontherecords.net/2024/09/crosby-stills-nash-young1969-concert-release/
I think Stephen Stills is one of the best guitar pickers, blues players of all time. I saw him play many times over the years and was blown away. There should be a special award recognizing the skills of Stephen Stills.