Forty years after Woodstock, the legacy of Crosby, Stills & Nash is not – and could never justifiably be – in dispute but that doesn't mean the origins and methodolgy haven't been a little obscured in the haze over the years. CSN established a new set of values within folk that made the music universally accessible to a whole new, post-Depression generation; sure – Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and about a half-dozen other poet-musicians helped out with the design of what was coming (and in some cases, commanded it), but that magical three-part vocal harmony, the romanticized hope and need for the change that would come with it and the sense that three guys that didn't have a dime between them could change the world with a song was what crept into every bedroom in North America and made the change in values and the love movement seem possible while gallons of napalm scorched Vietnam to a crisp and Richard Nixon lied to the people that elected him again and again and again.
The thing of it is, the business of making music professionally was very different in 1969 from what it is now. Now, putting a band together and passing it through Pro Tools so often that it sounds well-worn in spite of only having been written the day before it appeared on record store shelves is the height of simplicity itself while, then, there was more trial, error and craft involved in the procedure and listening to this Demos release by David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash cinches it. As this set illustrates, while many of these songs drew tremendous fanfare when they were passed through three, the lion's share of them began with just one.
…And when it is just one voice, in many ways it speaks louder and bears more weight than it did later when the mixes got more crowded. The proof of that lies in Demos' dozen tracks; while the opening take of “Marrakesh Express” sounds magnificent stripped down to just the voices and guitars of Crosby, Stills & Nash, it doesn't hold a candle to the desperate, lonely rumination that is “Almost Cut My Hair” when David Crosby goes it alone, nor does any more polished version of the sweet and somber “You Don't Have To Cry” sound so poignant as Stephen Stills' solo take on it here. Each of these songs is presented as a single unadorned voice in the darkness (no effects other than maybe a little natural reverb) and, while they would later be made more anthemic with the power of three, in these solo cuts lie the true magic.
With everything else stripped away too, it makes the artistry of songs like “Deja Vu,” “My Love Is A Gentle Thing” and the obviously secular sentiment of “Love The One You're With” seem far less working class and a whole lot more collegiate. That isn't a criticism per se, just a surprising by-product of the 'un-producing' process.
In that way, Demos proves to be revelatory because it challenges previously held assumptions about the work of Crosby, Stills & Nash; while anyone would assume that a stripped design would equate to the vibes of the original performances of these songs as they may have begun in a park, at a sit-in or alone in a bedroom, the guiding vibe of these songs is far more schooled and what what one might expect to get in a dim concert theater or sparsely populated coffee house. In short, with a one-voice treatment comes a more refined and classic atmosphere, oddly.
Artist:
CSN online
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Album:
Demos is out now and available here on Amazon .
