If as individuals, the same applying to their collective union, Crosby, Stills & Nash reached the end of the 70s happy waving goodbye to a decade that ended with ailing fortunes on all fronts, any optimism the early-80s would bring restoration of their creative and commercial fortunes was soon found to be misplaced.
Ten years before they were being acclaimed for accomplished solo work (Crosby and Nash also feted for a 1972 album they recorded together), this on the back of the seminal 1969 release they cut as a recently-formed trio. Sporting a blend of abstract impressionism (Crosby), introspective folk-rock (Stills) and melodic power-pop (Nash), they were quickly hailed as spokesmen for the counter-culture.
The subsequent attachment of Neil Young to the troupe for the era-defining ‘Déjà Vu’ (1970), brought with it status as the American Beatles, CSNY the embodiment of hippie-consciousness in the post-Woodstock world.
Always a combustible, ego-riven outfit no matter whether operaing as a three or four, as the 1970s unfolded they duly splintered into ones (or a two), not seen again as an entity until a 1974 reunion tour. Performing as a quartet, CSNY played to packed arenas from one U.S. coast to another, only for resumed familiarity to breed contempt rather than content, the collective soon collapsing under the weight of clashing egos.
In a comparatively short space of time the fractious four had resurfaced as a pair of disparate duos, ( Crosby/Nash, Stills/Young), in putting both their names to albums of variable quality. Just to show how contrary they could be Crosby, Stills and Nash then began recording together as a trio and eight years after their debut set put out ‘CSN’ (1977), this slick and steady slice of L.A. soft-rock released to huge sales, if mixed critical response.
Following a sell-out U.S. tour in support of their latest three-way collaboration, the portents turned distinctly darker. The spiralling drug dependency of Crosby (and to a lesser extent Stills), impacted on their forthcoming endeavours, ‘Thoroughfare Gap’ (Stills/1978) sold poorly and was widely panned, Crosby submitted a selection of demos for a proposed solo album to Capitol only for them to be rejected after the label had initially expressed interest. Nash meanwhile saw his 1980 ‘Earth and Sky’ effort sink without trace on being mauled by the music press, Rolling Stone being particularly vociferous in their condemnation.
Due to his erratic behaviour, Crosby was omitted from plans when Stills (also smarting from a lack of major label interest in a 1980 L.P. project) and Nash decided to cut tracks as a pairing. But they found the way ahead far from straightforward, spending $400,000 of their own money on a perceived record only to find Atlantic disinclined to back the latest incarnation of the mothership – or as Nash later revealed:
‘The combination of missing David’s voice and us having pressure from the record company to make it CSN made us see that he had to be involved.’
Now notoriously unreliable due to freebasing cocaine, Crosby, whose addiction had impacted on his ability to compose (‘I’d stopped writing all together’ he later confessed), now had to be accommodated on the music already created by Stills and Nash, the vocal parts where he would normally be found having been performed by star turns such as Art Garfunkel and more predominantly ex-Eagle Timothy B. Schmit.
Indeed, the involvement of Crosby was more tangible in terms of market forces than musical focus on the album that transpired as ‘DAYLIGHT AGAIN’ (June 1982).
The somewhat compromised nature of their resumption was reflected in a hollow, pedestrian record that finds the three protagonists adrift not only from the times, but perhaps more pertinently each other. Only their third offering in 13 years from this permutation of the cast, it is not entirely without merit, each of the central figures contributing at least one agreeable song – yet beginning with the belated inclusion of Crosby, the sense of afterthought is all pervading, the song writing prowess of Nash and Stills shown to be no more than fitful at best.
Given they were so identified with the late-60s ideals of peace and protest, these aspirations have apparently been left far behind as ‘Daylight Again’ contains nothing in the way of political comment. The early years of the Regan administration are paid no heed, unlike their dissenting stance during the bygone Nixon era – and while Stills is sometimes found in fatalistic mood, his complaints are rooted in personal dilemmas rather than the politics of the day.
This uneven 11-track collection of which he is the dominant contributor with a writing credit on six selections, opens with Stills taking lead vocal duties on ‘Turn Your Back On Love’, a track he wrote in conjunction with Nash and Michael Stergis, who also features on guitar and backing vocals. This terse, hard edged piece finds Stills reflecting on a relationship that has turned sour:
‘You’re dying to prove/That you are never wrong/You’re so right you’d rather be sad/But you won’t go along/You built a wall, didn’t ya/’Round what you’re thinking of/Never mind what anyone says/You’re turning your back on love.’
While unfailingly slick and prestine, it would sound more convincing if there was something to distinguish it from anything Christopher Cross or Toto could have easily concocted.
Built upon a framework of chiming acoustic guitars that hark back to his mid-60s days as a member of English hit makers The Hollies, Nash then weighs in with the instantly charming ‘Wasted on the Way.’ The writer reflects contentedly on his lot as a rock star approaching middle age (‘Look around me/I can see my life before me/Running rings around the way/It used to be/I am older now/I have more than what I wanted’), although he also ruefully contemplates the missed opportunities for meaningful collaboration that punctuate the CSN soap opera:
‘So much time to make up/Everywhere you turn/Time we have wasted on the way/So much water moving/Underneath the bridge/Let the water come and carry us away.’
Decorated further by a jaunty fiddle solo and soaring harmonies, the wistful, yet optimistic connotations struck a chord not just with the faithful, themselves growing older, but also beyond, ‘Wasted on the Way’ reaching number 7 on the U.S. singles chart which itself proved justification for this latest realignment.
It is followed by one of the other two peaks that can be found on ‘Daylight Again’, Stills taking a melody he picked up from Richard and Michael Curtis which under his auspices becomes ‘Southern Cross’. On being reshaped it incorporates familiar CSN subject matter – that of leaving the world to its problems in finding freedom at sea, a course of action first mooted on ‘Wooden Ships’ from their long-ago debut.
Against a backdrop of shimmering guitars, pointed percussion and uplifting background vocals, Stills is seeking solace out on the ocean from a fractured relationship (he had divorced 18 months before), while at the same time embracing the healing powers of expressing his emotions through a song:
‘So I’m sailing for tomorrow my dreams are a dyin’/And my love is an anchor tied to you tied with a silver chain/I have my ship and all her flags are a’ flyin’/She is all that I have left and music is her name.’
While it again begged the question of what about those without affluence or means to make a sea-bound escape from daily dilemmas, it is another engaging track and while the lyrical expressionism is more old hippie than new wave it does not diminish the accomplishment.
The remaining high spot is ‘Delta’ the only writing input from Crosby who submits a song he had recorded with a crew of top notch L.A. sessioneers including Russ Kunkel (drums), Leland Sklar (bass) and Craig Doerge (piano), three years before. Reminiscent of his resonant ‘Time after Time’ composition that featured on the ‘Whistling down the Wire’ album he recorded with Nash in 1976, through this serene piece Crosby conjures some striking if abstract word play in contemplating how the passing of time becomes immersed into experience:
‘Thoughts/Like scattered leaves/Slowed in mid fall/Into the streams/Of fast running rivers/Of choice and chance/And time stops here on the delta.’
It stands as a first rate piece within the parameters of his distinctive writing style, the author also producing a fine vocal performance in rounding off an impressive effort that showed Crosby, despite his self-destructive ways, was still capable of affecting work – just not with the regularity he had once managed. His other contribution, a cover of ‘Might As Well Have a Good Time’, a piano ballad written by keyboardist Doerge and his wife Judy Henske, strays close to Randy Newman territory as he delivers a plaintive lyric with cheery resignation, (‘Cause it ain’t long before it’s gone/You might as well have a good time’), the mood one of reconciling life with how it is rather than how it should be.
Through the two other tracks bearing his name Nash expresses concern for how Crosby is being consumed by addiction with ‘Into the Darkness’, while in contrast ‘Song for Susan’ is an affectionate ode to his wife.
The former represents an outpouring of frustration at the way his bandmate repeatedly succumbs to temptation, (‘Into the darkness soon you’ll be sinking/What are you doing? What can you be thinking/All of your friends have been trying to warn you/That some of your demons are dying to drag you‘), the blues/funk overtones of the piece reinforced by an insistent lyric (‘I see your face it is ghostly pale/Into the sunset we are watching you sail’).
For all its good intentions the song was unable to arrest a decline that would eventually lead to nine months incarceration in a Texas jail after Crosby was convicted of drugs and weapon related offences in the spring of 1985.
On the latter Nash exudes marital contentment (‘I’m putting all my troubles behind me/I don’t feel the same when I’m away from your smile/’Cause you you’re the one that can calm me down/Whenever I get wild’), the heartfelt, if somewhat mawkish lyrics, sitting atop of a gently lilting melody carrying country-rock inflections more in keeping with the early-70s than the brash new era of MTV.
While both can be heard as post-divorce assertions that moving on is the best available option, neither of the songs by Stills sequenced at the start of side two have much to commend them, each barely discernible in fact from anything say Poco or Andrew Gold could have been purveying. Second side opener ‘Since I Met You’ (another co-write with Stergis) and ‘Too Much Love to Hide’ (for which CSN road manager Gary Tolman also receives a writing credit), are both mediocre soft rock workouts, the energetic presentation unable to compensate for an absence of the resonance Stills could once muster almost by right.
Having on several occasions during his career to date sounded like a one-man Crosby, Stills and Nash, it is Dan Fogelberg who is evoked on the Stills-Stergis acoustic guitar ballad ‘You are Alive’ that even with an understated harmonica solo from Nash cannot quite dispel an air of being compromised and lethargic.
Concluded by the title track for which Stills was solely responsible, ‘Daylight Again’ summons up the American Civil War (‘I think I see a valley/Covered with bones in blue/All the brave soldiers that cannot get older/Been asking after you’), before it segues into ‘Find the Cost of Freedom’ a long-since CSNY show-stopper that was originally the B-side of incendiary 1970 single ‘Ohio.’
This latter-day medley was a spirited attempt to reassert the trio with their roots, setting their distinctive three-part harmony vocals (aided by Garfunkel on this occasion) against first the acoustic guitar and then banjo of Stills – but like the album in general it comes over as too contrived to be authentic, an assessment, broadly speaking, that applies to this particular instalment of their story.
As chapters go it was not without recompense, ‘Daylight Again’ going on to reveal CSN still had a sizeable audience in reaching number 8 on the U.S. album charts and while it restored them as viable recording and touring proposition, it cut little ice with the critics, one reviewer describing the L.P. as ‘Regurgitated post-hippie harmony clichés that should have been left in 1969.’
But with a hit record on their hands, Crosby Stills and Nash were for the moment back in business, even if internal manoeuvrings and external dissenting voices, not to mention the ongoing travails of Crosby, made them a flawed and fragile aggregation.
CROSBY, STILLS & NASH – DAYLIGHT AGAIN (Released June 21 1982):
Turn Your Back on Love/Wasted on the Way/Southern Cross/Into the Darkness/Delta/Since I Met You/Too Much Love to Hide/Song for Susan/You Are Alive/Might As Well Have a Good Time/Daylight Again/Find the Cost of Freedom;
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