How the Stars Aligned to Create Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young
There are certain serendipitous moments in which all the stars in the universe seem to align to create something truly magical. Moments in which all the puzzle pieces fall perfectly into place. The birth of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young was one of those moments.
From the very beginning, CSNY seemed guaranteed to be a success. Each member had already held a place in another prominent band of the 60s, and in some cosmic stroke of luck, they would each come together to form one supergroup oozing with talent.
The origins of CSNY can be traced back to David Crosby’s forced removal from The Byrds over a songwriting disagreement in ’67. The guitarist found himself in the right place at the right time, however, when he attended the Monterey Pop Festival that same year. Moments before Buffalo Springfield filed on stage to do their set, Neil Young had quit the band — Crosby just happened to be close by. He would fill in for Young and befriend fellow guitarist Stephen Stills.
It wasn’t long before Buffalo Springfield would dissolve entirely, leaving Stills a musician without a band, much like Crosby. Finding themselves in similar positions, the two would meet informally and jam, even spending days out on Crosby’s schooner, on which they would eventually write “Wooden Ships” alongside Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner.
Across the ocean, Graham Nash was playing with the prominent English band, The Hollies. In what might only be called a stroke of divine timing, The Hollies ventured to California in 1968. Nash had already encountered Crosby when The Byrds had toured the UK, and he would finally run into Stills at a party in the home of Monkee Peter Tork. Nash was entranced by some loonie absolutely “banging the shit out of” a piano — the loonie being Stephen Stills.
In July, Nash invited Stills and Crosby to work on a song Stills had composed, entitled “You Don’t Have to Cry.” The trio worked on the piece and immediately discovered how well their voices gelled. Without even trying, Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s voices would merge as one, filling the air with almost palpable harmonies. They stared at each other wide-eyed, breaking into raucous laughter as the realization that history was indeed repeating itself dawned on them — The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and The Hollies had each been harmony bands. Nash would later say, “Whatever sound Crosby, Stills, and Nash has was born in 30 seconds. That’s how long it took us to harmonize.”
After seeing the chemistry between him, Crosby, and Stills, Nash quit The Hollies. The trio would then audition for The Beatles’ Apple Records, albeit unsuccessfully. They would eventually be signed by Ahmet Ertegun (the same man to sign Led Zeppelin at around the same time) to Atlantic Records in California. From each of their individual experiences with bands, the three members agreed they should name the band after themselves, ensuring that if one left, the others could not go on. And so Crosby, Stills, and Nash was born — but the last puzzle piece had yet to fall into place.
In May 1969, CSN would release their eponymously titled first album: Crosby, Stills, and Nash. An immediate success, the album would spend 107 weeks on the Billboard album chart, peaking at #6.
During the recording of the album, Stills had been awarded the moniker “Captain Many Hands,” for he’d handled most of the instrumentation. Stills had provided lead guitar, bass, and keyboards for every song. It was a truly remarkable feat that would undoubtedly complicate any prospective tours. They soon realized they’d need more personnel if they ever wanted to play live and endeavored to find a keyboard player. Ertegun immediately suggested Neil Young — to which he was met with two definitive nos.
Stills had already been in a band with Young and was immediately apprehensive. After finally creating something of his own, he was reluctant to relive his days in Buffalo Springfield. The other “No” had come from Graham Nash. Nash didn’t know Young, but he’d heard what others had to say about him:
“It was like lobbing a live grenade into a vacuum. Neil was a guy with immense talent who was utterly self-centered. Bands for him were merely stepping-stones, way stations to a personal goal. That’s the way it had gone down with Buffalo Springfield. They could never count on him at crunch time, never be sure he would turn up at gigs… I didn’t want Neil in the band — I didn’t want anybody else in the band — and I said as much.”
Stills would eventually come around to the prospect of letting Young into the band, but Nash was much more staunch in his decision. After much cajoling, he finally agreed to meet with Young.
“Turns out Neil Young was a funny motherf — -er… Now, maybe he understood that I was the group’s lone holdout where he was concerned and he was on his best behavior, but at the end of breakfast, I would have nominated him to be the prime minister of Canada. Based on his personality and my intuition, I went back to the guys and said, ‘I get it — he’s in. Let’s give it a shot.’”
The heavens parted as the trio became a quartet — or perhaps more likely, the trio now fell under the leadership of Neil Young.
The newly minted Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young would be baptized by fire, performing for only the second time ever at Woodstock — a terrifying way to be introduced to the world. Nonetheless, CSNY would deliver a dazzling performance and carve out a place for themselves in music history. A true supergroup, CSNY seemed destined to come together from the very beginning.
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