Crosby, Stills, and Nash CSN CD

Crosby, Stills & Nash: David Crosby (vocals, acoustic guitar); Stephen Stills (vocals, guitar, piano, timbales); Graham Nash (vocals, piano, harmonica).
Additional personnel: Joe Vitale (piano, organ, flute, drums, tympani, vibes, percussion); Craig Doerge (piano); Tim Drummond, Gerald Johnson, George Perry (bass); Russ Kunkel (drums, congas); Ray Barretto (congas).
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
Crosby, Stills & Nash: David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash.
Additional personnel includes: Neil Young (vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica); James Taylor (vocals, acoustic guitar); Joni Mitchell (vocals); Jimi Hendrix, Dave Mason, Donnie Dacus, Chris Hillman, Danny Kortchmar, Jimmy Page (guitar); Jerry Garcia, Al Perkins (pedal steel guitar); David Lindley (fiddle); Branford Marsalis (soprano saxophone); John Sebastian (harmonica); Carole King (keyboards); Bruce Palmer, Jack Casady, Phil Lesh, Leland Sklar (bass); Dallas Taylor, Bill Kreutzmann, Russ Kunkel (drums); Rita Coolidge, Fred Neil (background vocals).
Recorded between 1969 & 1990. Includes liner notes by Chet Flippo.
The times had certainly changed since Déjà Vu's release in 1970. Nevertheless, there was a hunger in audiences for a return to the harmony-soaked idealism with which the trio had been catapulted to popularity, and CSN consequently reached number two on the charts, behind Fleetwood Mac's megasuccessful Rumours. The music here is very good, though probably not up to the hard-to-match level of Crosby, Stills & Nash or Déjà Vu. Still, the songs showed a great deal of lyrical maturity and compositional complexity compared to those earlier albums (from a far more innocent time). "Just a Song Before I Go" was the latest of Graham Nash's radio-friendly acoustic numbers, and a Top Ten single. "See the Changes" and "Dark Star" ranked with the best of Stephen Stills' work, while David Crosby contributed three classics from his distinctive oeuvre: "Shadow Captain," "Anything at All," and the beautiful "In My Dreams." Nash's multi-part "Cathedral," a recollection of an acid trip taken in Winchester Cathedral on his 32nd birthday, became a staple of the group's live repertoire. CSN was the trio's last fully realized album, and also the last recording on which the three principals handled all the vocal parts without the sweetening of additional voices. It has held up remarkably well, both as a memento of its time and as a thoroughly enjoyable musical work. ~ Jim Newsom
This 77-track, four-CD set remains one of the best boxes devoted to a single music act that one can buy, covering the output of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young across 22 years, from 1968 until 1990. The first thing that becomes apparent, beyond the excellent sound (which was a revelation at the time, when only extant editions of the group's work were the early, substandard CD editions), is the sheer worth of the material. Crosby, Stills & Nash's reputation, based on their first four albums, can be taken as a given for anyone who would think of buying this set, and it does cover virtually every base that one could involving the trio, with an occasional Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cut included for completeness' sake. Disc one by itself should be worth the price of the set to serious fans, eight of its 18 tracks being previously unissued songs (including a version of the Beatles' "Blackbird") and unissued early demos, alternate takes, or variant mixes on songs from the Crosby, Stills & Nash or Déjà Vu albums, along with one Crosby & Nash outtake. Disc two is similarly filled with previously unheard songs and versions of songs, although here the rarities are more focused on material by Stephen Stills (including a Crosby, Stills & Young version of "Black Queen"), Graham Nash solo, and the Crosby & Nash duo. Disc three is devoted more to Manassas and Crosby & Nash, but does work in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's "Taken at All" and "See the Changes" from various attempts at doing alb