Albums You Cannot Touch By Ichennig @ vinylcuz.wordpress 23 November 2009
The average music fan has probably avoided David CrosbyÕs first solo album for a number of reasons, most of them related to the fact that, in the years following its release, Crosby would go on to embody everything that was wrong with 1960Õs hippy utopianism: A junkie, a squandered talent, a paranoid blowhard who spouted peace and love but drove around with a .45 in the dash. A jailbird, a fatty, an undeserving organ recipient, and, most egregious of all, a baffling choice for sperm donor.
Yes, all these things Ñ and more Ñ are true about David Crosby. But how about the alternate history in which the Cros ODÕs in 1972 and never goes on to become the walrus weÕve all come to hate? Between Jim Morrison, Cass Elliot, Gram Parsons, and a host of other 60Õs/70Õs drug deaths, we sure memorialize the hell out of a lot less talent. Is it that we blame David Crosby for surviving? Can we not let the guy have his solo album, frozen perfectly in time like ÒPearlÓ and ÒElectric LadylandÓ?
I say let the music speak for itself.
Crosby was a singular talent. The Byrds, his first band, were the originators of California folk-rock: the idea that backbeat music could have thoughtful lyrics (and vice-versa). A lot of ink has been spilt about how the Beatles and Bob Dylan influenced each otherÕs music, but really itÕs the Byrds who are the connective tissue. They gave DylanÕs songs a melodic, John-and-Paul-caliber vocal beauty without complicating the straightforward three-chord structures. CrosbyÕs role was that of supporting vocalist / rhythm guitarist. HeÕs the one hitting the harmonies on ÒMr. Tambourine ManÓ and ÒEight Miles HighÓ, and was the unsung collaborator (with Roger McGuinn) on the hugely influential ÒjangleÓ electric guitar sound.
But you probably know more about the second band. Formed shortly after he was kicked out of The Byrds for various offenses (talking out of his ass onstage at Monterey Pop, penning a song about a threesome, growing a moustache), Crosby, Stills and Nash (and Young) would signal CrosbyÕs rise as a songwriter and lead vocalist. There was still plenty of that harmony out front in the mixÐ Crosby would hit the most resonant tones of his career as the clutch third vocalist, slinking in just above or below StillsÕs lead, soothing over NashÕs dry tenor. But CSNY was ultimately founded as a songwriterÕs collective, each member allowed to realize his own stylistic vision with help from the others. For Crosby, this was a chance to merge his acoustic folk cred with a childhood love of jazz. For example, a song like ÔGuinnevereÕ, all hippy signifiers aside, ultimately gets its trippy-yet-sanguine sound from a jazz-like reaching for the unknown (courtesy of CrosbyÕs patented EBDGAD tuning) while simultaneously adhering to a folky rubric of verse-chorus-verse.
But I wasnÕt born yesterday: David Crosby liked to smoke the weed. All the damn time. In fact, by the time you get to If I Could Only Remember My Name and its cavalcade of guest stars, you realize that CrosbyÕs stash should probably be given a production credit for its role in getting everybody in the roomÉ
So quickly: The first CSN album drops in May of 1969. A mostly low-key, acoustic affair, it takes the world by storm and lays the track for the California singer-songwriter movement. Three months later they play Woodstock, conscript Neil Young as full-time guitarist, and begin to ride a distinctly post-Woodstock wave of large venue concert promotion to sell-outs on both sides of the Atlantic. The shows get kinda uglyÉ not very true to the original, intimate aestheticÉ but no bother: the sophomore album comes out in early 1970. Long in gestation, DŽjˆ vu delivers on all fronts, featuring top material from every member of the group.
More electric tours, more hype. It isnÕt long before CSNY completely blows its wad (see: the coked-up 1974 stadium tour), and we can stop paying attention. But just before the fallout Ñ look closely! Ñ we get a surprisingly decent round of solo albumsÉ
The third to be released, CrosbyÕs If I Could Only Remember My Name is by far the most interesting of the set. Recorded in San Francisco, where heÕd been living out of his docked sailboat, Crosby brought to the studio a backlog of meticulously crafted songs, a peaking confidence at the mic, and, as mentioned above, the finest smoke in the Pacific time zone. So Jerry and the Grateful Dead rhythm section drop by to serve as backing band. The AirplaneÕs Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady sit in on a couple, as do Greg Rolie and Michael Shrieve of Santana.
But even with the guests, the mix never gets messy. ItÕs also an extremely well-sequenced album, with no two songs sounding exactly alike. ÒMusic Is LoveÓ, the naked, improvised opener, gives way to ÒCowboy MovieÓ, a surging, eight-minute epic chronicling a saucy bit of gossip from a CSNY tour (the boys are all after the same groupieÉ but sheÕs actually a cop!?!). Recalling the howling ÒAlmost Cut My HairÓ from DŽjˆ vu, CrosbyÕs vocal on ÒCowboyÓ is loose and live. But then the pace slows way upÉ Crosby lays off lyrics altogether until ÒLaughingÓ, the albumÕs shimmering, 12-string centerpiece.
The hippy orgy jumps the shark on ÒWhat Are Their NamesÓ, a hypnotic jam that builds gradually from Jerry and NeilÕs snaking electric leads into the lone vocal passage: an unmistakably Crosbian litany of vague hippy ****, delivered banshee-style by no fewer than Crosby, Nash, Garcia, Lesh, Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Joni Mitchell, and one of the dudes from Quicksilver Messenger Service:
I wonder who they are / the men who really run this land / and I wonder why they run it / with such a thoughtless hand / What are their names? / and on what streets do they live? / IÕd like to ride over this afternoon and hear / them make peace of my mind / about peace for mankind / peace is not an awful lot to askÉ Harsh again gives way to chill, and the album glides to the finish. ÒTraction in the RainÓ is a drumless rumination about going out for fresh air. ÒSong Without WordsÓ is a song without words, while ÒOrleansÓ is sung in French. Crosby even loses his guitar for the closer, ÒIÕd Swear There Was Somebody HereÓ: stepping into the void, he retains only his voice, and a dozen, echoed fragments.
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"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music".
-Aldous Huxley
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