Borrowing Neil Young after his triumphant stint with Crazy Horse
\n(on
\nEverybody Knows This Is Nowhere<\/i>) gave
\nDeja Vu<\/i> a harder edged sound than
\nCrosby, Stills, & Nash<\/i>, released the previous year.
\nYoung’s primary contribution is his cutting guitar, memorably
\ndueling with Stills’ more precise work on an electrified version of
\nJoni Mitchell’s “Woodstock.” His two writing contributions, the sad
\nbut beautiful “Helpless” and the dramatic epic “Country Girl,” are
\nalso stellar.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, the songwriting is more evenly spread than the
\nprevious offering, which Stills dominated. David Crosby lends the
\ntheatrical “Almost Cut My Hair,” ultimately deciding against it
\nbecause “I feel like letting my freak flag fly,” and the strange,
\nharmony laden title track. Though of course the harmonies are
\nhighlights (after all, that’s what gives this band their identity),
\nthese tracks take off because of the raw, intricate lead guitar and
\nabsorbing bass lines supplied by Greg Reeves.<\/p>\n
For his part, Graham Nash lends two ultra catchy dippy hippy
\nanthems. “Teach Your Children” features the prominent pedal steel
\nguitar of Jerry Garcia, while “Our House” is a slight domestic tale
\nwith cartoonish (but enjoyable) vocal harmonies. Nash was always
\nthe poppiest writer of the bunch; never was that more apparent than
\nhere.<\/p>\n
Stills’ “4 + 20” is a short acoustic ditty, and the Young\/Stills
\npenned “Everybody I Love You” contains a propulsive beat and
\nblaring guitar, but whose idealistic lyrics declared that this
\nWoodstock institution wasn’t ready to let that dream die, anchoring
\nthe 60’s to the 70’s. And Stills’ “Carry On” is probably their best
\nsong, whose clean harmonies are matched to daring basslines and
\nharsh guitar heroics, creating a captivating brew. Though obviously
\nthe product of a certain period (hell, it helped define an era),
\nDeja Vu<\/i> still sounds grand.<\/p>\n
Many people are surprised at the band’s meager recorded output
\n(it wasn’t until 1988’s underwhelming
\nAmerican Dream<\/i> that Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young got
\nback together in the studio, though they made two albums without
\nYoung in the meantime). Something always seemed to come between
\nthem to compromise their ability to make music together, most
\nnotably David Crosby’s drug problem. In truth, they made the Rock
\nn’ Roll Hall of Fame more because of their mythical stature and
\nhistorical importance than due to an impartial judging of their
\nrecorded output. However flawed, they were a band of many charms
\nwhose sum was clearly greater than their individual parts (except
\nfor Young, whose solo career easily dwarfs his fellow bandmates).
\nFor anyone who has ever wondered what the fuss was about with these
\nguys, their strengths were never more apparent than on
\nDeja Vu<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":24522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5822],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-35725","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-crosby-stills-nash-young","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35725"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35725"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}