this record kicks serious butt!
I just recently obtained copies of both this title and deja vu. For the best possible listening experience, burn both albums on one cdr (both fit on an 80 minute cd), then sit back and enjoy! I especially like to play this on my drive to work, my lunch break, and sometimes again on the drive home. I have been familiar w the So Far album for many years since i first bought it on cassette at a used record store back in the nineties. 'so far' was my initiation to their music. Now, many years later, I score a copy of their debut and the whole thing just rocks.
1. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes -great song. a little played out on fm radio. loved this cut when i heard it on 'so far' cassette
2. Marrakesh Express -my favourite cut on the album. it was supposedly a song nash wrote for the hollies but they rejected it. it sounds kind of paul simonish (and i like paul simon's music a lot too)
3. Guinnevere - cool mellow song. have to be in the mood for it sometimes.
4. You Don't Have To Cry -i love this song. awesome harmonies. makes me wonder why the heck i waited so long to get this album.
5. Pre-Road Downs -another cool gem. cool backwards guitar.
6. Wooden Ships -another tune i was already acquainted with via 'so far' cassette. cool, but i have to be in the mood for it
7. Lady Of The Island -really nice song by nash. very mellow acoustic love song.
8. Helplessly Hoping- another song i really love. especially after watching CSN's acoustic dvd from '91.
9. Lone Time Gone -cool track by Crosby. one of the better rock tracks with great guitar and harmonies
10. 49 Bye-Byes - like this song. used to skip it at first but it definitely grows on you

Delightful
Hugely influencial folk/rock/country/harmony pop album of some brilliance. Still affecting new creations like Triumph Unseen by Nick Worrall or the new Fleet Foxes releases in a more or less direct way this album deserves its place in the catalogue of greats. Melodic, moody, creative and very harmonious it soothes and excites at the same time. Unforgettable.

Crosby Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills & Nash
This Group had the best harmony of any Pop Grop of the 60s and 70s era.
I Still like to listen to this group 35 years later.

crosby stills and nash are in top form
Crosby, Stills and Nash were a very successful soft/folk rock band in the late 60's and early 70's. A band that mainly focused on the vocals that easily had their own distinct sound and style compared to other singers back then. Artists like Seals and Crofts would go on to imitate that vocal style, and while I love them as well, there's nothing like the original Crosby, Stills and Nash lineup with their big classic album in the early days.

They are now considered an important part in the development of soft rock, and while the more mellow songs are quite tasty and rich, they can hold their own with the electric guitar too. We can't forget they were a band created during a time that saw more experimentation than the world was probably ready for. Rock and roll was all over the place, in terms of creativity and diversity.

I like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield more (and of course Neil Young's solo career) but we can't deny the beauty and excellent songwriting of this album. We just can't deny it.

CROSBY, STILLS & NASH: THE BEGINNING. (their classic debut still stands as one of their best albums)
Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969) is the classic debut album from one of rock n' roll's first supergroups. David Crosby (The Byrds), Stephen Stills (Buffalo Springfield), and Graham Nash (The Hollies) recorded this, their first album, for Atlantic Records after failing an audition with The Beatles' Apple Records (What?!?!). The most distinctive features of CSN's sound are their wonderful vocals harmonies and the use of acoustic guitars in their song arrangements.

The album opens with the quickness of Stephen Stills' crisp acoustic guitar sound in Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, a song Stills wrote about the end of his relationship with former girlfriend, singer Judy Collins. The song is an extraordinary mix of sad desperation, beautiful harmonies, and vigorous six-string acoustics. Marrakesh Express is Graham Nash's organ driven and bouncy tune about a travel route that hippies used in the 1960s (it was notorious for being used to transport the famed Moroccan hashish). Nash even references pot in the song with the line, "Don't forget the roaches". These first two songs on the album were also hit singles for the group. David Crosby's Guinnevere is one of the best songs here, and one of the most intriguing songs CSN has ever done. An alternate tuning on David's acoustic guitar, quiet harmonies, and lyrics that describe a ghostly medievil maiden give the song a strange and subtle aura of sad beauty. Wooden Ships is a David Crosby/Stephen Stills/Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane) collaboration, and a rocking electric guitar and organ song of war and the apocalypse. David and Stephen share co-lead vocals on the song. I also like Stephen Stills' acoustic Helplessly Hoping, a song about longing for love and how fear keeps people from finding it.

Stand by the stairway
You'll see something
Certain to tell you
Confusion has it's cost
Love isn't lying
It's loose in a lady
Who lingers
Saying she is lost
And choking
...on hello

The group's harmonies work magic on that one, too. Long Time Gone rocks with electric guitars and a bluesy vocal performance from David Crosby.

Crosby, Stills & Nash is a classic album, a piece of rock n' roll history, really. It's acoustic guitar crispness, pristine vocal harmonies, and 1960s hippie relevance make it sort of a monument to the movement of peace and love in that tumultuous era. And, oh yeah! There are some great songs on Crosby, Stills & Nash, too!