Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The first and most complete narrative biography of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, by acclaimed music journalist and Rolling Stone contributing editor David Browne, in time for the band's 50th anniversary Fifty years ago this spring, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash released their first album as a group; Crosby, Stills & Nash became a landmark in harmony singing and counterculture values, and after Neil Young joined up with them for 1970's D j vu, their supergroup status was cemented. With its distinctive, iconic front men, its current-events songs, and its very structure, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young embodied nearly every aspect of their era.
The five decades since have seen the band break up, reunite, and splinter again on a regular basis--making for not only some of rock's most indelible music but also one of the its most riveting and ongoing soap operas, a decades-long story of four men whose intertwining lives, music, and careers have transcended music to become the story of the successes and challenges of the boomer generation itself.
Featuring new interviews with band members, colleagues, fellow musicians, and former lovers, plus access to unreleased music and documents, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is the first and most up-to-date narrative biography of this legendary band. From the same author who gave us the acclaimed Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY, and the Lost Story of 1970, this book takes readers inside the creative process of albums both finished and abandoned, the inspirations behind the songs and the dust-ups, and the difficulties each man faced along the way. This is the sweeping story of rock's longest-running, most dysfunctional, yet most influential and artistically rewarding musical family.
Synopsis
"In what is the most comprehensive biography of the group to date, Browne compiles a fun and fast-paced music history.... an authoritative chronicle." --Publishers Weekly
The first and most complete narrative biography of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, by acclaimed music journalist and Rolling Stone senior writer David Browne Even in the larger-than-life world of rock and roll, it was hard to imagine four more different men. David Crosby, the opinionated hippie guru. Stephen Stills, the perpetually driven musician. Graham Nash, the tactful pop craftsman. Neil Young, the creatively restless loner. But together, few groups were as in sync with their times as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Starting with the original trio's landmark 1969 debut album, the group embodied much about its era: communal musicmaking, protest songs that took on the establishment and Richard Nixon, and liberal attitudes toward partners and lifestyles. Their group or individual songs--"Wooden Ships," "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "After the Gold Rush," "For What It's Worth" (with Stills and Young's Buffalo Springfield), "Love the One You're With," "Long Time Gone," "Just a Song Before I Go," "Southern Cross"--became the soundtrack of a generation.
But their story would rarely be as harmonious as their legendary and influential vocal blend. In the years that followed, these four volatile men would continually break up, reunite, and disband again--all against a backdrop of social and musical change, recurring disagreements and jealousies, and self-destructive tendencies that threatened to cripple them both as a group and as individuals.
In Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock's Greatest Supergroup, longtime music journalist and Rolling Stone writer David Browne presents the ultimate deep dive into rock and roll's most musical and turbulent brotherhood on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Featuring exclusive interviews with David Crosby and Graham Nash along with band members, colleagues, fellow superstars, former managers, employees, and lovers-and with access to unreleased music and documents--Browne takes readers backstage and onstage, into the musicians' homes, recording studios, and psyches, to chronicle the creative and psychological ties that have bound these men together--and sometimes torn them apart. This is the sweeping story of rock's longest-running, most dysfunctional, yet pre-eminent musical family, delivered with the epic feel their story rightly deserves.