They rehearsed in Britain and then searched for a label they auditioned for Apple Records and were rejected, but found a home with Ahmet Ertegun's Atlantic Records. The three musicians quickly traveled to London so that Nash could officially quit the Hollies.

In that roiling aftermath of grief and anger, what Crosby, Stills and Nash forged at that impromptu Laurel Canyon jam augured a refreshed direction for acoustic-driven rock and the articulation of dissent. in April, and the ghastly drone of the Vietnam War. Kennedy, the arrest of James Earl Ray that same month for the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. That summer of CSN's birth was a bleak time in America, a nation reeling following the June assassination of Senator Robert F. Their intuitive convergence that day, singing Stills' prescient song, 'You Don't Have To Cry,' is one of rock 'n' roll's more divine examples of serendipity. At the time, all three musicians were in rocky transitions from their former or soon-to-be-former bands: the Byrds (Crosby), Buffalo Springfield (Stills), and the Hollies (Nash). Whether the trio's impromptu set took place in Joni Mitchell's living room (that's Nash and Crosby's story) or by Mama Cass Elliot's dining room table (what Stills recalls) could be argued into infinity. All four would never deny their mercurial history as collaborators and friends-turned-foes, but at a critical juncture, they harnessed their collective egos and set aside solo aspirations to create a band that, as either a quartet or trio, still defines this country's counterculture soul.įifty years ago, Crosby, Stills and Nash's first private performance took place in July 1968 at a gathering (or party) that's the stuff of Laurel Canyon legend - and some disagreement between Crosby, Stills and Nash. From the ornate grandeur of 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes' to one of the most stirring protest songs ever written, 'Ohio,' it's hard to imagine a soundtrack of the late Sixties and early Seventies without the songs of David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and Neil Young.

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