The Mojo Collection. Various Mojo Magazine
3, 1969
Released: May 29, 1969
Chart peaks: 25 (UK) 6 (US)
Personnel: David Crosby (v, rg); Stephen Stills (g, b, o, v); Graham Nash (v); Dallas Taylor (d); Bill Halverson (e)
Track listing: Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (S); Marrakesh Express (S); Guinevere; You Don’t Have To Cry; Pre-Road Downs; Wooden Ships; Lady Of The Island; Helplessly Hoping; Long Time Gone; 49 Bye-Byes
Running time: 40.57
Current CD: Warners 8122732902 adds: Do For The Others; Song With No Words; Everybody’s Talkin’; Teach Your Children
Further listening: The Best Of Crosby Stills And Nash boxed set (1991)
Further reading: The Complete Guide To The Music Of Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young (Johnny Rogan, 1998); Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young: The Visual Documentary (Johnny Rogan, 1996); www.crosbystillsnash.com
Download: Not currently legally available
Disillusioned by the commerciality of his work with The Hollies, and increasingly beguiled by the burgeoning underground music scene in the States, Graham Nash was spending more and more time with ex-Byrd David Crosby and former Buffalo Springfield kingpin Stephen Stills. The three were already united by a love of dope and good music when they discovered the flawless compatibility of their voices. Crosby and Stills were working out one of the latter’s compositions, You Don’t Have To Cry, when, as an experiment, Nash added an irresistible third harmony.
‘It was,’ Stills reflected, ‘one of those moments.’
Crosby, Stills & Nash were, on paper, an unbeatable combination, and much was riding on their debut album. They began rehearsing together at Notting Hill’s Moscow Road in late 1968, with The Beatles’ Blackbird as an early vocal try-out, and all three brought their best material to the sessions. Nash, who had been chafing at what he saw as The Hollies’ musical conservatism, supplied the drug-infused Marrakesh Express and Pre-Road Downs; Crosby contributed the beguiling Guinevere and timely Long Time Gone; but it was Stills who felt he had most to prove, and his were the lengthy opening (Suite: Judy Blue Eyes) and closer (49 Bye-Byes), as well as the inimitable Helplessly Hoping – the one song on the album that indicated the trio’s potential for true greatness.
Harmonically intricate and musically potent, the album was more than just a calling card for Messrs Crosby, Stills & Nash; it was an album very much of its time, an Us vs Them broadside across the Hippy–Straight divide. The album spoke directly to the millions of young people who, while disillusioned by a society they saw as without values and despairing of inequality, were also terrified of getting drafted to fight in the war that was raging in Vietnam. Besides the knowing drug innuendoes and heavy emphasis on ‘ladies’, there was Stills’ Spanish coda to Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – a plea to President Nixon to let US citizens visit Cuba.
Short of a fourth member for touring, Neil Young, Stills’ old sparring partner from Buffalo Springfield, was recruited, and within three months of this album’s release, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were playing at Woodstock – it was only their second gig, but the world had got its first supergroup.
Judy Henske & Jerry Yester
Farewell Aldebaran
The definitive space-blues-Arthurian-bubblegum album.
Record label: Straight
Produced: Jerry Yester and Zal Yanovsky
Recorded: February–March 1969
Released: June 1969
Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)
Personnel: Judy Henske (v); Jerry Yester (k, Moog, g, banjo, zither); Zal Yanovsky (g, b); Ry Cooder (rhythm mandolin); David Lindley (bowed banjo); Solomon Feldthouse (dulcimer); Toxey French (d); Larry Beckett (d); Jerry Scheff (b); Joe Osborn (b); Dick Rosmini (g)
Track listing: Snowblind; Horses On A Stick; Lullaby; St Nicholas Hall; Three Ravens; Raider; One More Time; Rapture; Charity; Farewell Aldebaran
Running time: 33.48
Current CD: Code7 RRCD133.
Further listening: Judy Henske’s solo LPs, High Flyin’ Bird (1963) and Little Bit Of Sunshine (1965)
Further reading: www.tctv.ne.jp/members/msite/jerryyester/JHJY6901.html (fan site); www.judyhenskefan.com (fan site)
Download: Not currently legally available
Signed to Frank Zappa’s Straight label, former Lovin’ Spoonful member Jerry Yester and his singer/songwriter wife Judy Henske created a forgotten classic. Its 10 songs range from surreal rock (Snowblind) and spoof bubblegum (Horses On A Stick) to Arthurian folk rock (Three Ravens) and, on the title track, full-blown avant-garde composition, owing more to Stockhausen or Sun Ra than the pop psych of the Spoonful.
The couple got together in 1962 when Henske was in vogue as a pop singer with a distinctive, lusty voice and Yester was her accompanist. Jerry then joined the Modern Folk Quartet and Judy signed to Elektra where she made several albums with Herb Cohen as producer, scoring a hit with High Flying Bird (later recorded by Jefferson Airplane). When Jerry was invited to join The Lovin’ Spoonful the couple moved to New York and started writing together. When the Spoonful finally split, Cohen suggested they move back to California and record for Straight.
With help from Jerry’s Spoonful comrade Zal Yanovsky, they began to graft musical flesh onto the songs they’d written. Powerful opening track Snowblind was a testament to the skills of this experienced line-up.
‘We wrote the song kind of as we did it,’ reveals Yester. ‘I was playing rhythm guitar, Zal was playing lead, Judy was singing and Larry Beckett [ex-Tim Buckley] was playing drums. The whole thing just took shape in an hour.’ Another stellar moment is the closing, title track, which leaves pop and rock trajectories to enter another musical orbit.
‘I loved the idea of a huge asteroid burning up in our atmosphere and telling its story,’ says Jerry. Creating the apocalyptic voice of this imagined invader involved some unusual techniques. ‘For the voice of the asteroid, we put Judy’s voice through a series of ring modulators, took all the actual tone out and just made it all overtones.’
Despite some rave critical response, Farewell Aldebaran crashed to earth. Henske and Yester went on to form the short-lived Rosebud until their marriage collapsed and they went their separate ways.
Kaleidoscope (US)
Incredible
Apogee of these undervalued American avatars of acid rock comes with Middle-Eastern spice.
Record label: Epic
Produced: Jackie Mills
Recorded: 1969
Released: June 1969
Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)
Personnel: David Lindley (g, vn, banjo, v); Solomon Feldthouse (g, o, clarinet, caz, jumbus, v); Templeton Parcely (vn, o, v); Stuart A Brotman (b, v); Paul Lagos (d, v); Max Buda (hm); Bob Breault (e)
Track listing: Lie To Me; Let The Good Love Flow; Tempe Arizona aka Killing Floor (S/US only); Petite Fleur; Banjo; Cuckoo; Seven-Ate Sweet
Running time: 30.58
Current CD: Edsel EDCD 533