Crosby / Nash
Graham Nash / David Crosby

*NOTE: There is a mark that plays 17 times at a light to moderate level about 1/2 way into track 2 on side 1, "Whole Cloth."

*NOTE: This record was not noisy enough to rate our M-- to EX++ grade, but it's not quite up to our standards for Mint Minus Minus either. If you're looking for quiet vinyl, this is probably not the best copy for you.

Where in the world did all the Midrange Magic that we were hearing on this copy of the album come from?

On a song like "Where Will I Be" the sound is so unbelievably transparent, open and intimate it sounds like an outtake from David Crosby’s first album, one of the ten best sounding rock records ever made.

I was in high school when I first played this album and I remember being disappointed with it, mostly because I was expecting another Deja Vu. As I've grown older, I have come to appreciate other qualities in a recording than those found on Deja Vu.

I've come to appreciate this album for what it is: not the grand musical statement that Deja Vu is, but a simpler, more intimate portrait of two artists at the start of a lifelong, harmonious collaboration (which ended prior to Crosby's passing because he was such a jerk). 

This is a damn fine batch of songs they've written and the two men sing them well.

What The Best Sides Of Graham Nash / David Crosby Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1972
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there's more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

What We're Listening For On Graham Nash / David Crosby

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren't "back there" somewhere, lost in the mix. They're front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
• The Big Sound comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
• Then transient information -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
• Tight punchy bass -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
• Next: transparency -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
• Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

You Know All These Guys

• Danny Kortchmar — electric guitar
• Jerry Garcia — pedal steel guitar; electric guitar
• Dave Mason — electric guitar
• Craig Doerge — electric piano; piano; organ
• Leland Sklar — bass
• Phil Lesh — bass
• Greg Reeves — bass
• Russ Kunkel — drums
• Johnny Barbata — drums
• Bill Kreutzmann — drums

Vinyl Condition

Mint Minus Minus and maybe a bit better is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)

Those of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don't have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful originals.

If you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that's certainly your prerogative, but we can't imagine losing what's good about this music -- the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight -- just to hear it with less background noise.

Side One

• Southbound Train

This song would be right at home on Graham Nash's first album, a Desert Island Disc for me. This gets side one off to a great start.

• Whole Cloth
• Blacknotes
• Strangers Room
• Where Will I Be?

The best sound on side one, and a great test track. When the chorus of voices really starts pushing the meter, most copies will run into harmonic distortion trouble. Only the truly Hot Stampers manage to keep the loudest parts of the song clean and clear.

• Page 43

Listen for the attack of the snare; so many copies have that cardboardy drum sound we have to put up with on albums from this era, but the best ones get a nice crisp attack to the snare that really sells it.

Side Two

• Frozen Smiles
• Games
• Girl to Be on My Mind
• The Wall Song
• Immigration Man

Love the music. The sound... uh, not so much. Still, the best copies tend to minimize the distortion and maximize the sweetness and richness.

AMG 4 Star Review

This self-titled release is one of — if not arguably the — most impressive side project to arise from CSN. Taken beyond face value, Graham Nash/David Crosby is a direct reflection, if not an extension, of the musical and personal relationship between its co-creators. Likewise, the results remain true, enhancing rather than detracting from the very individualistic styles of Crosby and Nash. The best elements of each are readily available here, punctuated at every turn by their complicated vocal arrangements and air-lock harmonies.