Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Everybody's Alone (1969)

For a complete lowdown on unissued Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young songs then head over to Paul's site for CSN and CSNY, but I wanted to post this album as I've had this bootleg CD for many years and it's probably the unofficial album that I play the most. Crosby, Stills & Nash's first self-titled album was released in May 1969 and was an immediate hit, spawning two Top 40 hit singles and receiving key airplay on the new FM radio format. With the exception of drummer Dallas Taylor, Stills had handled the lion's share of the instrumental parts himself, and although it was a testament to his talent, it left the band in need of additional personnel to be able to tour, now a necessity given the debut album’s commercial success. Retaining Taylor, the band decided initially to hire a keyboard player, and Stills at one point approached Steve Winwood, who declined. Atlantic label head Ahmet Ertegün suggested Canadian singer/songwriter Neil Young as a fairly obvious choice, and despite initial reservations by Stills and Nash (Stills owing to his history with Young in Buffalo Springfield, and Nash due to his personal unfamiliarity with Young) the trio eventually expanded to a quartet with Young a full partner. With Young on board, the restructured group went on tour in the late summer of 1969 through the following January. Between tour dates the band convened at Wally Heider's Studio between June and November 1969, and laid down some tracks for a proposed second album, although as it turned out most of the songs remained unreleased until the box sets started to appear. The recordings are all in superb quality, and highlights include beautiful alternate recordings of 'Triad' and 'The Lee Shore', a gorgeous in-studio take of 'Blackbird', and a lovely rendition of the Fred Neil track 'Everybody’s Talkin’', which Harry Nilsson made popular on the 'Midnight Cowboy' soundtrack. I've made a few edits to some of the songs and trimmed the track listing, but I've kept the basic layout of the cover, and just upgraded it by replacing the black and white photos with colour ones. I've also re-titled it, as 'Studio Archives 1969' was a bit bland. Paul has spread these songs over a number of his albums, so you could treat this as a sampler, and if you like what you hear then there's loads more out there for you to enjoy. 

Track listing

01 How Have You Been (John Sebastian cover) Recording Date Unknown 
02 Everyday We Live (Stephen Stills) Recorded at Wally Heider's Studio 1969 
03 Everybody's Talkin' (Fred Neil cover) Recording Date Unknown 
04 Sea Of Madness (Studio Take) Recorded at Wally Heider's Studio 1969 
05 Triad (Acoustic Studio Take) Recording Date Unknown
06 The Lee Shore (Different vocal take) Recorded at Stephen Stills' Home Studio 1969 
07 I'll Be There (Stephen Stills) Recorded at Wally Heider's Studio 1969 
08 Blackbird (Beatles cover) Recorded at Wally Heider's Studio 1969 
09 Ivory Tower (Stephen Stills) Recorded at Wally Heider's Studio 1969 
10 Everybody's Alone (Neil Young) Recorded at Wally Heider's Studio 1969. 
11 You're Wrong Baby (Graham Nash) Recorded at Wally Heider's Studio 1969
12 30 Dollar Fine (Stephen Stills) Recorded at Wally Heider's Studio 1969