Saturday, April 28, 2007

A World in Harmony

I've always had slightly mixed feelings about live albums. For me they've always fallen into two categories, you had to be there or why not listen to the original songs in their original settings. However, there are a few exceptions. Live albums that have material that has not been recorded elsewhere by the artists, or where the moment is so special that it has a reason to exist all of its own. That's why we have David Crosby & Graham Nash's ‘Another Stoney Evening’ as the album of the week.

As the title might suggest this album captures a loose evening in Los Angeles back in 1971. What the title doesn't tell you is that this is harmony singing of the highest order, by two of the greatest exponents of the art to have graced rock; it's also just two voices and two guitars. It features songs that are now considered classics but back then they were still relatively new. The beautiful 'Laughing', 'Triad' and 'Lee Shore' all written by Crosby and Nash's 'Teach Your Children Well', 'Immigration Man' and 'Used To Be King'. It's difficult to pick out the standouts but 'Traction in The Rain', 'Guinevere' 'Lee Shore' and 'Triad' are stunning. The latter song is the one that hastened Crosby's departure from his former band - the Byrds.

For me David Crosby is a genius who with all the attention afforded Neil Young, and originally Stephen Stills, has somehow failed to get the recognition he deserves.

You can buy it HERE. This is from the US because the Amazon UK price is too expensive.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good recommendation, Richard. Is the link you give to Amazon the same album? Looks like slightly different track lists.
What an incredible amalgam of talent when those guys got together--not just those two but the whole gang.

Richard Havers said...

hanks Rob, the link was wrong. I've corrected it.