I recently had the interesting experience of picking up the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSN&Y) live in concert double-CD, 4 Way Street. I wondered for a bit whether it would be worth buying and wished that I had access to some on-line record reviews. I decided not to purchase this set and realized when I was back home that I had reviewed this very album a long time ago in college. Why am I reprinting this now? For the next person who picks up the CD and wonders if it is worth some hard-earned funds. My own answer, below, is pretty clear.
This record review was originally published in The Pacifican, University of the Pacific, on April 30, 1971.
The long awaited CSN&Y "live" album has arrived. Four Way Street is a two-record set, one record acoustic, one electric.
Record one's half of the album cover sets the mood with a picture of the four troubadors on their stools, acoustics guitars in hand. Highlighting the "wooden music" - as Crosby calls it - are the songs of Neil Young (On the Way Home, Cowgirl in the Sand, Don't Let It Bring You Down). They are masterpieces: the humble, yet wise, songs of a genius.
Stephen Stills (interestingly introduced by Young) also does a fine job of carrying his share of the load. He does 49 Bye Byes and a rousing retitled version of Love the One You're With. The latter is refreshingly clean, with no organ or steel drums.
Graham Nash contributes Teach Your Children and a strong song "for Mayor Daley" entitled Chicago. Excuse the extensive mistakes on piano.
The David Crosby songs are David Crosby songs. We're more than a bit tired of his sickeningly sweet songs and his self-pitying moaning.
One senses the trouble in 4 Way Street in looking at the back half of the cover. Here we see a mean looking drummer, and all these guys with electric guitars who look as tough as you have to look to be an Electric Super-Group. But CSN&Y must take a back seat to The Who's Live at Leeds when it comes to posing as Led Zeppelin.
You might like Pre-Road Downs and even Long Time Gone on Side 3. However, when you've listened to thirteen minutes of Southern Man you'll wonder why it takes four super-stars and two back-up musicians to sound half as good as one NY with Crazy Horse.
Carry On on Side 4 is where we reach the negative climax. A botched-up job on the vocals rushing into a third-rate Apple Jam with three whining guitars type thing. Worse yet, it's finished off with a "heavy" riff so juvenile that Black Sabbath is sophisticated in comparison.
Nevertheless, credit must go to the new bass player Calvin Samuels who looks and sounds exactly like Greg Reeves. Credit also goes to Johnny Barbata, their new drummer, whose style is known under various guises like "delayed rhythm," "anti-time," etc. Barbata's backing on Ohio will bring to mind Russ Kunkel behind James Taylor, or Kenny Jones behind Rod Stewart and the Faces.
The highly criticized Grand Funk Railroad has released a live album that was recorded in its entirety at a one hour and twenty minute performance. Like it or not, it is honest. The small print on the lyric sheet of 4 Way St. will call to your attention the fact that this album was pieced together from nine separate performances at three different performance sites. The very best of CSN&Y live? Like it or not, it's somehow dishonest.
