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CROSBY & NASH : WHALE & FIELDWORKERS BENEFIT 1974 |
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Label : no label Time : 73:09 Venue : Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, California, USA Date : December 14, 1974 Quality : Soundboard recording (A+) Review : Unreleased live album recorded by Stephen Barncard. This is a must-have ! Review (Professor Red) : Excellent live show recorded December 14, 1974 by ace producer and engineer,
Wally Heider,edited as a live album that would never come out.
Fantastic sound,the way I first got it.
Also known as the Whale & Fieldworkers Benefit 1974 concert.
There are a number of highlights,including Crosby's new (at the time) "Carry Me"
and a slow,tempered reading of "Wooden Ships."
These ears were most pleased to hear the fresh takes of Crosby's newest songs
and the retirement of almost all of Nash's already-dated-by-1974 political material.
Wally Heider who recorded Crosby,Stills,Nash & Young at the Fillmore in June,1970
which became the famous Four Way Street album,was again at the soundboard to record
this show in San Francisco.Nothing was released till 1977,
when a Crosby & Nash album called Live came out.That album was recorded
during the duo's tours from 1975 to 1977.
This show is among the earliest of their professional recordings.
It seems to have been edited for a live album but never released.
This was not the country-rock-pop of Loggins & Messina nor the folk-rock-pop
of Simon & Garfunkel but soft rock with a conscience.
Especially in that vein was Graham Nash's Prison Song and Chicago.
Not to be outdone,David Crosby contributes the angry What Are Their Names?,
a song-dirge about accountability that leads into Chicago.
With Stills somewhat distracted and Neil Young tail-spinning into insular
projects like On The Beach,these were the years when Crosby & Nash had
star power and a real career. But whereas Simon & Garfunkel split over
politics [apparently Simon was pissed that Garfunkel was not keen to
include Cuba Si Nixon No on Bridge Over Troubled Waters]
and Loggins & Messina had too big egos,Crosby & Nash were consumed by their own
excesses or at least Crosby's indulgence with chemicals.
By the end of the '70s,the duo or as a trio with Stills could be found at
anti-war benefits,anti-nuclear benefits and such shows still holding on to their
ideals and those familiar songs.Their solo careers took hiatus as they
regrouped to release what can best be said are mediocre albums compared
to the first two album as a group or as a duo.When they had stopped
listening,they had also stopped creating.
All the happy songs are here in superb hi-fidelity,suitable for entertaining.
Play loud. Nothing has been officially released. |