Living in Harmony: Fleet Foxes vs. CSNY

by Lavinia Jones Wright • June 18, 2009

In 1968, when members of three recently deceased bands—the Byrds, the Hollies, and Buffalo Springfield—improvised a cappella on a newly written song as a party trick, a whole new era of music was born.

The moment Graham Nash and David Crosby joined Stephen Stills on his "You Don't Have to Cry", history was made and arguably the best supergroup (my apologies, Traveling Wilburys) in the history of rock laid its foundation. Not to say that Crosby, Stills & Nash were perfect from the outset. Their first label audition, for Apple Records, was less than a success, and the group ended up levying a deal from Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records off his Buffalo Springfield fandom. Because it was, after all, a trio of rock stars, the group had to be handled delicately to prevent ego conflicts, and their record deal had to be structured to include an unusual amount of creative freedom to accommodate them.

CSN's eponymous debut was filled with soaring, Baroque-influenced harmonies, and its songs were built out of layers of classically styled movements, all of which immediately struck a chord with the hippie generation already obsessed with old-fashioned madrigal-styled folk. Crosby, Stills & Nash was a culmination of what so many groups, especially Crosby's own Byrds, had been working up to for years.

Ertegun essentially foisted a rogue Neil Young onto the group to round it out as they prepared to tour, and the newly minted Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young hit Woodstock.

Forty years later, indie stalwart label Sub Pop Records helped a young, scruffy quintet quietly emerge from a woodsy suburb of Seattle to gently lay a stunning debut album before music fans thirsty for complexity and beauty. Between 2006 and 2008, with their self-titled full-length and preceding two EPs combined, the Fleet Foxes accidentally created a whole new barometer for quality in modern music.

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Crawdaddy! was founded by Paul Williams in 1966 and was the first U.S. magazine of rock criticism. John Lennon, Cameron Crowe, P.J. O'Rourke and many others have contirubted to its pages, and it is currently owned by Wolfgang's Vault, home to the legendary rock promoter Bill Graham's archive.