Following their tour in the spring and summer of 1970 to support Déjà Vu, Crosby, Stills and Nash had only completed one project together, a 1974 reunion tour of CSNY. David Crosby and Graham Nash had recorded three albums as a duo, with Crosby releasing a single solo album (in addition to a Byrds reunion album) and Nash a pair. Stephen Stills pursued other projects including the release of four solo albums, a short career with Manassas that yielded two albums, as well as a tour and an album with Neil Young, which itself nearly became a CSNY project.
CSN featured strong writing from all three members, the last time for seventeen years that the band would compose songs and handle vocals without major assistance from outside sources.
Many of Stills' songs on the album echo his marital problems,[4] with "Dark Star" returning to the Latin rhythms he had favored all the way back to his Buffalo Springfield days. Crosby continued the existential probings consistent with much of his past work, and Nash offered both a radio-ready acoustic ballad with "Just a Song Before I Go", and an elaborate set piece re-creating a vision of an LSD experience that he had in Winchester Cathedral with "Cathedral".[4] Many tracks included a string section, a first on a CSN project.
The album was released for compact disc an initial time in the 1980s,[5] then again at Ocean View Digital from the original tapes and reissued on September 20, 1994. It was remastered once more by Steve Hoffman in April 2013, for an Audio Fidelity 24kt gold disk release in the summer of 2013.
Cash Box said that "Fair Game" "combines a snappy Latin rhythm, neatly interlocking harmonies, and layers of Stephen Stills' thoughtful acoustic guitar work."[9] It commented on the "surging guitars and piano" and "harmonic hooks" and "powerful rhythmic elements" of "I Give You Give Blind".[10]
Record World called "Fair Game" a "mid-tempo Stills song with samba touches, with the trio's trademark vocal harmonies again standing out."[11]
David Crosby – vocals; rhythm guitar on "Fair Game" and "Dark Star"; acoustic guitar on "Just A Song Before I Go" and "In My Dreams"; string arrangements on "Cathedral" and "Cold Rain"
Stephen Stills – vocals; guitars on all tracks except "Carried Away", "Cathedral" and "Cold Rain" electric piano on "Anything at All"; piano, string arrangements on "I Give You Give Blind"; timbales on "Fair Game"
Graham Nash – vocals; piano on "Carried Away", "Cathedral", "Just A Song Before I Go", and "Cold Rain"; harmonica on "Carried Away"; string arrangements on "Cathedral" and "Cold Rain"
Additional musicians
Joe Vitale – drums on "Carried Away", "Fair Game", "Cathedral", "Dark Star", "Run From Tears" and "I Give You Give Blind"; organ on "Shadow Captain", "Fair Game", "Anything at All", "Dark Star"; electric piano on "Carried Away", "Just A Song Before I Go"; percussion on "Cathedral", "I Give You Give Blind"; flute on "Shadow Captain"; timpani on "Cathedral"; vibraphone on "In My Dreams"
Craig Doerge – piano on "Shadow Captain" and "Anything at All"; electric piano on "Shadow Captain" and "Dark Star"
Russ Kunkel – drums on "Shadow Captain", "Anything at All", "Just A Song Before I Go", and "In My Dreams"; congas on "Shadow Captain", "Dark Star"; percussion on "Just A Song Before I Go"
^The date constantly given for first generation remastering for digital as issued on compact disc, October 25, 1990, is the earliest date for which amazon.com has records regarding compact disc releases. So, for any CD that came out prior to that, they simply put in that date rather than an actual one since they do not have it. Every single first generation compact disc was not issued on October 25, 1990.[citation needed]
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