4 Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young Reader

by Dave Zimmer

An engrossing collection of exemplary writing on rock's greatest extended family: Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, featuring writing by Cameron Crowe, Ben Fong-Torres, Joel Selvin, and more. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young have been hailed as "The American Beatles" and "Folk-Rock's Mount Rushmore. " They launched a trail-blazing acoustic-electric sound in 1969 and have been captivating listeners with their music ever since. Coming together as refugees from three seminal '60s bands-the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and the Hollies-the combined talents of David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young have influenced several generations of musicians while proving to have enduring appeal to fans of all ages. As rock and roll's first "supergroup," CSNY generated an enormous amount of media scrutiny-from their galvanizing appearance at Woodstock to multi-platinum, chart-topping albums such as Deja Vu, from David Crosby's miraculous recovery from life-threatening addictions to the band's resurgence for enormously successful concert tours.

Now, noted CSNY historian Dave Zimmer distills the best of the journalism on these four remarkable artists, ranging from group portraits to individual profiles to in-depth interviews to incisive commentary by such writers as Cameron Crowe, Ben Fong-Torres and David Crosby himself. 4 Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Reader is an open window into one of the most popular groups of all time, offering a fascinating look at their highly charged musical relationships and how they have changed over the decades, along the way revealing a colorful chronicle of the music of an era that continues to echo into the new millennium.

Genres: Music

400 pages, Paperback

First published February 4, 2004

Reviews

[Allan Heron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have many books that are classed as 'readers' made up of articles printed ovet the years. For whatever reason, I have never until recently read any of them from cover to cover.

However having started with the Steely Dan collection Major Dudes, it became clear that a well chosen selection of articles helped to provide a cohesive and interesting overview of the artist in question's career.

Zimmer's CSNY collection is just that well edited collection. It takes us to about 2004 so there is much in the world of CSNY that has happened since so there's a strong case for another edition, if not a seperate volume.

I've definitely been guilty of treating books like these as coffee table browsers but I'm now encouraged to pick a few more of them off the shelf.

[Mark Hartzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a series of interviews over the years with the 4 members. Most were culled from various music magazines (Rolling Stone, Creem, etc...), and the writing is often excellent. Interesting, but not essential.

[John Kube · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read. Basically, a collection of interviews of the four members in various incarnations. Together, the four never really recorded that much music together. Even CSN never really made that many albums together. CSNY even less. After reading this, it's amazing ANYTHING got done. Between the fighting and the arrogance of the four, it truly is amazing anything got done. What did get done, has been some great music. Sadly, that has stopped (again). What stood out for me was, like I said, the fighting and the arrogance.

[Mingo Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story tell by themselves through interviews during 30+ years. Reading it gives you a full and puzzled perspective on the group that complement and also serves as alternate take to the official story of the band, showing the humans behind the music

[William (Bill)]

Enjoyed the collection of articles from back in the day. Having recently read Neil's Waging Heavy Peace, and Graham's Wild Tales, this completed the picture presented in the Documentary film Laurel Canyon (also recently viewed- yeah a bit obsessive). The breath and depth of CSN & CSN&Y influence on modern pop culture is undeniable. They really reflected the times with their music.