Browne takes on the monumental task of summarizing a half-century’s worth of conflict, self-sabotage and, when the musicians managed to get out of their own way, music ... In the latter half of Browne’s book, there’s almost a numb inevitability to the musicians’ fumbling attempts in the ‘80s to contemporize their sound, Crosby’s ever-deeper descent into drug addiction that led to a stint in prison, and Young’s inability to stop dangling the possibility of a full-scale reunion in front of his bandmates, only to flake out nearly every time for inscrutable reasons of his own ... Much like the dream of the Woodstock generation, the tale of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is awash in senseless vanity, squandered chances and potential left tragically unfulfilled. Yet it’s often hard to look away—just like with any car wreck.
David Browne takes the long and winding road to the present, when David Crosby insulted Neil Young’s girlfriend (now wife) Daryl Hannah in 2014 and gave the kiss of death to any more pension fund-friendly reunion tours. Doggett writes in the more engaging style, Browne takes the superfan’s approach of documenting everything whether interesting or not. Both biographies are likely to bring the reader to the same conclusion: these four men, all now in their seventies, however talented and well intentioned, were a tornado of dysfunction ... Both books, but Browne’s in a more comprehensive fashion, use the saga of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young as a metaphor for the Woodstock generation and their doomed mission to return to the garden.
The author appears to have talked to nearly every living soul with a part to play in the band’s long career, except for Stills and Young, who disagreed on nearly everything about the group but came together in keeping mum ... Though the narrative takes some of the bloom off the Flower Power rose, it also celebrates those fine moments when the band merged to make such epochal songs as Suite: Judy Blue Eyes and Ohio.. Fans of CSN(Y) may find this disenchanting, but Browne delivers an excellent portrait of a troubled partnership.
...Browne is...likely to produce sentences such as: 'Between snorts of cocaine, the trio rounded up a few other musicians...' He seems not to know what 'unison' means, which is odd for a man writing a book about one of the world’s most famous vocal harmony groups, and has a regrettable fondness for telling us that people 'reached out' to each other. But he does have the granular detail ... Browne spends 230 pages labouring through the endlessly repetitive disintegration of all that bright promise, by the end of which the reader’s spirits are thoroughly lowered. Even the glistening harmonies, finely crafted songs and lovely playing of that first album are dulled by the litany of excess and its concomitant unhappiness. And it all seemed such fun at the time, at least from a safe distance.
Browne...delivers an authoritative chronicle of the rise of the short-lived folk rock quartet ... Browne illustrates the genius each artist brought to the group, as well as the obstacles that drove them apart—particularly Stills’s arrogance and Young’s unpredictability and aloofness ... In what is the most comprehensive biography of the group to date, Browne compiles a fun and fast-paced music history.
