Albums That Should Exist: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Friday, May 25, 2018

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - What Could Possibly Go Wrong - Live (1975)

This can be considered a part of my alternate history of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, though it's optional for those who like live albums.

For the three albums that make up my alternate versions of CSNY's mid-1970's material, I drew a lot on the 2014 triple album "CSNY 1974." I often took soundboard quality performances from that, edited out the crowd noise, and presented the songs as if they were studio tracks.

But what about a live album for that 1974 tour? It's a real shame that, since CSNY in reality couldn't get their act together to come up with a studio album in 1974, they didn't at least put out a live album from their tour. I'm imagining that if they did, it would have come out in 1975.

I wouldn't want to repeat the exact same performances, or even the same songs that I'd put on those albums. So what I've done is create a version of "CSNY 1974" with those songs removed. However, it's not as simple as that. I also added quite a few songs from bootlegs that I thought were worthy of inclusion. In case you're curious, here are the ones I included:

Carry Me (a different version than on CSNY 1974, since I used that elsewhere)
Another Sleep Song
Homefires
Roll Another Number [For the Road]
4 + 20
The Losing End
Cowgirl in the Sand
Carry On

It's a mystery to me why some of these songs didn't make it onto "CSNY 1974." For instance, "Another Sleep Song" is actually a nice vocal duet between Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell. The version of "4+20" has the rest of CSNY joining Stills with harmonies, the only time the song was ever done that way. "Homefires," "Roll Another Number," and "The Losing End" are Young songs that were only ever performed by CSNY on this tour. Finally, "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Carry On" include lengthy guitar soloing that otherwise is missing from "CSNY 1974."

The album is a whopping two hours long. I made sure to include at least four songs each from Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. But this tour is especially interesting for the Young songs, because he was going through a very prolific songwriting phase, and played lots of new songs on the tour. So I included nine songs from him.

I made sure the songs are organized like a real CSNY concert from that tour, which meant they played a few songs together, then each of them had a solo spot, then the group came back for the last part of the show.

In short, if you're following my alternate series of CSN(Y) albums, this is the ideal replacement for "CSNY 1974" so you don't have any overlap with the other albums.

Oh, by the way, the title "What Could Possibly Go Wrong" refers to a running joke comment from Crosby about the tour, because the tour was frequently a fiasco, so much so that it also known by insiders as the "doom tour." In 2014, Crosby wanted to use "What Could Possibly Go Wrong" as the title for the archival album that was being put together, but the others decided against it and went with the bland "CSNY 1974."

01 Immigration Man (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
02 Johnny's Garden (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
03 On the Beach (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
04 Almost Cut My Hair (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
05 Carry Me (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
06 Prison Song (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
07 Another Sleep Song (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
08 Long May You Run (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
09 Old Man (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
10 Homefires (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
11 Roll Another Number [For the Road] (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
12 4 + 20 (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
13 Blackbird (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
14 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
15 Don't Be Denied (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
16 Deja Vu (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
17 Revolution Blues (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
18 Military Madness (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
19 The Losing End (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
20 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
21 Cowgirl in the Sand (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
22 Carry On (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)