Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, plus the Grateful Dead with Stephen Stills - The Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 10-25-1969

This is a very curious bootleg. I only found out it existed today, and I was so psyched about it that I posted it straight away. I didn't know about it because it only emerged in the last year or so. It's an excellent soundboard of an excellent performance. The main downside is that it's rather short.

Crosby, Stills and Nash released their first album, simply called "Crosby, Stills and Nash," in May 1969. By October 1969, they were well into recording their second album with Neil Young, which would turn out to be called "Deja Vu." I'm sure, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young all either lived near San Francisco at the time or spent a lot of time there. On this night, October 25, 1969, both the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane were going to play at the Winterland. One or more of the opening bands had to cancel, and Stephen Stills and Graham Nash were there. So they got up and performed a short acoustic set just as a duo, without any preparation whatsoever.

This is virtually the only time Stills and Nash appeared on stage as a duo, without David Crosby. (They also did about three concerts together in the early 1980s, when Crosby was flirting with death due to his drug use.)

It's fascinating to hear what the two of them came up with on stage at the spur of the moment. As they stated at the outset, their intention was to try out some new songs, and that's just what they did. Nash wanted to start out with "Teach Your Children." This could well be the very first time that classic song was sung in public. (Setlist.fm claims it was played four times with CSNY in 1969, but all of them were after this.) However, after introducing the song, Nash briefly left the stage to get something to drink, so Stills filled the time with a cover of the blues classic "Crossroads." Only then did they get around to doing "Teach Your Children" together.

"How Have You Been," a song written by John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful, followed. Given that Stills and Nash worked out harmonies for it, and there's a studio outtake version of it, it's likely this song was strongly considered to go on "Deja Vu." In fact, CSN briefly toyed with having Sebastian join their band before settling on Neil Young instead.

The next song, "Lonesome Valley," is a real treat, because no version of CSN or any variation thereof has ever known to have sung the song. It was originally done by Woody Guthrie.

The short Stills and Nash concert ended with "Black Queen." Like "Crossroads," it was an acoustic guitar showcase for Stills.

That's the end of the short set they did together, only 22 minutes long. (By the way, the man welcoming them on and off the stage is Bill Graham.)

But that's not the end of this album. It turns out that when the Grateful Dead played their set later that night, Stills joined them for one song, "Turn On Your Lovelight." When the Dead played that cover song, it was always was sung by Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and that's the case here. But Stills added backing vocals as well as helping with lead guitar. If you listen carefully, you can definitely hear his voice at times.

Since this version of "Lovelight" is over 20 minutes long, it almost doubled the length of this album, all by itself. By the way, McKernan's voice was very low in the mix. It was mostly in one stereo channel, so I boosted the volume of that channel and lowered the volume of the other channel. That helps, but it's still somewhat low. I didn't want to overdo things by making one channel much louder than the other.

That's the end of the material from the Winterland show. But Stills made one more guest appearance with the Grateful Dead a couple of months later. That also is available on a soundboard bootleg, and it's a nice performance, so I've added it in as a quasi-bonus track. It's the song "Black Queen," which was played in the Winterland show. But that had been Stills alone on his acoustic guitar. This drastically different version was played by all of the Grateful Dead, yet with Stills singing lead vocals as well as playing more lead guitar. Apparently, Stills wrote the song with the intention of giving it to the Dead to record, but they never did. However, they learned it well enough to back him up. 

If you include that last song from a different concert, this album is 55 minutes long. It's kind of a strange beast, half acoustic with Stills and Nash, and half electric with Stills and the Dead. But I think it's an interesting album just the same that's a "must have" for any fan of CSN in their glory years.

01 talk (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
02 Crossroads (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
03 talk (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
04 Teach Your Children (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
05 talk (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
06 How Have You Been (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
07 talk (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
08 Lonesome Valley (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
09 talk (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
10 Black Queen (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
11 talk (Stephen Stills & Graham Nash)
12 Turn On Your Love Light (Grateful Dead with Stephen Stills)
13 Black Queen (Grateful Dead with Stephen Stills)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288175/StephenSNas_1969_WinterlndSnFranciscoCA__10-25-1969_atse.zip.html

I have no idea when or where the cover art photo of Stills and Nash was taken. But judging by their appearance, I think it's a safe bet it's from either 1969 or 1970. If anyone knows, please let me know. It might be from the famous Woodstock concert. I moved Stills a little bit closer to Nash so I could make their heads larger.