“She’s a close friend”: the songwriter Crosby, Stills and Graham Nash fell in love with
More often than not, I turn my nose up at the title “singer”. It feels like a reductive term reserved only for those who submit themselves to talent shows and the guillotines of integrity. My favourite musicians are so much more than that; they are songwriters, virtuosos or, more simply put, artists. But I guess if you were going to name one of the key strengths of Crosby, Stills and Nash, it would be their singing, so why am I so pent up about it?
Between the three of them, they helped redefine three-part harmonies. Not just for added sonic colour in the background in a bid to provide a shallow sense of lightheartedness, but for Crosby, Stills, and Nash, they were front and centre. Three voices that alchemised with complete nuance to become one and, in turn, elevate above whatever individual qualities or characteristics they may have.
About the moment their voices soared together for the first time, Graham Nash recalled, “It was absolutely completely a unique sound. It was one voice made up of three individual strains of voice. There was no doubt we knew what we had. We were in love with each other, we were in love with the music. We were in love with each other’s songs. We couldn’t wait to get out there, get out of our way, we’re coming forward. We were unstoppable then.”
It’s no surprise that their style hasn’t really been emulated to good effect in modern music. Three-part harmonies aren’t as easy as sticking three-average voices together, they have to coalesce ironically with harmony. When it works, it’s transcendental. This is why the fleeting occasions we have seen it in the mainstream have been at the dastardly hands of Simon Cowell, who has tried to force adolescent and impressionable musicians into forming boy/girl bands that package the multi-part harmony up in plastic wrapping and mass distribute it.
So it’s unsurprising that the famously gruff David Crosby hasn’t kept track of pop music developments since he helped forge a blueprint it would flimsily follow for decades after. In a 1997 interview with Jeff Gemmill, Crosby spoke of releasing music independently and said, “It’s good because you get to follow your heart. You get to say, ‘What I really feel is this’. I’m not trying to make a clone of the Spice Girls. This is the real thing that I’m trying to express. This is what I want to do—and we did exactly that. We didn’t do anything except exactly what we really felt.”
That’s not to say the pursuit of authenticity only exists outside the lines of the mainstream. There are plenty of pop stars that have achieved commercial success off of the back of genuine artistry. And while the Spice Girls may not fall into that remit, Crosby made way for another artist who was emerging in the contemporary at that time.
“I’m happy as I can possibly be that Shawn Colvin somehow busted through and got a hit,” he explained to Gemmill. “She’s one of my favourite singer/songwriters. She opened for Crosby, Stills and Nash, and we all fell in love with her. Nash and I have gone and sung with her. I’ve sung on her records. She’s a close friend.”
It’s one thing delivering praise; it’s another to invite Colvin into the harmonic world of Crosby and Nash and to share a microphone. She may not have sold as many action figures as the Spice Girls, but that is one thing she’ll always have on them.
