Steve Marriott, the man who almost joined Crosby, Stills and Nash instead of Neil Young
Crosby, Stills and Nash isn’t the kind of band that anyone could have put together in a lab.
They were all refugees from other groups trying to find a home, but once those soaring harmonies overlapped on each other, it was clear that they had a magic that no one else could possibly replicate. So while bringing in Neil Young was always going to be a gamble, they had a few more people in line before going with ‘Uncle Neil’.
But when listening to their debut album, there would have at least been some trepidation about getting Young in the group. He remains one of the most fickle individuals to come out of the music industry, and it would make complete sense for him to walk out on a project that he didn’t like, but when listening to Deja Vu, that attitude was what they needed. That debut was great, but it was often in danger of sounding too soft, so bringing some edge to their sound on tunes like ‘Ohio’ were the perfect foil to ‘Teach Your Children’.
And that edge wasn’t lost on Graham Nash when they first floated the idea of bringing in a new member. Nash was a bit apprehensive at someone disrupting that kind of chemistry, and there was bound to be a bit of a rub since Stephen Stills was already friends with Young since the days of Buffalo Springfield, but maybe the “edge” they needed didn’t need to come from an overdriven guitar, either.
After all, the entire music community was already moving towards folk and bringing a softer touch to rock and roll, and while the band weren’t looking to draft in Elton John or anything, Steve Marriott seemed to be a worthy enough candidate. He had already spent his time in Blind Faith with Eric Clapton, so he knew his way around the supergroup mould, and having a grittier voice in the mix would have been a great balance with Nash’s high voice.
But since Blind Faith seemed to be going somewhere, Marriott decided to hang back for a little while and see where everything went before he moved onto his solo career, by which point Young was already in the group. Given his history of working in bluesy runs into his vocals, though, Marriott could have helped to keep many of their songs rooted in rock’s history half the time.
Because if you think about it, a lot of CSN’s greatest songs could come off as a bit too light for someone who had been blasting bands like Led Zeppelin. They were simply a group that wanted to focus on melodies and stretching the limits of what a folk-rock song could be, but there’s no reason to think they couldn’t have thrown in a few of Marriott’s songs into the mix and left Young to finish off tracks like ‘Helpless’ on his solo records.
The opportunity was there, but by Crosby’s own admission, there was no reason for any of them to lose their ego when someone else walked into the room. All of them were superstars in their own right, and even if they had more money than they could have asked for and some of the most immaculate harmonies known to man, bringing a new member to the table was always going to be an issue when arguing about creative control, which explains why Young was only onboard for a few months.
There’s no doubt that Marriott joining the group would have been interesting, but it was always understood that CSN was never supposed to be a concrete band in the traditional sense of the word. Each of them were solo artists that were using these albums to bounce ideas off each other, and even if they happened to work amazingly well, the true passion projects would be reserved for their solo albums.
