The artist David Crosby said defined the 1960s: “Listen to what they did”
The 1960s reads like a kaleidoscope of different genres when looking back on every single year. While there have been plenty of classic rock bands that have formed since 1970 began, there’s a certain halo around the era where you could find everything from blues rock to psychedelia to the beginnings of genres like metal within the span of a year. And while David Crosby didn’t exactly love everything he heard at the time, he knew when one band shined above everything else in the scene.
However, rock was only one piece of Crosby’s musical taste. Going through his entire discography, he was far more interested in seeing where other styles of music could go, whether that was listening to Miles Davis turn jazz inside out or listening to what the folk scene was up to once Joni Mitchell came out, complete with the kind of guitar tunings that would leave most other guitarists speechless.
There was a lot of music to go around, and that showed in the harmonies that the band would sing together. Plenty of people had started layering voices on top of each other, but outside of The Beach Boys, hearing Crosby, Stills and Nash sing in harmony together was like watching the sun rise over the Santa Monica beach. But that Summer of Love would never have been complete without The Beatles coming first.
They may have come from Liverpool, but whenever thinking back to the era of the psychedelic movement, Crosby knew all roads led back to The Beatles, saying, “It was an amazing time. Incredible music blossoming. The Beatles. We’re talking about The Beatles: every time they put a record out, waves would ripple out across the world, to the rest of us going: “Aw! Listen to what they did this time. Holy shit!” Pretty strong stuff. For us, incredibly creative times, and with a certain kind of innocence at the same time.”
But the Fab Four would have never considered themselves one of the greatest voices in the world at the time. They were influenced by everything they were listening to as well, and were it not for people like Bob Dylan and The Beach Boys paving the way for their records, we wouldn’t have been given the wild twists and turns throughout their career on albums like Revolver and Sgt Pepper.
Outside of their fantastic melodies, though, there’s a good chance Crosby was also drawn to how they used harmony. Not everything they did was strictly following the rules of what music theory should do, and listening back to their adventurous material like ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, they were interested in seeing where their songs could go beyond the traditional Merseybeat scene they had started with.
And Crosby probably has The Beatles to thank for helping him gain a foothold when he was working with The Byrds for the first time. After all, the California rockers had already been considered the American answer to them with their jangly guitars, but Crosby seemed to take that adventurous spirit and combine it with the advanced musicality of Mitchell when striking out on his own on albums like If I Could Only Remember My Name.
Then again, Crosby knew better than to try to emulate The Beatles outright whenever he played. The 1960s were their time to conquer the world, and once John Lennon announced that the dream was over on his first solo album, we were all left to pick up the pieces and see where else people could take those fantastic melodies.
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