by It didn’t take a lot for David Crosby to say what was on his mind.
As much as he liked the idea of making the best music he could, he was always brutally honest about the people he worked with, which could either be a blessing or a curse depending on whether you were on the receiving end of his jabs. But even if he could be incredibly blunt in some spaces, he knew that he would have friends for life looking at the people that had helped him make his dreams a reality.
Because Crosby knew that nothing was guaranteed when he left The Byrds. He had reached the end of the line with Roger McGuinn, and even if he had a couple of great tunes on their records, it’s not like it was going to be easy starting back at zero all over again. He needed an incubation period for him to recover in a lot of ways, and Crosby, Stills and Nash was the perfect way for him to give his songs a home.
A lot of what he had been doing in The Byrds was too abstract for what the rest of the group wanted to do, but there was something about those heavenly harmonies that he sang with Stills and Nash that gave him confidence to go on. No one had heard that kind of musical rub before, and when he began working on their debut, it felt like all of the band members were bringing bold ideas to the table.
Crosby did have a strong sense of belief in his songs at this point, but hearing a tune like ‘Marrakesh Express’ and ‘Suite Judy Blue Eyes’ in their finished state was bound to be a trip. This was far from the kind of pop music that everyone had been used to, and even if it had a lim chance of getting on the radio, fans certainly had a place for it in their hearts when looking at all the other records out at the time.
While the music world had already started to get heavier at the time, though, the trio’s self-titled debut was a lot more breezy than what everyone else was willing to do. And while a lot of their musical chemistry came from all three of them playing together, Crosby knew that all of them had a friend in Mama Cass Elliot whenever she stopped by the studio.
The Mamas and the Papas may feel like a purely 1960s rock outfit nowadays, but outside of being an honourary member of the trio in their early days, Crosby considered her one of the greatest musical souls that he had ever come across, saying, “She’s the only person who sang on the record besides us, and only on that one song. We loved her so much, all of us. She was a great human being. So funny… and just one of the best people ever.”
Even if a lot of their tunes were made for three people only, Elliot does a fantastic job contributing to tracks like ‘Pre Road Downs’. It’s easy to hear where her voice comes in, but while it does stick out like a sore thumb in many respects, she blends into the rest of the track perfectly by the end of the tune.
If nothing else, Crosby knew that Elliot was one of the few people that are never guaranteed in the world of rock: a friend. A lot of the business can be absolutely cutthroat at times, but once you find someone that’s going to stick around for life, that’s someone you have to hold on to as tight as you possibly can.
