“There’s not one digital piece of machinery... It's just like a vinyl would have been in 1969”: CSNY release live album – and it’s all analogue

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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are releasing a live album from 1969 - their first year together - taped just a month after their famed Woodstock set.

Live at Fillmore East, 1969 is taken from their show at the New York venue in September of that year. The tracklisting includes much of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s self-titled 1969 debut album as well as Young’s 1969 album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

There are also a couple of numbers from the Deja Vu album, which CSNY released the following year and a few solo performances, including Graham Nash singing Our House – its inspiration Joni Mitchell was also in the audience that night.

Speaking with paid members of the Neil Young Archives last month, Young certainly seemed enthusiastic about the release. “It’s great to hear Crosby and Nash and Stills,” he said.

“I had just joined the band like within weeks of when that happened... It’s a pretty cool record. There’s a Down by the River on that record that is maybe the definitive Down by the River, even though everyone thinks that the Crazy Horse one is because that’s the one that came out.”

And it’s coming out as nature intended, or without recourse to digital technology, according to Young: “It’s all analogue,” he said. “There’s not one digital piece of machinery working in the making of the record.

"The vinyl comes out just like a vinyl would have been in 1969. Everything is done the same way. It’s got the sound and is a beautiful thing.”

The band were still in the first year of their existence at this point and whilst Crosby, Stills and Nash had been playing live since the spring, Neil Young had only been added to the lineup a month before – Woodstock was only his second gig with them.

Remembering the Fillmore East gig, Stephen Stills said in a statement: “The acoustic part of the show took care of itself, but now that we had equipment and Dallas (Taylor, drums) and Greg (Reeves, bass) and sizable shows to do, we just went for it. What we lacked in finesse, we made up for in enthusiasm… A band on the run. Expecting to fly.”

Graham Nash added, “Hearing the music again after all these years, I can tell how much we loved each other and loved the music that we were creating. We were four people revelling in the different sounds we were producing, quietly singing together on the one hand, then rocking like fuck for the rest of the concert.”

Live at Fillmore East, 1969 is out on October 25 via Rhino.