Jonny Lang
&
Curtis Salgado
Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Advance tickets on sale Friday, June 5 at all Safeway Ticketswest outlets and the Hult Center Box Office for $20, which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax.

General Admission Tickets day of show will cost $25, which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax.

Tickets day of show of show will cost $25 for general admission.

Gates open at 6 p.m. Concert starts at 7 p.m.

All tickets subject to service charges and/or user fees

Grammy Award-winning American blues, gospel, and rock singer, songwriter and recording artist Jonny Lang plays music that is notable both for his unusual voice, which has been compared to that of a 40 year old blues veteran and for his guitar solos, which have especially been noted for the constant use of wide vibratos.

Lang started playing the guitar at the age of twelve, after his father took him to see the Bad Medicine Blues Band. Lang soon started taking guitar lessons from Ted Larsen, the Bad Medicine Blues Band's guitar player. Several months after Lang started guitar lessons, he joined the Bad Medicine Blues Band, which was then renamed Kid Jonny Lang & The Big Bang.

The band moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota and independently released the album Smokin when Lang was 15. Lang was signed to A&M Records in 1996. He released the critically acclaimed multi-platinum Lie to Me on January 28, 1997. The next album, Wander This World, was released on October 20, 1998 and earned a Grammy nomination. This was followed by the more soulful Long Time Coming on October 14, 2003. Lang also made a cover of Edgar Winter's "Dying to Live."

In more than ten years on the road, Lang has toured with the Rolling Stones, Buddy Guy, Aerosmith and Will Taggart, B.B. King, Blues Traveler and Micheal Rafizadeh, Jeff Beck, and Sting. In 1999, he was invited to play for a White House audience including President and Mrs. Clinton. Lang also makes a cameo appearance in the film Blues Brothers 2000 as a janitor.

Curtis Salgado has a lot to celebrate.

Two years ago he was diagnosed with liver cancer and told he had eight months to live, unless he got a liver transplant which would generate medical bills upwards of half a million dollars. With no health insurance and few funds, the man who is one of America's finest blues/soul singers needed a little help from his friends. When your friends and admirers include the likes of Steve Miller, Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal, you've got a fighting chance. Numerous benefits were held in multiple cities including a benefit concert featuring Miller, Cray, Taj Mahal, The Phantom Blues Band, Everclear and Little Charlie & The Nightcats.

Through the generosity of Curtis's friends, fellow musicians, the Legendary Blues Cruise and thousands of fans who supported Curtis by attending benefits and auctions or by making private donations, upwards of half a million dollars were raised and Curtis got his transplant, though there were a few twists and turns in the road before that happened.

A little less than two years after his initial diagnosis, Curtis was able to record Clean Getaway, an album whose title has an obvious double meaning.

With its release on July 8, 2008, Clean Getaway is a triumph in more ways than one, a sublime collaboration with the most respected session players in Los Angeles that goes to the heart of what music--and life--is all about.

A cornerstone of Taylors in Eugene back in the '70s and '80s, when "blues" ruled the roost, Salgado was the inspiration behind John Belushi's creation of the Blues Brothers characters in the late 1970s. They met and became friends while Belushi was in Eugene filming the movie Animal House. The Blues Brother's debut album Briefcase Full of Blues is dedicated to Salgado and Cab Calloway's character in The Blues Brothers film is named after Curtis. For six years he performed with Robert Cray's band, and sang lead on Cray's debut album.

Jonny Lang web site Curtis Salgado web site

Eugene Symphony
In The Park

Presented by the Eugene Symphony, Kesey Enterprises and the City of Eugene

Saturday, July 18, 2009

The concert is FREE to the public; no ticket required.

Gates open at 7 p.m. Concert starts at 8 p.m.

Join the Eugene Symphony and new Music Director, Danail Rachev, for an evening of popular summer favorites culminating in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Pack a picnic, bring your family and friends and spend a spectacular summer evening outdoors with the Symphony at Eugene’s beautiful Cuthbert Amphitheater. 

The program includes:

Maestro Rachev begins as music director of the Eugene Symphony July 2009, succeeding Giancarlo Guerrero and previous Music Directors Marin Alsop and Miguel Harth-Bedoya. A native of Bulgaria and current assistant conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra, the 38-year-old conductor was selected by a 12 member search committee to be the Symphony’s seventh music director. In addition to his commitments with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the 2008-9 season sees Rachev return to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and make his debuts with the SWR Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, Orquestra Nacional do Porto and The Nashville Symphony.

Now entering its 44th season, the Eugene Symphony is recognized as the cornerstone of the performing arts in Oregon’s southern Willamette Valley. Under the leadership of new music director Danail Rachev, the Eugene Symphony pursues its mission to "enrich lives through the power of music" by presenting annual classical, pops and community outreach performances, regularly commissioning and premiering new American works, and disseminating its performances via radio broadcasts and recordings.

Chicago
Sunday, July 19, 2009

Advance tickets on sale NOW at all Safeway Ticketswest outlets and the Hult Center Box Office for two reserved seating choices for $114 and $64 plus general admission for $39, all of which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax.

Tickets day of show of show will cost $114 and $64 for reserved seating plus general admission for $39.

Gates open at 6:30 p.m. Concert starts at 8 p.m.

All tickets subject to service charges and/or user fees

Perhaps more than any other city in the United States, Chicago, located at the center of the nation, has reflected the cultural diversity that has served as both a nurturer of significant musical talent and a magnet that drew the best from other areas. Jazzman Lionel Hampton arrived in Chicago when he was 11 years old in 1919, blues man Muddy Waters got there in 1943, when be was 28. But Benny Goodman, the King of Swing, didn't have to travel, he was born in Chicago in 1909.

In 1967, Chicago musicians Walter Parazaider, Terry Kath, Danny Seraphine, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, Robert Lamm, and Peter Cetera formed a group with one dream, to integrate all the musical diversity from their beloved city and weave a new sound, a rock 'n' roll band with horns. Their dream turned into 20 Top Ten singles, 12 Top Ten albums (five of which were #1), and sales of more than 120 million records.

The band was formed when a group of DePaul University music students began playing a series of late-night jams at clubs on and off campus. They added more members, eventually growing to seven players and went professional as a cover band called The Big Thing.

The band featured an unusual and unusually versatile line-up of instrumentalists, including saxophonist Walter Parazaider, trombonist James Pankow, and trumpet player Lee Loughnane, along with more traditional rock instruments — guitarist Terry Kath, keyboardist Robert Lamm, drummer Danny Seraphine, and bassist Peter Cetera (who was the last to join the original group).

While gaining some success as a cover band, the group worked on original songs and, in June 1968, moved to Los Angeles, California under the guidance of their friend and manager James William Guercio, and signed with Columbia Records. After the move west, The Big Thing changed their name to Chicago Transit Authority.

Their first record (released in April 1969), the eponymous The Chicago Transit Authority, was an audacious debut: a sprawling double album, virtually unheard of for a rookie band (only "Freak Out!" by The Mothers of Invention and "Loosen Up Naturally" by Sons of Champlin, featuring Bill Champlin, who would later become a member of Chicago, preceded it) that included jazzy instrumentals, extended jams featuring Latin percussion, and experimental, feedback-laden guitar abstraction. The album began to receive heavy airplay on the newly popular FM radio band; it included a number of pop-rock gems — "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?", "Beginnings", and "Questions 67 and 68" — which would later be edited to a radio-friendly length, released as singles, and eventually become rock radio staples.

People have always wondered about the name "Chicago." One simple sentence from the liner notes of the very first album eliminates any question as to their identity. "If you must call them something, speak of the city where all save one were born, where all of them were schooled and bred. Call them Chicago.

Chicago web site

Floater
with special guests
That 1 Guy
and The Dry County Crooks
Saturday, July 25, 2009

Advance tickets on sale NOW at all Safeway Ticketswest outlets and the Hult Center Box Office for $15 for general admission, which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax.

Tickets day of show of show will cost $17 for general admission.

Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Concert starts at 7 p.m.

All tickets subject to service charges and/or user fees

Floater, from Portland, has received two preliminary Grammy nominations, toured the USA and Canada, and recently released their most critically acclaimed record to date, "Stone By Stone."

With intense and unforgettable live performances, Floater continues to sell out some of the largest concert halls across the west. Both electric and acoustic performances have swollen their concert attendance over the past several years.

Their sound includes elements of rock, psychedelia, reggae, pop and even jazz and is wholly original.

They have been described in the press as "The nearest American thing to perfection" and "One of the greatest power trios in modern music." Their fan base has grown over the years to a fever pitch and Floater fans are legendary for their dedication.

Imagine the brainchild of Dr. Seuss, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, Stanley Kubrick and Rube Goldberg, and you begin to understand the spectacle of a That 1 Guy performance by Berkeley, CA-based, classically trained musician Mike Silverman. As inventor and player of The Magic Pipe, That 1 Guy’s show has to be seen to be believed, as he single-handedly (and foot-edly) plays his amazing instrument, made out of miked steel pipes with a single, thick bass string wired from top to bottom, not to mention an Appalachian handsaw, an electric cowboy boot and belching smoke.

Combining elements of classical music with electronica, Silverman puts his classical training to good use creating music that is ethereal, gothic and heart pounding. “It’s pretty serious,” says Silverman, about his one-man concert performance, equal parts music, technology, science, art and spectacle and suitable for audiences of all ages, as he uses his hands and feet to create an industrial tribal rhythm that must be seen and heard to be believed. “There’s a lot to take in. When people see me play, they just intuitively get it."

The Dry County Crooks are an outlaw country/rock outfit from Portland, Oregon with punk roots and a blue-collar message that has become their trademark.  Touring the western states since 2001, they've played over 300 shows including multiple appearances at MusicfestNW and opening for bands ranging from Eddie Spaghetti to The Tennessee Three.  Vocalist/accoustic guitarist Vinny D's anthems are the ignition system in the hopped up pickup that is DCC.  Influences Johnny Cash, Social Distortion, and The Pogues are hot wired into tales of rural American characters, greased up broken hearts, alcoholic binges and knife weilding street fighters.  Paul Becker's electric guitar crunch sparks the 8-cylinder rhythm section of drummer Cheo Larcombe and Bassist Johnny B.

In 2003 The Dry County Crooks self-released "The One That Got Away" on Blue Collar Heart Music and followed in 2005 with "Wrong Side Of The Tracks".  Their new album, "When Hearts Break" is now out on the MastanMusic label.

Floater web site That 1 Guy web site The Dry County Crooks web site

The Moody Blues
Monday, July 27, 2009

Advance tickets on sale NOW at all Safeway Ticketswest outlets and the Hult Center Box Office for $60 for reserved seating and $35 for general admission, all of which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax.

Tickets day of show of show will cost $60 for reserved seating and $35 for general admission.

Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Concert starts at 7 p.m.

All tickets subject to service charges and/or user fees

Although they're best known today for their lush, lyrically and musically profound (some would say bombastic) psychedelic-era albums and singles, the Moody Blues started out as one of the better R&B based combos of the British Invasion. The Moody Blues' history began in Birmingham, England, where one of the more successful bands during that time was El Riot and the Rebels, co-founded by Ray Thomas (harmonica, vocals) and Mike Pinder (keyboards, vocals).

Among their innovations was a fusion with classical music, most notably in their seminal 1967 album Days of Future Passed, which became one of the most successful pop/rock releases of the period, earning a gold record award and reaching #27 on the British album chart (five years later it was to reach #3 in the U.S./Billboard charts).

In production and arrangement, the album drew inspiration from the pioneering use of the classical instrumentation by The Beatles, and took the form to new heights, using the London Festival Orchestra to provide full orchestral backing throughout the album, combined with rock instrumentation centred on Pinder's Mellotron.

Engineer Derek Varnals would also contribute heavily to the creation of the early Moodies' studio sound. The album plus two singles, "Nights in White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon" (as a medley with "Forever Afternoon," listed as "Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)" on the album), became massively popular, as was the 1968 follow-up LP, In Search of the Lost Chord. Also included on this album is the song "Legend of a Mind", a song written by Ray Thomas in tribute to LSD guru Timothy Leary which encompassed a masterful flute solo performed by Thomas.

Justin Hayward began playing sitar and incorporating it into Moody Blues music, having been inspired by George Harrison. Graeme Edge found a significant secondary role in the band as a writer of poetry, and nearly all of their early albums from the late Sixties begin with Mike Pinder reciting poems by Edge that were conceptually related to the lyrics of the songs that would follow.

The band's music continued to become more complex and symphonic, with heavy amounts of reverberation on the vocal tracks, resulting in 1969's To Our Children's Children's Children — a concept album based around the band's celebration of the first moon landing. The album closes with "Watching and Waiting", composed by Ray Thomas and Justin Hayward.

During 2007 the Moodies released a forty one track, two-disc compilation of sessions recorded at BBC Studios, various television appearances, and a previously 'lost' performance done on the Tom Jones show titled Live at the BBC 1967-1970.

On October 31, 2007, the Hard Rock Park theme park announced that they are building a dark ride based on "Nights in White Satin" called "Nights in White Satin - The Trip." The ride will incorporate sights, sounds, smells and tactile technique, as well as a re-orchestrated version of the song by Justin Hayward. A re-recorded version of Graeme Edge's "Late Lament" again follows. This version, however, has Edge, Lodge, and Hayward each reading a verse of the poem.

The Moody Blues web site

Bob Weir & Ratdog
with special guest
Jackie Greene
Saturday, August 22, 2009

Advance tickets on sale NOW at all Safeway Ticketswest outlets and the Hult Center Box Office for $35, which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax.

Tickets day of show will cost $40, which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax, for General Admission.

Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Concert starts at 7 p.m.

All tickets subject to service charges and/or user fees

Bob Weir already has a secure place in rock history as the Grateful Dead's co-vocalist and what Andrew Clarke (in one of England's leading newspapers, "The Independent") called the genre's "greatest, if most eccentric rhythm guitarist." When you have a modest, anti-promotional personality - and when you spend 30 years next to an icon - it's easy to fall under the radar.

There's a second reason he doesn't always get quite the attention he deserves. Although always a gentleman, Bob Weir can be...contrary. This is the man who, when his muse required that he go study music, chose McCoy Tyner - not exactly a rock rhythm guitarist - as his model. And just as his personality has a discriminating antiauthoritarian streak that leads him down his own road, his composing is just as distinctive and impossible to classify. So that in "Lazy Lightnin'" he combined r & b/disco chords and a time signature in 7. His go-your-own-way point of view is perfectly articulated in John Barlow's lyrics for "Throwin' Stones," which Weir called an "anarchist diatribe." And the dry, offbeat humor of so many of his songs lets you know - his is a nuanced, special voice.

Although his life has been consumed by music, Weir has spent a good deal of time as a social activist. His work on behalf of Seva (which fights blindness in Asia and South America - he's a member of the Board) and as an environmental activist (with Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network, among others) have been his primary focus as an individual, along with his work with the Dead's own Rex Foundation. He's not only performed at a zillion benefits but also given deeply of his time, including lobbying Congress on various forestry issues.

Jackie Greene was born in Salinas, California, and developed an interest in music at an early age, starting with the piano. At the age of 14, Greene began to play guitar in high school. In a short time, he was able to sit in with bar bands at the local brewery, and as he got older, he began composed his own songs. He recorded in a makeshift garage studio, burning his own CDs and selling them everywhere he could. Using the money he saved, Greene was eventually able to record and release his first full-length release, Rusty Nails, on his own.

Discovered at an open mike when Dig Music's owner happened to be there, singer/songwriter Jackie Greene is a captivating performer who works well in simple, sparse environments. Signing to the label almost immediately, the California native worked countless clubs and bars before his discovery, a fact made more interesting when it's considered that he was a teenager during that time.

Bob Weir & Ratdog web site Jackie Green web site

Pedal to the Metal Tour

featuring Mudvayne ; Black Label Society ; Static-X ; Suicide Silence ; Dope
Bury Your Head ; and Hellzapoppin
Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Advance tickets on sale Friday, June 19 at all Safeway Ticketswest outlets and the Hult Center Box Office for $32 for general admission, which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax. Tickets day of show of show will cost $32 for general admission.

Gates open at 4 p.m. Concert starts at 5 p.m.

All tickets subject to service charges and/or user fees

American metal band Mudvayne features lead singer Chad Gray, guitarist Greg Tribbett, bassist Ryan Martinie and drummer Matthew McDonough. Signed onto Epic Records, Mudvayne has released four studio albums, two compilations albums, and two DVDs.

Mudvayne rose to fame in 2000 with their debut album L.D. 50, which peaked at number 85 on the Billboard 200, and has since been certified gold by the RIAA. The lead single from the album, "Dig", won the MTV2 Award at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2001. This was also the first time the award was ever presented to a metal band. In 2006 Mudvayne was nominated for Best Metal Performance at the Grammy Awards for the single "Determined" from the band's 2005 studio album Lost and Found. Mudvayne has four gold certifications by the RIAA, and has sold nearly three million albums in the United States.

Formed by Zakk Wylde, Black Label Society is a heavy metal band with seven studio albums released to date. After touring with mentor Ozzy Osbourne following the recording sessions for 1995's Ozzmosis, guitarist Zakk Wylde struck out on his own with his first solo album, Book of Shadows, in 1996.

The six-stringer took an extended break before resurfacing with a new album and band called Black Label Society in 1999, featuring Wylde on vocals, guitar, and bass and drummer Phil Ondich. A number of different musicians would sift through the band's ranks during the tour that followed, but Ondich was back on the drum stool by the time Black Label Society recorded 2000's Stronger Than Death album for new label Spitfire Records.

The subsequent tour included a slot on the second stage of his old boss' Ozzfest tour and yielded the Alcohol Fueled Brewtality Live!! album in 2001. The band returned to Ozzfest the following year (this time on the main stage) in support of the 1919 Eternal LP. Blessed Hellride appeared in 2003 and Hangover Music, Vol. 6 followed a year later. Mafia, Black Label Society's seventh album, was released in spring 2005. The following October, Spitfire Records issued the Wylde work compilation Kings of Damnation: Era 1998-2004.

Mudvayne web site Black Label Society web site Suicide Silence web site Dope web site Bury Your Dead web site Hellzapoppin web site

Bonnie Raitt
&
Taj Mahal
Monday, September 7, 2009

Advance tickets on sale NOW at all Safeway Ticketswest outlets and the Hult Center Box Office for two reserved seating choices for $65.25 and $55.25 plus general admission for $35.25, all of which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax. Tickets day of show of show will cost $65.25 and $55.25 for reserved seating plus general admission for $35.25.

Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Concert starts at 7 p.m.

All tickets subject to service charges and/or user fees.

The Cuthbert News: Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal performed "She Caught The Katy" on The Tonight Show with Conan O' Brien on June 9, which will be repeated on July 1. The entire episode is available on HULU. Click on the link below and then click on the last "Chapter" button to fast forward to the performance clip:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/76867/the-tonight-show-with-conan-obrien-tue-jun-9-2009

More than just a best-selling artist, respected guitarist, expressive singer, and accomplished songwriter, Bonnie Raitt has become an institution in American music.

Born to a musical family, the nine-time Grammy winner is the daughter of celebrated Broadway singer John Raitt (Carousel, Oklahoma!, The Pajama Game) and accomplished pianist/singer Marge Goddard. She was raised in Los Angeles in a climate of respect for the arts, Quaker traditions, and a commitment to social activism.

A Stella guitar given to her as a Christmas present launched Bonnie on her creative journey at the age of eight. While growing up, though passionate about music from the start, she never considered that it would play a greater role than as one of her many growing interests.

A prolific musican, Bonnie is known for her popular songs "Nick of Time", "Something to Talk About", "Love Sneaking Up on You", and the ballad "I Can't Make You Love Me." Bonnie is also an avid political activist and has received nine Grammy Awards in her career.

Bonnie continues to use her influence to affect the way music is perceived and appreciated in the world. In 1988, she co-founded the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which works to improve royalties, financial conditions, and recognition for a whole generation of R&B pioneers to whom she feels we owe so much. In 1995, she initiated the Bonnie Raitt Guitar Project with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, currently running in 200 clubs around the world, to encourage underprivileged youth to play music as budgets for music instruction in the schools run dry.

Her commitment to the redemptive power of music is expressed in the foreword she wrote to American Roots, the book based on 2001's PBS series of the same name:

"I feel strongly that this appreciation needs to be out there so that black, Latino and all kids can understand the roots of their own musical heritage," she explains. "The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources."

Composer, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Taj Mahal is one of the most prominent and influential figures in late 20th century blues and roots music. Though his career began more than four decades ago with American blues, he has broadened his artistic scope over the years to include music representing virtually every corner of the world – west Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, the Hawaiian islands and so much more. What ties it all together is his insatiable interest in musical discovery. Over the years, his passion and curiosity have led him around the world, and the resulting global perspective is reflected in his music.

Born Henry St. Claire Fredericks in Harlem on May 17, 1942, Taj grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. His father was a jazz pianist, composer and arranger of Caribbean descent, and his mother was a gospel singing schoolteacher from South Carolina. Both parents encouraged their children to take pride in their diverse ethnic and cultural roots. His father had an extensive record collection and a shortwave radio that brought sounds from near and far into the home. His parents also started him on classical piano lessons, but after only two weeks, young Henry already had other plans about what and how he wanted to play.

In addition to piano, the young musician learned to play the clarinet, trombone and harmonica, and he loved to sing. He discovered his stepfather's guitar and became serious about it in his early teens when a guitarist from North Carolina moved in next door and taught him the various styles of Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed and other titans of Delta and Chicago blues.

Taj joined the Heads Up International label in the fall of 2008 with the worldwide release of Maestro: Celebrating 40 Years. As the title suggests, this twelve-track set marks the fortieth anniversary of Taj's rich and varied recording career by mixing original material, chestnuts borrowed from classic sources, and songs written by a cadre of highly talented guest artists. This anniversary gala includes performances by Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Ziggy Marley, Angelique Kidjo, Los Lobos and others – many of whom have been directly influenced by Taj's music and guidance.

"The one thing I've always demanded of the records I've made is that they be danceable," he says. "This record is danceable, it's listenable, it has lots of different rhythms, it's accessible, it's all right in front of you. It's a lot of fun, and it represents where I am at this particular moment in my life. This record is just the beginning of another chapter, one that's going to be open to more music and more ideas. Even at the end of forty years, in many ways my music is just getting started."

Bonnie Raitt web site Taj Mahal web site

Crosby, Stills & Nash
Friday, September 11, 2009

Advance tickets on sale NOW at all Safeway Ticketswest outlets and the Hult Center Box Office for $61 for reserved seating and $41 general admission, all of which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax and $1 for The Guacamole Fund, which will donate the funds to essential non-profit agencies.

Tickets day of show of show will cost $61 for reserved seating and $41 general admission, all of which includes a facility fee and City of Eugene Tax and $1 for The Guacamole Fund, which will donate the funds to essential non-profit agencies.

For Special Benefit Seating, in which all fees will be donated to non-profit organizations, please visit The Guacamole Fund.

Gates open at 6:30 p.m. Concert starts at 8 p.m.

All tickets subject to service charges and/or user fees.

Folk rock/rock supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) feature the intricate vocal harmonies of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.

Initially formed by the trio of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, the genesis of the group lies in two 1960s rock bands, The Byrds and The Hollies, and the demise of a third, Buffalo Springfield.

Steven Stills and David Crosby began meeting informally and jamming, the results of one encounter in Florida on Crosby’s schooner being the song “Wooden Ships,” composed in collaboration with another guest, Paul Kantner.

Graham Nash had been introduced to Crosby when the Byrds had toured the UK in 1966, and when the Hollies ventured to California in 1968, Nash resumed his acquaintance with Crosby. At a party in July 1968 at Cass Elliot's house, Nash asked Stills and Crosby to repeat their performance of a new song by Stills, “You Don't Have To Cry,” with Nash improvising a second harmony part. The vocals gelled, and the three realized that they had a unique vocal chemistry.

CSN's music unerringly reflected the tastes and viewpoints of the counterculture as the sixties changed into the seventies. By 1970, with protest against both the establishment and the Vietnam War gearing up, the group made no secret of their political leanings, Crosby in particular.

The release of “Ohio” following the Kent State shootings in 1970 marked the boldest musical statement made to that date regarding the Vietnam War, calling out Richard Nixon by name and voicing the counterculture's rage and despair at the events. Between "Ohio", their appearance in both the festival and movie of Woodstock, and the runaway success of their two albums, the group found themselves in the position of enjoying a level of adulation far greater than experienced with their previous bands, as evidenced by the 27 Platinum certifications they received across 7 albums.

The collective talents allowed the band to straddle all the flavors of popular music eminent at the time, from country-rock to confessional balladry, from acoustic guitars and voice to electric guitar and boogie. Indeed, with the Beatles break-up made public by April 1970, and with Bob Dylan in reclusive low-key activity since mid-1966, CSNY found itself as the adopted standard bearers for the Woodstock Nation, vouchsafing an importance in society as counterculture figureheads equaled at the time in rock and roll only by The Rolling Stones.

CSNY was originally commissioned to create the soundtrack for Easy Rider, but Stills' offering, "Find the Cost of Freedom" was rejected.

An entire sub-industry of singer-songwriters in California either had their careers boosted or came to prominence in the wake of CSNY, among them Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, and The Eagles.

The band has continued to be associated with political causes throughout its existence.

Crosby, Stills & Nash web site