Human Highway (album)
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Human Highway was the working title of the album to be released from two 1973 reunion sessions by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, those sessions being resumed in 1974 on Young's Broken Arrow ranch following their triumphal reunion tour of that summer. Typical tensions within the band aborted the project and left the album unfinished. Many of the songs that had been previewed on the 1974 tour and were recorded during the sessions ended up on released work, as listed below.
David Crosby would have contributed two songs to Human Highway which both ended up on the 1975 Crosby & Nash record Wind on the Water. "Homeward Through The Haze" is a tasty piano ballad that appeared on the CSN Box Set, featuring not only Crosby, Stills and Nash but also Young on electric guitar. "Carry Me" is a happy sparkling song featuring delightful acoustic guitar work from James Taylor.
As on the previous CSNY records, Graham Nash would have contributed some commercial singles to Human Highway. "Prison Song" for example is a "Chicago"-like hymn to music, coming from the Wild Tales album and as usually filled with sociological commentary. It features David Lindley on mandolin and David Crosby on vocals. "Wind On The Water" is a Crosby & Nash cut with a feel similar to "Cathedral". This Nash original ended up on the Crosby & Nash LP of the same title as second part of a song called "To The Last Whale", which is featured here entirely. This etheral song is the second CN song to feature James Taylor playing acoustic guitar, this time also singing harmonies. Nash also plays acoustic piano. "And So It Goes", from the Nash record Wild Tales, might be compared to a folk version of "Cinnamon Girl". It has some remarkable guests: it features David Crosby on vocals, Neil Young on acoustic piano (performing as ‘overdubber’ Joe Yankee) and Ben Keith on the pedal steel guitar. And "It’s All Right" is a sunny shining eighties pop song from the album Earth & Sky. Neil Young archivist and CSNY photographer Joel Bernstein played guitar on this track, which als features some gospel sounding backing vocals.
The Crosby/Nash effort "Taken At All" appeared as a CSNY performance on the 1991 CSN Box Set and must have been recorded at about the same time as the CSNY version of Stephen Stills original "See The Changes", that ended up on 1977’s CSN. There are a lot of connections between these songs and "Through My Sails". "Myth Of Sisyphus", another Stills composition, is a track sort of connected to "Long Time Gone", featuring nice backing vocals and a creeping mood. On the other hand First "Things First" is one of his typical Latin influenced rocker (including some Spanish lyrics), almost bringing good old Buffalo Springfield back to memory. It later showed up on 1975’s Stills, featuring Crosby & Nash on vocals. There's a rather good sounding live recording from the September 8, 1974 CSNY gig in Westbury.
Finally, it has to be said that Neil Young was on a creative high during this period. He wrote and played more songs than anyone on the huge 1974 reunion tour. Among them was "Pushed It Over the End", which was only released as a single in Italy in 1980. This CSNY track bears some resemblance to the Stills/Young cut "Fontainebleau" and clocks in at over seven and a half minutes. "Love/Art Blues" is an as yet unreleased song that has Young lamenting being torn between his family life and his music. The CSNY version features piano licks from Stephen Stills with Crosby & Nash singing harmonies, though it was originally written/recorded for Young's unreleased Homegrown. The title track "Human Highway" is still unreleased in its CSNY form but Young did cut another arrangement, which was released on Comes A Time. "Through My Sails" is a group performance that features Neil on guitar, Stephen on bass and Russ Kunkel on conga, this being the closing track of 1975’s Zuma, as well as the only public release from the Human Highway sessions.
On the majority of these tracks Russ Kunkel plays drums, Leland Sklar and Tim Drummond play bass and Joe Lala added percussion. Vocals, guitars and keyboards are shared between CSNY. It has to be noted that Crosby & Nash used to perform with The Section, who were renamed The Mighty Jitters when working for them and consisted of Danny Kortchmar and David Lindley on string instruments, Craig Doerge on keyboards, Tim Drummond on bass and Russ Kunkel on drums.
