The close high harmonies and soft-rock songs of David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash, sometimes  joined by Neil Young, sold millions of albums and were widely imitated throughout the Seventies. The members were as volatile as their songs were dulcet, and since 1970 have continually split up and regrouped. Crosby, Stills and Nash -- all singers, songwriters, and guitarists -- had already recorded before their debut LP, Crosby Stills and Nash, was released in 1969: Crosby with the Byrds, Stills and Young with Buffalo Springfield , and Nash with the Hollies.

     Crosby had worked as a solo performer before joining the Byrds in 1964. In 1967 he quit because of differences with leader Roger McGuinn, among them McGuinn's refusal to record Crosby's "Triad," a song about a menage à trois that the Jefferson Airplane recorded on Crown of Creation; Crosby sang it on Four Way Street. After leaving the Byrds, Crosby began preparation for a solo album, which eventually appeared in 1971 as If I Could Only Remember My Name. He also produced Joni Mitchell's debut album  in 1968; Mitchell's "Woodstock" later became a hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

     Young had quit Buffalo Springfield on the eve of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, and Crosby sat in for him at that concert. After the Springfield broke up in May 1968, Stills and Crosby began jamming together and were soon joined by Nash. Nash, who had been dissatisfied with the Hollies -- they had refused to record "Marrakesh Express" and "Lady of  the Island" -- joined Crosby and Stills. Recorded early in 1969, Crosby, Stills and Nash was an immediate hit, with singles "Marrakesh Express" (#28) and Stills' "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" (#21) (about Judy Collins). Although their harmonies were less than perfect outside the recording studio,  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (who joined them in summer 1969) began touring in midyear. Their second live appearance was before half a million people at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969.

      The quartet's first album, Deja Vu, took two months to make, but had advance orders for two million copies and included three hit singles: "Woodstock" (#11, 1970), "Teach Your Children" (#16, 1970), and  "Our House" (#30, 1970). A few weeks after Deja Vu was released, the National Guard shot and killed four students in an antiwar demonstration at Kent State University, and Young wrote "Ohio," which the group recorded and released as a single (#14, 1970). They toured that summer, but by the time the live album Four Way Street was released, they had disbanded.

    Crosby and Nash released solo and duo albums in the early Seventies and toured together, while Young returned to his solo career [see entry], and Stills started his. Stills' solo debut, which included "Love the One You're With" (#4, 1971), featured guest guitarists Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. In 1974 the quartet toured together for the last time; Young traveled separately. Stills and Young made a duet album, Long May You Run, in 1976, but Young suddenly left Stills midtour.

     In 1977 Crosby, Stills and Nash regrouped for the quadruple-platinum CSN which included "Just a Song Before I Go" (#7, 1977). The next summer they  toured as an acoustic trio, and in the fall of 1979  they performed at the antinuclear benefit concerts sponsored by Musicians United for Safe Energy. In 1980 Nash was granted American citizenship. In 1982 the trio released Daylight Again, for which Stills  wrote most of the songs, and toured arenas once more. Daylight was a Top Ten LP and boasted two Top Twenty singles, "Wasted on the Way" (#9) and "Southern Cross" (#18).

     In 1985 Crosby -- who'd had a number of run-ins with the law and been charged with drug and weapons possession before -- was sentenced to prison after leaving the drug rehabilitation program he was allowed to enter in lieu of serving a five-year prison sentence for possessing cocaine and carrying a gun. He appeared with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at Live Aid while out on appeal bond. Shortly after his release from prison in 1986, he wrote a compelling account of his long-term drug abuse entitled Long Time Gone, which was published in 1990. The four reunited to record the last quartet album to date, American Dream (#16, 1989), after which Young refused to tour with his  ex- bandmates. The trio's next album, CSN did not crack the Top  100. Yet the group maintains a large and loyal following, and their concerts continue to draw fans. Crosby and Nash have worked in television; Crosby on Shannon's Deal and Roseanne, and Nash with his own cable-television talk show. Shortly after the release of After the Storm in 1994, Crosby received a liver transplant.