Crosby, Stills & Nash

Crosby, Stills & Nash have remained America's longest-running experiment in vocal harmony and social relevance. The trio brought harmony to the forefront of popular music with their unique three-part vocal blend. A low-key supergroup, they emphasized singing and songwriting above all, and their example contributed to the evolution of the singer/songwriter movement in the Seventies.

Born out of well-known groups that placed a premium on harmony, Crosby, Stills & Nash boasted impressive individual credentials before they joined forces in 1969. David Crosby sang and played rhythm guitar with The Byrds. Stephen Stills was a mainstay of Buffalo Springfield. Nash provided the high harmonies that helped make pop sensations of Britain's Hollies. Even with those estimable prior alliances, Crosby, Stills & Nash would become their pinnacle as musicians.

Particularly on their classic first album, CSN helped steer rock to a more contemplative, song-oriented place, and they made reference to what they did (owing to the frequent use of acoustic instruments) as "wooden music." In so doing, they helped pave the way for the success of kindred spirits like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne.

James Taylor

James Taylor was the pre-eminent singer/songwriter of the Seventies and has remained a solid musical craftsman and performer. Partnering with fellow guitarist/songwriter Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar, he recorded the classic Sweet Baby James with a band that included Carole King on piano. Released in March 1970, the album offered its share of signature songs, including "Fire and Rain," "Sunny Skies," "Country Road" and "Sweet Baby James."

Its phenomenal success helped usher in an age of "new troubadours" — including such singer/songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, and Crosby, Stills and Nash — who pointed popular music in a quieter, more introspective direction after the turbulent Sixties.

Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne has been both an introspective, cerebral songwriter and a politically attuned voice of conscience. He emerged in the early Seventies as a soul-baring young folksinger whose songs dealt with riddles of romance and existence. In his middle period he became a more extroverted rock and roller. Later work grew more topical in nature as Browne sang of political and social realities within and beyond our borders. "In a way, I don't choose what I write about - my subjects kind of choose me," this vanguard singer/songwriter explained in 1993. "It's a healing thing, a way of confronting what's important in my life at the time."

Bonnie Raitt

When Bonnie Raitt won a phenomenal four Grammys in 1990, it came as overdue recognition for an artist who had been breaking down barriers of gender and genre since the early Seventies. Her feel for the blues was evident on her first album, Bonnie Raitt (1971), and though she's explored different kinds of material over the years — including pop, rock and balladry — a serious rooting in the blues has remained evident in her work.

Raised in Los Angeles by her actor father John and pianist mother Marjorie, Raitt took up guitar at age 12. While attending college in Boston, she gravitated to the Cambridge folk-blues scene of the late Sixties. She emerged as both a prodigy and anomaly: a young woman who sang blues with gritty passion and played slide guitar with authority, as if the genre's fundaments had been etched in her soul.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Friends will be performing material from their vast catalog of music and will be inviting these and other special guests onstage for never-before-seen collaborations. Check back soon to see who else they'll be performing with.