Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young -- "SYNC"

Following the success of Deja Vu, released in 1970, each member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young went to work on solo albums. However, all four ended up working with the other three on those albums.

I wanted to see what a CSN&Y album might have looked like if they'd worked on one instead of producing solo efforts. In all, there are 14 songs from the four solo albums that include at least two of the members, and five have three members. But none have all four together. As a result, all of the 14 songs I used for this album have at least two of the members performing.

SIDE A

1. Love the One You're With

2. Music is Love

3. Better Days

4. Only Love Can Break Your Heart

5. Tamalpais High (At About 3)

6. Laughing

7. Go Back Home

SIDE B

1. What Are Their Names

2. Sit Yourself Down

3. Man in the Mirror

4. Traction in the Rain

5. Song with No Words

6. I Used to Be a King

7. We Are Not Helpless

The album kicks off with Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With," with backup vocals by Graham Nash and David Crosby, followed by Crosby's "Music is Love," with Neil Young and Nash on both guitar and vocals (Young also contributes bass, vibraphone and congas to the track). Nash's "Better Days" is next with Young on guitar.

The fourth track is Young's only composer contribution "Only Love Can Break Your Heart," which features Stills on backup vocals. This is followed by two Crosby songs, "Tamalpais High (At About 3)" and "Laughing," both with Nash on backup vocals. Stills' "Go Back Home," with Crosby on backup vocals, closes out the first side.

The second side opens with Crosby's "What Are Their Names," featuring Nash on backup vocals. Stills' "Sit Yourself Down" follows, with the voices of both Nash and Crosby.

Nash's "Man in the Mirror" includes Young on guitar. This is followed by two Crosby songs, "Traction in the Rain" and "Song with No Words," both with Nash on vocals. Nash's "I Used to be King," with Young and Crosby on vocals, is next. The album closes with Stills' "We are Not Helpless," which includes backup vocals by Nash and Crosby.

(Something to ponder: Since three of these songs feature Crosby, Stills and Nash, then aren't they in essence Crosby, Stills and Nash songs?)

The songs can be found on Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name, Nash's Songs for Beginners, Stills' Stephen Stills and Young's After the Gold Rush. I chose the title of this album, SYNC, from the first letter of each of their surnames.

As a play on the title, I created a cover with a photo of an old sink. This sort of goes along with the covers for the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet, the Mamas and Papas' If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, Cheap Trick's Heaven Tonight, and Foreigner's Head Games. And now that I review this list, what's with rock bands and bathrooms?

The Mynah Birds -- EP

SIDE A

1. It's My Time

2. Go On and Cry

SIDE B

1. I Got You (In My Soul)

2. I'll Wait Forever

There may or may not be a whole Mynah Birds album locked up in the Motown vaults. According to the Motown discography, there was an album scheduled for release in 1969. But by this time, only one member from the original group that signed with the record label in 1966 was still there.

The group that initially signed with Motown's subsidiary label VIP included Rick James, Neil Young, Bruce Palmer, Rick Mason and John Taylor. However, reportedly, after only recording four songs and right when the band's first single was to be released, word got out that James was a U.S. Army deserter and arrested. 

Motown pulled the single, and the other four members went their separate ways -- Young and Palmer traveled to L.A. and became members of Buffalo Springfield.

Eventually, after serving his jail time, James made it back to Motown and continued to record as the Mynah Birds with other musicians, but those tracks have yet to surface. 

However, the original four songs have been released on Motown compilation albums in recent years. What I've done here is simply make a self-titled EP of those tracks. UMe Records issued "It's My Time" and "Go On and Cry" as a 7-inch single in 2012 for Record Store Day (only 46 years after Motown pulled it). I took the record sleeve artwork for that and made some adjustments (removing excess verbiage and adding the VIP logo and song titles) to create the EP cover.

 "It's My Time" and "Go On and Cry" can be found on The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6: 1966; and "I Got You (In My Soul)" and "I'll Wait Forever" can be found on Motown Unreleased: 1966.

It would be great if someone would collect all the Mynah Birds tracks and issue them in one set.