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1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 182. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young – Déjà vu (1970)

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  I really hadn’t made any notes on this. Déjà vu indeed. At least, here, Neil Young has joined in again, as much as Neil Young ever seems to join in with things. This album, as far as the hits go, belongs to Nash, and his relationship with Joan Baez that informs a couple of tracks. One is a cover of Baez’s Woodstock, a much faster version than I’m used to, while Our House sings of domestic bliss, hearkening back to the ongoing theme of the former hippies moving from activism to domesticity. Darn those Boomers. Nash himself said that he finds Our House to be highly saccharine, which I find amusing. His third popular track on the album is Teach The Children, which is prime CSN with its harmonies and bouncy country style. Meanwhile, Neil Young is off doing his scratchy guitar solos, and falling somewhere between the kind of light folk of Harvest and the more grungy Crazy Horse sounds, while the Stills and Crosby tracks didn’t really make much of an impact on me. I know I’ve b...

Dr. Simon Reads Appendix N Part Twenty Four: JRR Tolkien

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This is an ongoing sporadic series, in which I explore classic fantasy and science fiction works. Appendix N is the bibliography of Gary Gygax's original Dungeon Masters Guide, and lists a range of classic SF and fantasy authors that influenced his interest in the fantastical. See the first part of this series for more information.   JRR Tolkien   Of all the people on this list, Tolkien probably requires the least introduction . He’s one of only a handful of British authors in the Appendix N, but arguably the grandfather of modern fantasy . Born in Bloemf o ntain , South Africa, in 1892, but grew up in the Midlands in the UK, serving in the First World War and eventually becoming Profess or of English Language and Literature at Merton College, Oxford. Tolkien later retired to the coastal town of Bournemouth using the proceedings from Lord of the Rings. Tolkien specialised in Anglo-Saxon, and one of this more scholarly publications is a translation of Beowulf, which he ...