A famous quip Keith Richards claims that if one recalls the sixties is that there was not. Well in 1971, Crosby does not even remember his name. No need here to dwell on a prestigious course yet, who sees the move especially in the two most important folk-rock formations of the country (the Byrds and CSN (& Y)) ... we be content to note that the friendly mustachioed is then surrounded by the cream of the musicians of the west coast, namely bulk and, Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia (Grateful Airplane), Kantner, Slick, Kaukonen, Casady (Jefferson Dead), guitarist Mike Shrieve (Santana), of Joni Mitchell (he was one of the first to discover), the kind of loner Graham Nash and Neil Young, etc.La list is impressive and one could believe both in a deadly tribute (Crosby would die? ) and a super jam session laborious ... But this disc is by far the most personal work and most vibrant of its author recorded in San Francisco, in an almost unreal harmony, "If I Could Only ... "is a journey into the soul of its creator as much as in the stars where in the best of hippie spirituality. As the poet says, here everything is luxury, calm and voluptuousness, from the angelic choirs of "Orleans" (to thrill) to the epic and sublime "Cowboy Movie" (Crosby was born into a family filmmakers in Hollywood), through the ballads tinged with melancholy romanticism as "Traction In The Rain" ... it reigns elsewhere and throughout the album a persistent sadness, but all the lines, almost as spectral in the piece (quasimment capella) "Beaugency" ... ornate vocal harmonies look great (Crosby has perhaps never sang here as well), decorated with arabesques of crystalline guitars and lace d "autoharp", "If I Could Only ..." could figure lay wreath on the tomb of the sixties, but it is much more than that: a timeless disk to permanently unalterable beauty.
