It’s hard to work out why this album was such a critical and commercial flop back in 1971. For sure, its genesis was messy — various musician friends coming to Crosby’s hideout where he was hammering the drink and drugs to try and escape trauma at his girlfriend Christine Hinton’s death in a car crash — but the record is anything but. Jerry Garcia, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and members of Santana and Quicksilver Messenger Service all feature, among other Californian royalty, but the playing is notably ego-free. Rather, the collected virtuosity is all put to service in the service of richly-layered grooves and songs that unfold like medieval narrative tapestries. There is darkness here, plenty of it, but there is also comfort, friendship, perspective and — especially in the astonishing miniature chorale “Orleans” — redemption. Even the most cathartic songs like the eight-minute fever dream “Cowboy Movie” with its tearing solos are rooted in that sense of collective groove, and while there is a lot to unpick in them, the pleasure principle is still strong. This deserves to be ranked alongside the best of his peers’ contemporary work.