Usually when demos make up an album or are included as bonus tracks, you can often expect rough sonics, less than perfect performances and songwriting that is evolving. On Crosby, Stills & Nash’s recently released Demos, produced by Graham Nash and Joel Bernstein, that’s not the case.

The sound is pristine, the performances near flawless and the songs are fully formed in almost every instance. It’s an easy and pleasant listen. What it lacks is a hint at how most of these tunes changed from the early demo stage to the finished product.

All but one are simply acoustic versions of the songs with basically few changes from the end result. One track by Crosby, Music Is Love from his solo album If I Could Only Remember My Name, is actually the mono log tape of the master take lacking only overdubs.

That’s not to say Demos is of no interest, just not on the level of understanding how the songs came about and evolved.

Each musician has four tracks, with Neil Young contributing to Music Is Love, but the standouts are all by Stephen Stills, who at the time — late ’60s to early ’70s — had to be considered one of the great creative forces in rock. He certainly was the acknowledged leader of CSN and taking into account his output in Buffalo Springfield, CSN&Y and his first two solo albums it begs the question: Whatever happened to Stills? But more on that later.

The album opens with Nash’s Marrakesh Express with Crosby on harmony vocal and Stills on bass. This acoustic version is played beautifully and the song comes off as much less of a pop confection than the single from their first album. It stands up on its own as a cool, breezy tune and although CSN’s trademark harmony usually has Nash on top, with him taking the lead we get to hear Crosby sing high harmony, which is sublime. Crosby has such a smooth, natural and clear voice that even when singing the high parts sounds effortless.

The other three Nash tunes are from his solo effort Songs For Beginners. Sleep Song is a delicate, lullaby presented straight-forward here and Chicago Nash’s turn at protest, a somehow not quite fully realized composition despite it dramatics and strong chorus. The best of his quartet is Be Together, written with the outstanding and underrated British singer Terry Reid. A 3/4 folk song in the verses contrasted with a sweet, melodic chorus, Be Together features one of Nash’s best lyrics, commenting on society and the need for individualism.

I always found Crosby’s Almost Cut My Hair embarrassing to listen to lyrically when it was first released on Deja Vu in 1970. It works better here acoustically with Crosby solo, but even this treatment still exposes the tune’s shortcomings, for one it being a little too delicate, too precious sounding for the subject matter.

Crosby’s Deja Vu has always been one of my favorites by CSN&Y. The front of the six-minute tune is a fascinating composition of intricate melody over flowing 3/4 finger-picking, but after an interesting middle section the ending seems to last forever as it trails off with Crosby fashioning himself a jazz scat singer. Though all of his vocal stylings are not bad, thank goodness that was scrapped for Stills’ guitar solo on the album release.

Music Is Love, as mentioned taken from a master, is a simple but pleasant tune on which we hear Young’s and Nash’s vocals clearly. The highlight for Crosby is Long Time Gone with Stills on guitar, drums and bass, much as he played on most of the first album. This is the one song we find in a state of development as the chorus melody that would feature three-part harmony is not yet written and instead we have a syncopated, abrupt turnaround, something that couldn’t exist on the finished product but works really well. Check out Stills’ work on drums and especially his funky bass line, pretty amazing stuff for a guitar player.

That brings us to Stills, whose four songs are the highlight of the album. You Don’t Have To Cry, from the first CSN album, is a revelation. Without harmony you can clearly hear the bottom melody, which is sometimes hard to pick out on the group’s version. To give you an idea how complex and ingenious their harmony construction is, try singing one of the two higher parts over it. It’s not easy.

My Love Is A Gentle Thing, from the CSN box set, is a typical melodic treasure by Stills and Singing Call, from Stephen Stills 2, is musically in the tradition of 4 + 20 with a bluesy melody and performance. Stills’ final entry and the last cut on the album is the exquisite Love The One You’re With, a gem of a single from his self-titled solo album. This is one of the plethora of quality songs Stills was writing during this period. Where did it all go?

Obviously, it’s fairly well documented that Stills, along with Crosby, had his demons. Still, how could all that creativity just evaporate? The group Manassas was a worthy if not completely successful venture but since there has been little output to rival the early Stills. That is until about two years ago. A similar demo album of just Stills’ material, Just Roll Tape, was released in 2007 and flew completely under the public radar, despite it being the best thing Stills has produced in 40 years and he recorded it 40 years ago.

A lost session that took place after a Judy Collins studio date in New York at Elektra Studios on April 26, 1968, the tapes inexplicably showed up several years ago. As the story goes Stills peeled off a few hundreds so the engineer would let him put down his latest songs. What makes this demo session superior to the CSN set is that the songs are in flux, and although the sound and even the performances are a bit rough at times, you get to hear Change Partners, Know You’ve Got To Run (which would become Everybody I Love You), Black Queen, Helplessly Hoping, Wooden Ships and an extraordinary Suite: Judy Blue Eyes all in a raw, emotional state. Simply fascinating. There is also a dobro-fired Treetop Flyer and six other lesser known songs, all extremely worthy.

As Nash recently was quoted in an UNCUT interview, Stills was blossoming as a songwriter in 1968, “To write those 19 songs in a four-month period is insane.” I’m not sure exactly which 19, but you can make a fairly good guess based on these two releases.

If you can only buy one of these sets, get the Stills album, although it may be hard to find. If you can afford both, don’t hesitate to pick up Demos, if mostly for Stills’ tracks.