The Archive Series: David Crosby and Graham Nash - June 1996

 

Crosby, Stills & Nash: Back On Their Feet & On The Road

Well, it’s summertime again, which is prime touring season for the majority of artists. At the Jones Beach Amphitheater, Crosby, Stills and Nash have appeared nearly every summer since the venue began its rock concert program. In 1994, celebrating the band’s 25^th anniversary, as well as promoting their newest album, After the Storm, CSN hit the road with a vengeance. In the middle of everything, the tour ground to a premature halt due to David Crosby’s failing liver. After receiving a liver transplant in November of that year, Crosby focused his sights on regaining his health, while Stills and Nash busied themselves with individual musical projects. Stephen Stills toured America last year with his own band, coming to New York City’s Tramps last June and delivering a knockout performance. Graham Nash concentrated on putting the finishing touches on his one-man, multi-media show, dubbed LifeSighs. A project which had been evolving for several years, Nash took LifeSighs on the road briefly this spring, postponing the remainder of the tour until the fall.

The final months of 1995 saw David Crosby back on his feet and back on stage. CSN performed a handful of gigs as a sort of warm-up for a Crosby/Nash tour, which came to Westbury Music Fair last November. The success of these shows set the plans in motion for the current CSN tour, which began in May and will run through September.

I caught up with David Crosby and Graham Nash for a conversation about things past, present, and future.

Roy Abrams: I hear that the shows are going to be a little different this time around.

Graham Nash: Yeah, they are a bit different. We decided that we would do a bunch of songs that we’ve never done before and a bunch of songs that we very rarely did.

RA: Can you elaborate?

David Crosby: Oh, man … where are you?

RA: New York. I’ll be seeing you at Jones Beach.

DC: Oh, Jones Beach? No, I can’t tell you. Well, I can tell you, but I’d have to kill you. Well, we just changed the set up. Probably two-thirds of it is different than the last tour, at least.

RA: Are you going out acoustically or with a full band?

GN: This’ll be a full band. We have Michael Finnigan on organ and vocals, Joe Vitale on drums, and Gerald Johnson on bass.

RA: Graham, how did your initial LifeSighs concerts go down?

GN: They went extremely well. I was very happy. It was very enjoyable to be actually doing it instead of talking about it. It was a long project; it was four years of work. Of course, I’ve shut it down for the summer because CSN is out, then I’ll fire up again in the fall.

RA: Are you planning New York area shows?

GN: Yeah, I’m hoping to.

RA: There’s a group called The Posies which bears a remarkable vocal similarity to The Hollies. Have you ever heard them?

GN: Yeah, I’ve heard them. They did a Hollies song, as a matter of fact.

RA: Right, on that Hollies tribute album, The Hollies Sing in Reverse. What did you think of that?

GN: I that that whole album was fabulous. I really liked “Jennifer Eccles” by that guy, I think he calls himself “E.” It was pretty cool.

RA: Who are some up and coming singers whose harmonic ability has really turned your head?

DC: The best new practitioners are the black groups like Boyz II Men. There are two or three other black vocal groups, but particularly Boyz II Men are incredible harmony singers. They’re just stunners. But the people that I’m really fascinated with are the singer/songwriters. The ones that just kill me are still the ones that killed me last year: Shawn Colvin, Marc Cohn, Paul Brady, and Michael Hedges (who opened CSN’s ’92 tour).

RA: The last time we spoke, you both mentioned that there were several projects planned for 1996, but you couldn’t go into detail at the time. Aside from this current tour, what else is in the cards for this year?

GN: I think we’re gonna go into the studio in October to cut a new record, then I’m gonna take LifeSighs out again in the fall.

DC: I’m writing a book. We just sold a book to Harper/Collins that I’m doing, called Stand Up and Be Counted.

RA: What’s the subject matter?

DC: Benefits, peace marches, civil rights demonstrations, anywhere where we played for a cause rather than cash.

RA: During one of our earlier conversations, you said that there was a whole wealth of archival material that never made it to the CSN boxed set: demos, first takes, unreleased tracks. At the time, your thought was that we’d get to hear them at some point.

DC: Yeah, we could do it, but the only people who would want it are total fanatic fans. Do you know how many of them there are? About thirteen.

RA: Well, I must be one of those thirteen people …

DC: [Laughing] Okay, then fourteen! Maybe sometime it’ll happen, but it’s not a high priority to the people who are counting numbers, ‘cause there’s just not that many people who really care that much.

RA: David, you and Chris Hillman had approached Roger McGuinn after contributing vocals to four new Byrds tracks for that group’s boxed set. At that point McGuinn wasn’t interested in doing any more work in that vein, although you and Hillman were eager to do so. Has there been any change in McGuinn’s attitude since then?

DC: No. I’ve seen him since then because we got together when they did a CD-ROM for Forrest Gump, and Roger and I did an interview for it. We’re still friends; I like the guy a lot. He just doesn’t want to do The Byrds and that’s his right, that’s his privilege. I think he’s being a complete fool because it’s great music and we could have a tremendous amount of fun doing it and everybody wants to hear it. I can’t tell him what to do; he’s a grownup.

RA: For the past few years, you’ve spoken about your desire to do another Crosby/Nash album. With all of the current activity, do you foresee this happening sometime down the road?

DC: Graham and I really miss doing that. Those were some of the best records either of us ever made in in our lives. Wind on the Water … that era contained some of the best music we ever made and we miss it a lot. We still have a very strong urge to do that. I also just love making solo records! That last live one that I did was such a kick in the head. I had so much fun doing it!

RA: “Camera,” from the After the Storm album, was the second time that you ever shared writing credits with Stephen (the first being “Wooden Ships”). How did that collaboration come to pass?

DC: He came up with a chorus. I wrote the whole song. I had a chorus, and he had a better one. [Laughs] I said, “There you are, we just wrote a song together!”

RA: Speaking of choruses, your voice brought the chorus of the first single (“Hold My Hand”) by the ubiquitous Hootie and the Blowfish to life. How’d you get involved with that project, and what are your thoughts on the way they’re getting slammed by the media despite their obvious commercial success?

DC: Well, I can’t explain the media … the media slams us, too. I have no idea why. They’re really nice guys. Their producer is an old friend of mine. He and a woman named Jenna Rankin was who was working for Atlantic Records are the reasons why I wound up singing on the record. I went over, listened to the tune, met the guys. They were really sweet kids; I mean, they’re not kids, but to me, they’re kids. They were young, very innocent very nice kids──nice people──and I liked them, so I did the harmonies.

RA: I interviewed one of your old friends recently, John Sebastian. One of the subjects we touched upon was Woodstock ’94. Compared to both your predictions about and memories of the event from prior interviews, Sebastian’s recollections were a bit softer in tone. Has the passage of time altered your memory of the event in any way?

DC: Nah. I saw it as a media zoo. I saw it as way too contrived. Yes, some good music did get played, and music will always triumph over all that other bullshit, because music is magic. Some magic did take place because music determinedly went out there and did its thing. But, Christ, you couldn’t go two feet without some dork saying [assumes pompous newscaster voice] “How’s this different from the first time, Dave?” It was too contrived, man, way too contrived.

RA: Last question: When you and I spoke last fall, you told me you had songs cooking all the time. How many have popped out of the oven since then?

DC: It’s a secret. I have some that I really love. Let’s leave it at that.

Crosby, Stills & Nash will be at Jones Beach on June 21 and 22.

© Roy Abrams 2021

Originally published in The Island-Ear, June 10-23, 1996