Crosby, Stills & Nash

Author:Dave Zimmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786726110
Publisher: Da Capo Press

CROSBY & NASH MEET STILLS-YOUNG (1976)

Made for years to feel like leftover parts—like the George and Ringo of CSN&Y—David and Graham were anything but that in the spring of 1976. As Nash explained vehemently to a tactless radio interviewer, “Let’s get this straight. David and I are not one-half of anything.” Crosby remembers, “Me and Nash had something solid, just scrumptious, man. There was no bullshit, no weird trips, just us . . . making music.”

The Crosby and Nash team had been operating steadily for a year. The only solo project undertaken was Nash’s production of an album called Seed of Memory, for English folk-rocker Terry Reid. The success of C&N’s Wind on the Water bolstered their confidence as a team; and their live shows, whether acoustic or electric with the Mighty Jitters, were warm and exciting affairs. Also, in the studio, David and Graham were preparing songs for another album, to be called Whistling Down the Wire.

“We were having fun and we had a lot of musical integrity,” says Nash. “We got off, just the Jitters and us, jammin’. We came up with some delicious outtakes with obscure titles like ‘Howls on Dog Mountain.’”

Bassist Tim Drummond reveals, “A tape exists called ‘The Dirty Thirty,’ with a lot of great Jitters tracks that never got released. They all came about very spontaneously. And Crosby came up with this one great song called ‘Drop Down Mama,’ real funky boom-chicka-boom-chicka-like. I’ve been on him to do it for years. Every time I see him, I say, ‘Come on, Crosby.’ And he’ll say, ‘Oh, man, I can’t.’ He thinks it’s too funky for him, but I say bullshit, he should just sing it. And Graham wrote this song called ‘Taxi Ride,’ with a Bo Diddley rhythm, that we learned but never went back and worked on.”

Drummer Russ Kunkel adds, “I tell ya, Crosby and Nash thrived on the thrill of the moment. Nothing was very preplanned. We’d just smoke it and start playin’.”

The “keepers” from these sessions were generally more folkish and subdued than a lot of the music on Wind on the Water. “It was a peaceful time for us,” says Crosby. And into this sea of calm came a call from Neil Young.

“I must tell you, I was surprised to hear from Neil,” says Graham. “But I was intrigued by what he was telling me about this project he was doing with Stephen. And when Neil came by my house here in San Francisco and played me and David a tape of some of the things they’d done—‘Black Coral,’ ‘Midnight on the Bay,’ ‘Human Highway’—they sounded great. Then Neil said, ‘Isn’t there somethin’ missing?’ Crosby goes, ‘Yeah, us,’ meaning me and David. So the next morning we were on a plane to Miami.”

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