It is January 2007, and Graham Nash is on the phone from the US eager
to talk about the upcoming Crosby, Stills and Nash tour. We talk for 20
minutes, ranging over a wide variety of subjects (loves, concert tours,
the unreliability of David Crosby, etc, etc) and I am ready to tap out
my impressions on Nash and the trio when news comes through that Crosby
is unwell - very unwell. The concert tour has been postponed. (The band
will play their rescheduled Sydney concert tomorrow.)
The ailment was never revealed. It was suspected by some to be pneumonia
but Crosby, never a healthy man, has had a liver replacement and has
battled hepatitis C.
Let's be honest: David Crosby really is a living, breathing disaster
zone. The last time I saw Crosby, Stills and Nash, at the State Theatre
years ago, Crosby performed the entire set sitting on a chair. The
reason: he had broken his foot, his leg or some part of his lower
anatomy and couldn't stand. He could barely hobble onto the stage. It
made for a run of good jokes, a lot of wry bonhomie and, amazingly, did
not for one moment distract from the trio's remarkable harmonising and
glorious acoustic guitar playing. But Suite: Judy Blue Eyes would sound
amazing even if Crosby was in traction. Oh, yes, and some years ago
Rolling Stone, which calls its gossip section Random Notes, named Crosby
as its Random Man of the Year after he had appeared on the page
regularly over the previous 12 months. Nash claims he has never heard of
this particular piece of infamy and promises to relay it to Crosby. He
feels Crosby will be suitably amused.
But it is Nash who is the subject of the interview.
Having recently seen the exceptional biographical documentary on Joni
Mitchell Woman Of Heart And Mind, in which Nash, her one-time lover,
recalls so vividly the time when they first met, I ask him whether
Mitchell was his great love. He answers with affecting honesty: "Oh yes.
I adored her. She was the great love of my life."
He goes on to recall how, upon their first meeting, she invited him to
her hotel room and played him some of her early songs. It was, he says,
a life-changing experience. He had never heard songs like these before.
It was also an event that was to irrevocably change Nash's life because
it was around this time, in 1968, that he met Crosby and Stephen Stills
at Mitchell's house in Laurel Canyon.
It was an unforgettable moment. It was in that house, which was to
become the subject of that oh-so-sweet and idyllic Crosby, Stills and
Nash hit Our House, that one of the great supergroups of the era was
formed. Crosby had been with the Byrds, Stills had been the wunderkind
guitarist with Buffalo Springfield and Nash had been with the Hollies.
They had met the year before. Now, as they sat around at Mitchell's
house, Crosby and Stills began playing and singing You Don't Have To Cry
and Nash, quite spontaneously and naturally, started adding a high,
third harmony part.
"Nothing had ever been so right, musically, in my life," he explains. "I
can remember that everybody in the room froze. Something very special
was happening. From that moment onwards I became physically, musically
and psychically linked with David and Stephen."
I point out that he can say that but we don't often see them in
Australia. Do they still tour? And to my surprise he points out that
they have never stopped touring. It is another example of the huge
hegemony that Europe and America have over popular music culture. The
band regularly play on both continents. They appear at festivals. Nash
lists several recent festivals and important gigs and says they still
genuinely enjoy performing live. Check their website and you'll find
they shared the stage with Jackson Browne and Keb' Mo' at the Pray for
Peace Concert in Washington in October. In August Crosby and Nash toured
as a duo.
And that, in part, is the point. Nash is openly political. He explains
that last year the trio, with Neil Young, played a 33-date US tour under
the banner Freedom Of Speech '06 and advertisements which said simply:
"War. A stuttering economy. Rising unemployment. An embattled president.
A deep ideological divide in the country." It was not surprising. When
Nash begins to list the trio's anti-establishment, and particularly
their anti-war, songs they add up to an impressive body of political
work. They include Military Madness (they added a special reference to
George Bush for the tour), the hard-hitting Ohio, Chicago and
Immigration Man. Young contributed a whole body of work on his most
recent album, Living With War.
In January they were looking forward to returning to Australia and Nash,
with his distinctly English politeness, was happy to announce they would
be playing many of their old hits - of course! And if their recent tours
are any indication there will be more than a hint of the anti-war and
anti-Bush in their performance, although, always remember, they are not
polemicists. Like their generation, they are humanitarians who emphasise
the insanity of all wars and, as Crosby sings in his What Are Their
Names, that "peace is not an awful lot to ask".
Crosby, Stills and Nash perform at the Sydney Entertainment Centre
tomorrow night.
"Nothing had ever been so right, musically, in my life," he explains. "I
can remember that everybody in the room froze. Something very special
was happening. From that moment onwards I became physically, musically
and psychically linked with David and Stephen."
I point out that he can say that but we don't often see them in
Australia. Do they still tour? And to my surprise he points out that
they have never stopped touring. It is another example of the huge
hegemony that Europe and America have over popular music culture. The
band regularly play on both continents. They appear at festivals. Nash
lists several recent festivals and important gigs and says they still
genuinely enjoy performing live. Check their website and you'll find
they shared the stage with Jackson Browne and Keb' Mo' at the Pray for
Peace Concert in Washington in October. In August Crosby and Nash toured
as a duo.
And that, in part, is the point. Nash is openly political. He explains
that last year the trio, with Neil Young, played a 33-date US tour under
the banner Freedom Of Speech '06 and advertisements which said simply:
"War. A stuttering economy. Rising unemployment. An embattled president.
A deep ideological divide in the country." It was not surprising. When
Nash begins to list the trio's anti-establishment, and particularly
their anti-war, songs they add up to an impressive body of political
work. They include Military Madness (they added a special reference to
George Bush for the tour), the hard-hitting Ohio, Chicago and
Immigration Man. Young contributed a whole body of work on his most
recent album, Living With War.
In January they were looking forward to returning to Australia and Nash,
with his distinctly English politeness, was happy to announce they would
be playing many of their old hits - of course! And if their recent tours
are any indication there will be more than a hint of the anti-war and
anti-Bush in their performance, although, always remember, they are not
polemicists. Like their generation, they are humanitarians who emphasise
the insanity of all wars and, as Crosby sings in his What Are Their
Names, that "peace is not an awful lot to ask".
Crosby, Stills and Nash perform at the Sydney Entertainment Centre
tomorrow night.
