Disillusioned with their
respective bands, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash met in early 1968. Egged on
by Mama Cases and plenty of marijuana, they started jamming and went on to become one of
the very first supergroups.
Henry Diltz (photographer):
In those days , lots musicians were either living or hanging out in Laurel
Canyon. Joni Mitchell, Mark Volman of the Turties, The Monkees, Peter
Fonda, Neil Young - these people
wold drop by each other’s houses and sing new songs or trade licks. You just heard
music wherever you went.David Crossly: Stephen (Stills) and I had dug each
other from afar when I was in the Byrds and he was putting together Buffalo
Springfield.
He and I had a lot of music in common - and I’d wanted to sing with Graham
(Nash) as
soon as I heard The Hollies’ King Midas in Reverse.
Stephen Stills: David
(Crosby) had left The Byrds was doing nothing in particular. I’d made the Super
Session album with Al Kooper and then followed Hendrix around, taking guitar lessons from
him - one day we played for 14 hours non-stop at my house in Malibu. Ahmet Ertegun of
Atlantic records was waiting for me to think of something to do.
David Crosby: Stephen and
I were like, No more bands man. Too many hassles.
Graham Nash: Mana Cass
from The Mamas And The Papas. Brought The Hollies to Los Angeles in February 1968 because
she wanted her band’s producer, Lou Adler, to sign us to Epic. We had
Valentine’s Day off, so we offered to a free show at the Whisky
A-Go-Go. Everybody
turned out for us- The Mamas And The Papas, The Beach Boys, The Doors, everybody was
there.
David Crosby: Stephen,
Neil Young and I were at The Whisky and we watched The there was the best damn harmony
singer around. So we took him home. We got him high, and we talked to him. Hollies. We all
came to the conclusion that indeed, in the midst of that pile of shit, there was the best
damn harmony singer around. So we took him home. We got him high, and we talked to him.
Graham Nash: Later that
night we were riding in Stephen’s Bentley. I am sitting in the back, and suddenly
they look at each other, point to me and David says to Stephen, "OK which one of us
is going to steal him?" Little did they know, I ‘d totally had it with The
Hollies by then. I said, "Listen, I am not going to take much
stealing."
Cass Elliot was the
catalyst. She
turned me on to grass. I started smoking, getting more introspective, which was one of the
reasons I was attracted to Crossly. I already had some songs that I knew I could bring to
the group - Marrakesh Express, for example, which I’d cut with the Hollies, but that
version sucked, and I knew it would work with these guys.
John Sebastian:
(guitarist, The Lovin’ Spoonful): I got a call from Stephen one day. He said he and
David had learned a couple of songs and what I was I doing that afternoon? I was doing
nothing so they came over with Graham Nash, who was visiting on holiday.
Graham Nash: They
had songs already worked out: Helplessly Hoping and You don’t Have To
Cry. I listened
to You Don’t Have To Cry and asked them to sing it again. In my head I was working
out a harmony part I could add to it. So I asked them to sing it again, and that third
time, I pitched in my part. Davis and Stephen looked at each other, and at me, and then we
all burst out laughing, because we were all harmony freaks and it just sounded perfect.
John Sebastian: As soon as
they started to sing with those three-part harmonies, it sounded fully
formed. The sound
was magical, there were all these other-worldly harmonies, like nothing I’d heard
before.
David Crosby: It was
scary, but once we knew what we had, you could not pry us apart with a
crowbar. We
we’d lucked onto something special man. We could hear it plain as day.
John Sebastian: After
that, they were like kids with a new toy, and they wanted to show it off to
people.
We’d often gather in the pool at Mama Cases’ and sing. You’d get in there
and want to pee , but it was terrific for becoming psychedelicized , starting up into the
stars and singing. It’s difficult how to grasp just how radical what they were doing
was. Rock music was an electric form, and here were these guys who were going to put
acoustic guitars and harmony vocals to the front.
Joni Mitchell: The feeling
between them was very high, almost amorous, you know? There was tremendous amount of
affection and enthusiasm running back and forth. And the sound was so
fresh. Part of the
thrill for me was, seeing how they were exciting themselves mutually. They’d hit a
chord and go "Whooooaa!". Then fall together laughing.
Paul Rothchild (producer):
For the next few days, they played all the hippest houses in LA. They threw their shit up
the flagpole to see if anyone would salute. Well, not only did people, they fell down on
their knees. At that point Crosby Stills And Nash could have started a religion.
David Crosby: we asked
John Sebastian to come and be in our band in any capacity. We told him that we loved him
and his music so much, we didn’t care if we had 19 guitar players.
John Sebastian: My
feelings were very mixed. I loved what they were doing, but I couldn’t see where I
would fit in. I would have been a fourth voice, under theirs, and I would have been
playing drums because the last thing they needed was another guitarist. Also I’d just
left the Lovin’ Spoonful and I’d been lucky to carry over a lot of our fans to
my solo career. I really did wonder if I might loose them by throwing in my lot with
another new venture. I never actually turned them down. But the idea just kind of
eventually just went away.
Graham Nash: The Hollies
wanted to do an album of Dylan songs, you know, make them really commercial and I just had
no enthusiasm for it. I called a meeting at air Studios in London and told the band I was
leaving. It was hard because Allan (Clarke, Hollies vocalist) and I had been together
since we were five years old. Everybody said "You are leaving fame, fortune and all
these hits? Are you crazy?" It was a big risk for me.
Allan Clarke (vocalist,
The Hollies): In his mind, he’d started to leave when he met Crossly and
Stills. The
Alternative was a Dylan album. His frustration wasn’t really with the
material. He
thought the group was being misguided, but he didn’t just leave The Hollies. He left
England, he left his wife, everything…
Stephen Stills: I went to
Ahmet Ertugen and said "Look I’ve got this singing group - David
Crosby, Graham
Nash and me. David isn’t under contract any more but Graham Nash is signed to EMI in
England and Epic in the United States, can you sort it out?" He agreed to talk to Sir
Joseph Lockwood at EMI and I started thinking about the Clive Davis/Epic part of it.
David Geffen (co-manager):
I don’t think anybody was really exited about them. I remember Ahmet
saying,
"Well they’re are no Association…" Don’t forget, Buffalo
Springfield never made it. David was no longer in The Byrds and was not that highly
thought of. And Graham Nash was in a pop group called The Hollies and they were never very
important in America anyway.
Graham Nash: In the end,
to get me out of my Epic deal, David Geffen traded me for Richie Furay and Poco. They got
Poco and I went to Atlantic.
Stephen Stills: It was
sorta like a baseball deal - trading players. So we pulled that off and the details worked
out. I got home one day and David was on the phone one day saying,"
Yeah, Graham,
we’re coming just as soon as we can get some money." And I was able to produce
25 $ 100 bills from my pocked and scatter them on the floor, so David told him we’d
be over the next day.
The Birth Of Crosby Stills And
Nash (review about the late 60's)