Fire and Rain (50 page)

In some ways, they remained the same. Crosby was, in his words, “a blabbermouth,” a balance of cockiness and joviality. Taylor, in denim work shirt, retained his lean, sinewy frame and still projected an image of the endearingly absentminded professor. Nash was the gracious, if tough-minded, professional, Garfunkel the fastidious harmonizer (upset when he thought a cold he'd developed had affected his singing), Simon
the privacy-inclined precisionist. No longer notoriously aloof, Stills was more gregarious and welcoming than in his brash youth. Although some of the old baggage remained between them, they also knew they had to rely on each other; Crosby and Stills, who'd had a frosty relationship for decades, acted more like old barroom pals than they had in years.

For one of the set finales, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Taylor, joined by Browne and Bonnie Raitt, would sing “Teach Your Children” for what was probably CSN's 8,319th time. When they finished, Stills shouted over to Taylor at the opposite end of the line, giving him direction on playing a chord change. “When Stephen was with Buffalo Springfield, I was in the Flying Machine,” Taylor reminisced during a pause in the rehearsals. “We couldn't believe our ears. They were the most exciting thing out there. And Stephen was the genius of that generation. The Springfield set the bar for us. Stephen's guitar and vocal work, I very much aspire to it. And CSN were absolutely seminal for me and profoundly inspiring.” Stills then went over to Taylor and, with a guffaw, gave him a boisterous, playful slap on the right arm. Looking genuinely startled, Taylor went back to practicing the chord changes as everyone else took a break.

Settling into folding chairs, Stills told Nash he'd been woken up earlier the previous morning to promote a new CD on Howard Stern's show. “It was quite a trip,” Stills said in his gravel-road voice. “He said, ‘God, you're conservative—you're like Richard Nixon!'”

Nash looked aghast. “He
said
that to you?”

They both laughed. Nixon was now just a bad memory—and a relatively harmless one compared to so many in his party who'd followed. (Wiretapping the opposing party now felt like a schoolyard prank compared to starting unprovoked wars.) Many other aspects of 1970 were vague recollections too; Crosby, for one, had no recall of the night in Denver when Young stalked offstage. Simon and Garfunkel preferred not to talk about that tumultuous year at all, especially given how
they'd mended their own relationship starting in the new century. Rock and roll no longer piloted the culture the way it once had, and the album itself—a cohesive, long-form piece of music that had first flourished during the era of the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Taylor, and CSNY—was now a dying art form in the age of single-song downloads and digital players.

But nearly four decades on, the lessons and lesions of 1970 lingered all around them. The generation gap that cracked rock and roll apart that year, separating the older fans from the newer, next-generation ones, was now an entrenched part of the culture. The fans who demanded to be let in for free at festivals were, in essence, precursors to those who assumed music on the Internet should cost nothing. A new generation of indie-rock balladeers offered an alternative to clatter the same way Taylor once had. In record stores, polls, CD sales, and the world of video games, the Beatles still loomed as they had in 1970. (In 2010,
Abbey Road
was the best-selling record on vinyl—a format that had been newly resuscitated—and the Beatles were among the year's top ten best-selling artists, alongside Taylor Swift, Eminem, and Lady Gaga.)

The legacy of the first Earth Day and the launch of Greenpeace endured in the ever-widening green movement. Talk of manned space missions was back in the headlines—and by way of an African American president, an idea inconceivable in the fraught months of 1970. Even rock festivals, all but left for dead in 1970, had made a comeback; they'd become better planned and carried out than ever.

As the Hall of Fame concerts demonstrated, the music endured as well. The songs from those albums had been overplayed on radio and onstage, used in commercials, and in general beaten to death. But as Simon and Garfunkel traded verses on the Garden stage, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” fulfilled its destiny: It truly had become an old, revered gospel-style hymn. (Given how the two had reconciled in recent years, the lyrics took on an added resonance.) Crosby, Stills & Nash pulled off
a surprisingly boisterous “Woodstock,” and Crosby, despite the decades of wear and tear on his body, could still shout out a respectable “Almost Cut My Hair.” As harmonized by Simon, Nash, and Crosby, “Here Comes the Sun” felt like a centuries-old folk song.

At their own concerts, Crosby, Stills & Nash had taken to playing Taylor's “You Can Close Your Eyes,” written in 1970, and McCartney's “Blackbird,” the song they'd sung at Royal Albert Hall so long before. As Joni Mitchell sang in that long-ago year, the seasons, they still went'round and 'round.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing about the music of one's youth was a dream project. Given how much time has elapsed since 1970, it was also a challenge. Memories are hazy, conflicting stories abound. To ensure as much accuracy as possible forty years on, I relied on a combination of firsthand, primary-source interviews, seemingly accurate news accounts of the time, and as much corroboration (from multiple sources) as possible.

In the main, this book is a result of interviews conducted in person, by phone, and by e-mail between November 2008 and September 2010. For starters, I have to thank David Crosby, Graham Nash, and Stephen Stills, each gracious enough to allow me to dredge through this turbulent time for them by way of in-person and telephone interviews and e-mail follow-ups. As much as they probably didn't relish talking about their ups and downs in 1970, they did it genially and patiently. I thank them for their time.

For their insights, memories, and recall, thank you to Allan Arkush, Peter Asher, Bob Balaban, Johny (formerly Johnny) Barbata, Stephen Barncard, Joel Bernstein, Jacob Brackman, Bonnie Bramlett, John Brower, Peter Brown, Vincent Bugliosi, Gerald Casale, Kip Cohen, Rita Coolidge, Stan Cornyn, Charlie Daniels, Clive Davis, Richard DiLello, Robert Drew, John Eastman, Michael Finnigan, John Fischbach, Linda Garfunkel, Charles Grodin, Bill Halverson, David Hawk, Jimi Hazel, Monte Hellman, Arthur Janov, Vivian Janov, Alan Katowitz, Jim Keltner, Danny Kortchmar, Russell Kunkel, John Kurlander, Michael Lang, Richard Langham, Mort Lewis, Nils Lofgren, Mike Medavoy, Abbot
Mills, Essra Mohawk, Terry David Mulligan, Chris O'Dell, Tom O'Neal (né Gundelfinger), Jonny Podell, Charles John Quarto, Frank Rich, Dan Richter, Susan Martin Robbins, Maggie Roche, Terre Roche, Amalie Rothschild, Calvin Samuel (formerly Samuels), John Scher, Sidney Schnoll, Leland Sklar, Joe Smith, Mark Spector, Toni Stern, Ron Stone, Barbara Stowe, Robert Stowe, Michael Tannen, Dallas Taylor, Joseph Turrin, Klaus Voormann, Paul Watts, Alan White, Nurit Wilde, Rudy Wurlitzer, and Peter Yarrow.

The James Taylor and Livingston Taylor comments are outtakes from two long interviews I conducted with them in 2001 for a magazine article on James. Larry Knechtel and Ben Keith, musicians who combined consummate skill with splendid humility, both passed away shortly after I spoke with them, and my condolences goes out to their families.

Thank you to Susan Braudy, Ray Connolly, Ben Fong-Torres, Ellen Sander, and Ritchie Yorke for documenting the times, the music, and the people behind them—and then helping me relive the era through their memories, insights, and transcripts. Henry Diltz was generous with his time, memories, journal entries, and remarkable photo archive.

Dave Zimmer deserves special mention for his friendship, advice, and patience with all my annoying phone calls and e-mails. His detailed, year-by-year chronicle,
Crosby, Stills & Nash: The Biography
, is the required text for current or future historians of the band and the scene that created them. Our mutual friend Raymond Foye was also a supportive and helpful pal in this process, as was the legendary Debbie Gold, whose recurring refrain—“Is there any other way I can help?”—is rarely heard music to the ears of authors and historians.

For helping me reach out to the appropriate parties or assisting in various ways, thank you, Malcolm Addey, Andy Adelewitz, Jeff Albright, Tony Arancio, Lisa Arzt, Jane Ayer, Nick Bailey, Tonya Bell-Green at Carnegie Hall, Gene Bowen, Kelly Bowen, Todd Brodginski, Christoph Buerger, Bud Buschardt, Frank Carrado, Atty Castle, Kay Clary at BMI,
Liz Campanile, Tom Cording at Sony, Charles Cross, Michelle Delgado, Donna Dickman, Mika El-Baz, Jason Elzy, Denis Farley, Heidi Ellen Robinson Fitzgerald, Jim Flammia, Michael Fremer, Roger Friedman, Brian Galindo, Rick Gershon, Jill Gillett at Paradigm, Steve Gillette, Erica Hagen, Mike Heatley, Kathy Heintzelman, Meghan Helsel, Martha Hertzberg, David Hochman, Mike Holtzman, Michael Jensen, Jeff Jones at Apple, Meghan Kehoe, Harvey Kleinman at Pryor Cashman, Steve Knopper, Candace Lake, Evan Lamberg, Joe Lawrence, Diane Levinson, Susan Makarichez, Bob Merlis, Buddha and Cree Miller, Ryan Moore, Nelly Neben, Susan Novak, Mollie O'Neal, Binky Philips, Niki Roberton, Drew Rosenfeld, Richard Sandford, Gigi Semone, Adam Sharp, Bill Siegmund at the Audio Engineering Society, Susan Smith, Jim Steinblatt at ASCAP, Ken Stowar of CIUT, Gary Strobl, Anya Strzemien, Paula Szeigis, Alison Teal, Mary Tower, Traci Thomas, Yolanda Vega, Christina Voormann, Jonathan Wolfson, and Josh Young. Despite his insanely busy schedule, Bruce Feiler once again took the time to offer advice and wise counsel.

With her customary thoroughness and expediency, Anna Brenner excavated plenty of terrific archival material while attending to her burgeoning directorial career. For additional research assistance, many thanks to Lee Abrams; Pete Asch at the New York University Archives; Jennifer Burke at the Selective Service System; Gordon Carmadelle at Musicians Local 47; David Coleman at the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia; Claude Hall; Dan Levy; Chris Miller; Sean O'Heir; David Priest, who helped me navigate the National Archives in London; my old friend and Beatle and Dylan expert Steve Schwartz; Larry Shannon; and Tom Tierney at Sony.

At
Rolling Stone,
many thanks to Will Dana, Jason Fine, Jonathan Ringen, Michael Endelman, and Nathan Brackett for the work, support, and extra time they afforded me to complete this book. Also at
RS
, thanks to Brian Hiatt and Andy Greene for sharing their thoughts and notes and
to Alison Weinflash for the back issues on CD-ROM, which saved me days of library time. Michele Romero's determined, exhaustive archival dig into numerous photo archives resulted in the terrific photos inside.

My agent Erin Hosier of Dunow, Carlson & Lerner (no Nash
or
Young) was supportive from the moment I e-mailed her with the idea for this book. Writers can hope for nothing more than Erin's energy and enthusiasm. Ben Schafer at Da Capo was again an encouraging and sharp editor, always up for a chat and always knowing when to ask (or not) for updates. For the third time in my career, Martha Trachtenberg brought her astute copyediting skills to one of my manuscripts, from which it emerged unquestionably improved. Thanks to Kathleen Kelly for the extra pair of eyes. Many thanks to Marco Pavia, Kate Burke, and everyone at Da Capo and the Perseus Books Group.

Music has been a part of my family life for as long as I can recall. My mother, Raymonde, and my late father, Cliff, constantly played records on the family stereo in our New Jersey living room, and my sisters Linda Virginia and Colette initiated me into the music covered in this book by way of the LPs and singles wafting out of their bedrooms. My wife, Maggie, helped me conceive this project and, with her usual wisdom, astuteness, and breadth of knowledge, kept me on message when it came to the themes and presentation. Our daughter Maeve still doesn't know what to make of those large, circular black objects called “records” floating around the house. But she knows they have something to do with music, and that's good enough for me.

NOTES AND SOURCES

In addition to my own primary-source interviews mentioned earlier, the following books and magazine articles were also sources for some of the information in this book. Archives of the following publications were consulted regularly: the
New York Times
,
Rolling Stone
, the
Los Angeles Times
, the
Washington Post
, and
Billboard
. The Time Inc. library was also a mecca of research and information.

Ayers, Bill,
Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist
(Beacon, 2009)

Boyd, Pattie,
Wonderful Tonight
(Harmony, 2007)

Braudy, Susan,
Family Circle
(Knopf, 2003)

Bronson, Fred,
The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits
(Billboard, 2003)

Brown, Peter, and Steven Gaines,
The Love You Make
(McGraw-Hill, 1983)

Bugliosi, Vincent, with Curt Gentry,
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders
(Norton, 2001)

Caputo, Philip,
13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings
(Chamberlain Brothers, 2003)

Cross, Charles,
Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix
(Hyperion, 2005)

Davis, Clive, with James Willwerth,
Clive: Inside the Music Business
(Ballantine, 1975)

DiLello, Richard,
The Last Cocktail Party
(Playboy, 1972)

Ehrlichman, John,
Witness to Power: The Nixon Years
(Simon & Schuster, 1982)

Emerick, Geoff,
Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles
(Gotham, 2006)

Fawcett, Anthony,
John Lennon: One Day at a Time
(Grove, 1981)

Feiffer, Jules,
Backing into Forward
(Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2010)