by Graham Nash
When it comes to such notions, I just don’t have the time. Time is the only true currency we have. Even if Warren Buffett and Bill Gates combined their billions, they couldn’t buy an extra second of time. I was reminded of just how precious a commodity time is before we left on the Living with War tour with Neil. On the last day of 2005, I got a call from my lawyer, Scott Brisbin, in LA. New Year’s Eve—strange time for him to be talking business, I thought. But I could tell by his tone that something was horribly wrong. God, not Crosby, I prayed. Nearly as bad: Gerry Tolman, my friend and manager of fifteen years, was dead—he’d crashed his Porsche 911 coming off the Ventura Freeway in a rainstorm. Gerry gone, it was too hard to believe. So young and vital. I was heartbroken. I dealt with the terrible news by writing “In the Blink of an Eye” on New Year’s Eve, a song that was only performed once, at Gerry’s funeral.
There’s no way to turn back time when a tragedy like that happens. The way I see it, you’ve got to make every minute count, even when it comes to something as fleeting as songwriting. I’m not interested in wasting your time or singing you a song that I don’t believe will move you or make you think. I really don’t have a minute to waste.
My life has become a battle against time. I have so many pursuits that bring me pleasure that, often, I feel like an air traffic controller, trying to give each its rightful space. I am constantly writing. If CSN or CSNY isn’t recording, then I’m working on my own material. Always writing. Because songs drive me crazy. If they are on my mind and unrecorded, I need to get them out of my system. I can’t rest while some speck of lyric or melody is rattling around inside my head. It’s like a form of foreplay when you just need to come; otherwise the experience is too frustrating. And even in my seventies—my seventies, holy shit—I can still get it up for a song. James Raymond and I, with some help from Marcus Eaton, wrote a new song called “Burning for the Buddha,” about the 128 Tibetan monks who have immolated themselves as a response to the tensions between China and Tibet. When I saw the first image of a burning monk it was his protest against the Vietnam War and it appeared on the front page of every newspaper in the world. No longer. Those sorts of actions now are ignored. Quite honestly, we’ve been conditioned to think more about the size of Kim Kardashian’s ass. Surprisingly, though, the song goes down rather well.
All of us—David, Stephen, and I—remain extremely prolific writers. So many songs! There’s no stanching the flow. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or wherewithal to record even half of our new material. It’s not logistically or economically feasible. And today’s recording contracts aren’t what they used to be. Back in the seventies and eighties, we basically had carte blanche in the studio. Atlantic gave us fantastic advance money, underwrote the sessions, and turned us loose to create. That doesn’t happen much anymore.
In the summer of 2003, Joel Bernstein and I began production on a series of eleven major CSN-related archival projects, beginning with a three-CD box set retrospective of David Crosby’s life in music. Over the next ten years, Joel and I completed seven of these projects, including similar retrospectives for me and Stephen.
In between the business with CSN, writing, recording, and performing, my art and photography have taken center stage. If I’m not making music, I’m painting; if I’m not painting, I’m sculpting; if I’m not sculpting, I’m drawing or taking pictures. I direct my energy in whichever direction I want. If I can create a fine song, why can’t I make a fine painting or take a good photograph or sculpt a good piece? I keep trying to touch the flame any way I can—without getting too burned.
Since the time Joni first encouraged me to express myself in photography and painting, I’ve been working feverishly in all forms of media: acrylics, stone, linoleum cuts, lithography, collage, a variety of printmaking, and, of course, ink-jet art. Painting released some skill I never knew was there. During the early tours, CSN didn’t stay in particularly great hotels. We were still rock ’n’ roll dogs. The scene in those days was a lot of Holiday Inns, places that had strange wall-size drawings of, say, a Roman ruin or the depiction of a lady in crinolines, that kind of generic stuff. Because I was doing a tremendous amount of cocaine at the time, after our shows I would paint those drawings. Just took out my brushes and went to work. I painted at least seventeen walls in motels around the country so that an untrained eye wouldn’t notice they’d been altered. Looking at them, it would never occur to you: “Hmm, that should be black-and-white.” They were delicately colored. I even signed them. I can turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse in a second.
Those hotel and motel walls served as my apprenticeship in art. I’ve gotten better since then: I’ve graduated to bona fide galleries, with exhibitions of my work shown all over the world. Mostly painting and prints mixed harmoniously with my photography. To this day, a camera is never far from my reach. I get such a unique perspective looking at the world through a lens, an outlook that has captivated me all of my life. My dad knew what he was doing when he put that Agfa camera in my hands. He was giving me an enormous gift—the ability to look at things in a different way, simply, imaginatively, magically, with open eyes. He unleashed my curiosity. Learning how to see that way has been a lifelong education. It has taught me to become more aware of my surroundings, to see the beauty that exists around us all the time, to appreciate all forms of imagery. I’m amazed anew every time I look through a lens.
SOMETIMES MY LIFE seems to take place in the air. I’m constantly traveling, either with the band or to an event that benefits a cause or for my art or some session I’m producing. But in between all the madness, my refuge is Hawaii. It’s always been my idea of paradise. A sanctuary in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, miles from anywhere, stunning scenery, and all that rainfall—water, precious water. Guests are always amazed at all the rainbows, but where I live they’re an everyday occurrence. Even double rainbows (up yours, Walter Yetnikoff).
When Susan and I moved there in 1979, our land was almost third-world primitive. Just a tiny shack with no glass on the windows surrounded by lots of lush, untamable growth. Kind of like a Gauguin landscape without the wild beasts and bare-breasted women (too bad). I’m surrounded by acres of unspoiled mountain scenery, with countless waterfalls sluicing down the banks. Over the years, Susan, with our friend Bill Long, has turned our property into an extraordinary Balinese-style compound, with four houses—ours and one for each of our children—a studio for my ongoing musical and artistic experiments, a studio for Susan, and a heated pool. What a great craftsman Bill is, and what a fine road manager. With all that pristine beach just minutes from the house, you’d think it would satisfy our recreational urge, but the beach is anathema to this pasty English lad. Susan practically has to put a gun to my head to lure me onto those stretches of white sand, and since you already know my feelings about firearms, you can imagine how seldom a beach outing occurs. No, I’m content to sit on our patio and watch nature conspire right before my eyes. I’ll leave walking in the sand well enough alone—or to the Shangri-Las.
My son Jackson, an artist, an activist, and a world traveler, and his lovely soulmate, Melissa, both have an infectious, positive spirit. They live on a five-acre piece of land just up the road; they live humbly and quietly in a repurposed shipping container with our first grandchild, an extraordinary baby girl called Stellar Joy. They’re conducting an experiment in permaculture, a form of ecological engineering that emphasizes natural and sustainable ecosystems. Some of my environmental proselytizing must have rubbed off, because Jackson and Melissa seem to do their best to strike a balance between focusing on their family’s well-being and concentrating on the well-being of the planet.
Will, his younger brother, is an equally brilliant young man, so grounded, so levelheaded. He’s a whiz at math, golf, and chess and for a while went to MIT. Years ago, when Will was twenty, he accompanied Susan and me on a visit to a friend’s office on Wall Street, where we got a firsthand look at the chaotic trading scene. In one room, wher
e forty computers lined the walls, Will happened to glance at a machine and said, “Ah, the Fibonacci formula.” One of the traders sitting there spun around, openmouthed. “No one has ever noticed what our software is producing and understood it on sight,” he said. “Give me this kid for two weeks and I’ll change his life.” So Will wound up working for a very successful Wall Street firm in Los Angeles, one of the youngest stockbrokers in the country, but eventually bailed when the economy turned sour. I always wanted him involved in the family business, so these days he works alongside me, managing the details of my affairs, which I guarantee you are more complicated than that Fibonacci formula. A few years ago, Will met a beautiful young woman from Omaha named Shannon, and they got married in 2012 year in a joyous ceremony at our home in Kauai.
Nile’s life is more serenely composed. When my daughter was seven, Susan took her along to visit a friend who was in the throes of having a baby, and Nile watched the process from beginning to end with wide-eyed interest. None of the gory bits seemed to have an impact on her. While everyone else was distracted, Nile talked soothingly with the mother in an adult, compassionate way. After graduating summa cum laude with honors from UCLA, all she wanted from life was to bring babies safely into the world. In addition to being a nurse practitioner of women’s health, she is also a registered nurse and a certified nurse-midwife. Her services are in great demand. And every time I check in with my managers, Buddha and Cree Miller, I have the distinct pleasure of knowing that Nile chaperoned their daughter Marta’s birth. On my birthday. Now that’s what I call managers. Did I say pleasure? Make that pride. That’s my kid facilitating childbirth. What could be more meaningful than that?
I was really touched when, in 2010, Nile and Britt Govea coproduced an album of my music called Be Yourself. All the songs on my first solo album, Songs for Beginners, were performed in sequence by an astounding variety of younger musicians. What CSN always believed—that the music is far more important than ourselves—is borne out by this project. To think that much younger musicians are eager to play our songs today is very moving to me.
I am grateful that my family allows me to be who I am. Still. At my age—seventy-one—making music the way I want to, on my own terms. I’m an authentic mutt: part Hollies, part CSN, part CSNY, part Englishman, part American, part inveterate hippie, part gadabout, all heart. What a luxury. Hard to believe. I often look in the mirror and wonder who that is staring back at me with the snowy white hair and timeworn face. Inside, I’m still the same fifteen-year-old boy who sat next to Clarkie in the balcony at the Bill Haley concert all those many years ago. Same enthusiasm, same spirit.
Speaking of Clarkie, he came through it pretty well. Years and years as the face of the Hollies is a pretty amazing legacy any way you look at it. In 2010, my agent phoned and said, “You’re going to have to make arrangements to go to New York. The Hollies have been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.” I was thrilled—for Allan and me, for all of us. I thought the Hollies should have been in the Hall a long time ago. I don’t know why we didn’t make it sooner. Maybe we weren’t cool enough. It didn’t matter. It was a great honor, even though by that time Allan had left the group due to a problem with his voice. So I called the rest of the Hollies and said, “Cancel all your plans and come to New York for the ceremony.” I should have known better. They said, in their peculiar north of England way, “Oh, sorry, but we’ve got a gig that night. We won’t be able to make it.” Are you fucking kidding me! “You’re not going to come?” No, they insisted on playing their show. “You know, you can cancel a gig,” I said, “and you can rebook it. It’s done all the time.” Nope, nothing doing, they weren’t coming.
So I called Allan and asked him to come with me. I explained how it was an incredible circle that was being closed in our personal relationship. “And we’re going to have to sing two or three songs. So—what about your voice?” He wanted to talk it over with his vocal coach to see if it was feasible. He got back to me a couple days later. “My coach said I really can’t sing,” he explained. So I suggested we get a couple of my kids’ friends from Maroon 5—Adam Levine and Jesse Carmichael—to do the Hollies’ parts. My son Will knew them from school when they were called Kara’s Flowers, and they’d opened for CSN at two benefits we did for the Brentwood School. I’d asked Will one day what had happened to the band. “Ah,” he said, “they are packing it in. They can’t make it in this crazy scene. Instead they’ll be dentists and doctors.” This didn’t sound right to me because I thought they were talented, so I lent them money to make more demos. A year later they were on top of the charts as Maroon 5. Go figure. Got to keep it all moving forward.
“You just have to be present,” I told Allan on the phone. After all, he and I were the Hollies, which we’d started in 1962. So Allan finally agreed. I knew they’d want us to sing “Long Cool Woman,” even though that was made after I’d left the band. Allan thought we should get Pat Monahan from Train to sing the lead, which we did. A good idea.
Everything was on track. Allan came to New York. I met him at the Waldorf Astoria, got a suite for his wife, Jeni, and him and their son Toby with flowers, water, the works. A couple days before the ceremony, we rehearsed with Paul Shaffer and his band. They wanted us to do “Carrie Anne,” “Bus Stop,” and “Long Cool Woman.” Perfect. Allan watched a lot of the rehearsal from the fringe of the stage, looking and listening … and fidgeting. I could tell he wanted to get into it. When we got to the choruses, Adam, Jesse, and Pat were right there. Everything was fine. But I could see Allan start edging toward us. Eventually he sang a line here … a line there … Now, Allan wrote “Long Cool Woman,” with Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook, and that’s him on guitar on the record. It’s his song. Pat was doing a great job on the vocal, but now Allan, unable to contain himself any longer, took over. And he ended up singing all three songs in great voice. He kicked ass that night. The two of us, in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For me, it was a dream come true. Many dreams come true, in fact, because with the Hollies’ induction, every member of CSNY was in the Rock Hall twice, the only band to ever hold that distinction.
In 2011, when Crosby and I played the Royal Albert Hall, we worked up a version of “Bus Stop” just for fun. All these years later, we’d done Byrds and Springfield songs, but hardly ever a Hollies song, so this was a unique moment for me. Before the show, I found Croz backstage and said, “Just bear with me here. Do me a favor.” I knew Allan was going to be at the show that night, so I introduced him and got him up singing it with us. Man, some voices are just meant for each other.
After the show, I had another little surprise. The Buddy Holly Foundation decided to make nineteen exact replicas of Buddy’s acoustic guitar—the number being significant because there were nineteen frets on his guitar neck, and each replica contained a fret from one of Buddy’s old guitars. Incredibly, they gave one to me, but I felt a little weird that Allan didn’t get one. After all, we’d started the Hollies together. So I called Peter Bradley, the head of the foundation. I knew all nineteen guitars were spoken for but wondered if there was anything they could do to include Allan. There weren’t any frets left, but they made an extra guitar and I gave it to Allan that night at Albert Hall.
Those are the moments, baby, the ones you never forget. And all these years later, the moments keep on coming. In the summer of 2012, with David and Stephen, I played eighty-seven sold-out shows in gorgeous little theaters and festivals. Still out there, slinging the hash. We hit the road in our fully decked-out tour buses with a teenager’s resolve. Every night, the minute the lights go down and the band kicks up, it feels like the first time. I always get a rush. There’s nothing better than singing with my mates. All that energy coming from every direction—from the band behind us and the audience out front, Stephen and David on either side. And suddenly I’m twenty-five again, bouncing like a kid. I can’t control it, it just happens. It’s inside me, an incredible feeling, and I feed off it greedily. City after
city, night after night.
I still enjoy touring. It’s a part of my life, a great experience. I get to go to a different location every few days. I stash my shit in the hotel room, grab my camera, and I start walking. Beforehand, I hit the computer and check out what’s at local museums, if there are flea markets, galleries, places of interest. I want to learn everything I can because I’m running out of time and the world is large. I would never believe I’d be doing this in my seventies, never in a million years. You know how fast that went? Insanely fast. And the rest seems to be coming at warp speed.
At the beginning of May 2013, CSN played two concerts in the beautiful Lincoln Center in New York City. Wynton Marsalis and his entire jazz orchestra had made arrangements of twelve of our most well known songs, and we performed along with them. What brilliant musicians they are; it was an incredible experience for all of us. So much respect, so much joy, so many smiles on so many faces. Especially ours.
I am a complete slave to the muse of music. I will do anything for good music—anything. That’s my one enduring addiction. With Crosby, Stills & Nash, I have realized that no matter what we do to each other, no matter how many great or sad times we have, we know that the music is far more important than any of our individual lives. I have learned so much from David and Stephen—so much of how to live my life, and so much of how I won’t live my life. They encompass all the best and worst in people, and I’m sure I’m the same way.