The Nash vs. Crosby Feud

Maybe they should bring in Richie Furay. Never liked McGuinn's singing alone, and Furay and Hillman should get along well, having been in a band together. (Just look at CSN&Y, hahaha)

 

ROFLMAO ... and a rebuttal to everyone whining "It's nobody's business."

When this 77-year-old child is out there bragging about this in public and on the record to interviewers ... it's a miracle that he doesn't hire an airplane pulling a sign that says "I'm Graham Nash and my d**k still works" ... people think he's still got some sacrosanct "right to privacy?"

Sheesh!

 

Crosby is one of my heroes. That said I understand where Nash is coming from. Nash feels he helped carry Crosby thru an amazing amount of life's tumult and then one day as Crosby is apt to do Croz turned on him completely and Nash doesn't want to do a do-over.

 

This forum is generally pretty critical of all but Stills. but I think it speaks for how important they are in the big picture just how many folks are still interested in this peripheral stuff.

 

And who would have ever thought back in the day that Stills would be considered a relative saint at this point compared to the other three?

 

"Saint Stephen".....The Dead knew that way back yonder.....

 

I saw McGuinn in concert solo a few years back and his vocals were marvelous. IMO he's gotten better as he's gotten older.

 

I got my Rolling Stone Interviews 1967-1980 off the shelf last night hoping to read interviews by Crosby, Stills, McGuinn, even Nash. None of them have one in there! But there are three Dylan interviews and one Young.

 

I'd take American Dream and Looking Forward over Sky Trails any day. Excellent albums.

Sky Trails is a nice listen but I've found diminishing returns from his recent run of records, sadly.

 

I won't argue that, esp since I haven't heard him in, like -- FOREVER ! But usually I'd hear Roger sing alone and I'd think ... meh. Then suddenly the ensemble kicks in and it's celestial. Really impressive, as good as anything else, short of the Bulgarian Women's Choir. A great example of what I'm describing is The Byrds doing 5D (Fifth Dimension). Roger's ok, and Chris is ok, but Gene and David can really bring it, ymmv
btw, I know Gene didn't sing on 5D, just that he was a strong vocalist.

But we're getting off topic. We should move to Byrds Nyrds.

 

One big problem with the last two CSNY albums is that Neil refused to turn over his best songs for either project, saving them for his solo albums. "American Dream", "Name Of Love" and "This Old House" are third-rate crap compared to songs like "Eldorado", "Rockin' In The Free World" and "No More". Even Crosby's songs on American Dream are better than Neil's, and that's when he had just emerged from prison and his drug haze.

 

Well, respectfully, I disagree. Not knocking the Neil songs you mention - they're excellent - but the three CSNY songs above are also tremendous.

I know not too many people rate American Dream particularly highly but I'm a huge fan of it. I think they're all on fire songwriting-wise and I'm even happy with the Eighties production style.

 

He kept pretty quiet during Crosby’s ‘chemical dump site’ years. He views C/N/Y as family. He regards it all as personal and not our business.

 

This Old House is an incredible song and I'm not even a fan of that style of music.

 

.....didn’t stop him getting on stage with David in ‘84 or working quite extensively with him in ‘89-90.....that’s not exhaustive.....McGuinn gives a slightly different answer every time he’s asked......also said wouldn’t want to do the Byrds even if they were all Christians......I think McGuinn has unresolved issues he’s not even honest with himself about....

 

.....I mean......touring the 50th anniversary of the ONE successful Byrds album Crosby had nothing to do with.... slap in the face given how many times Crosby has said he wanted to do the Byrds one more time.....

 

I saw Hillman open for Furay a few years ago and they didn't play together; I don't think either have fond memories of SHF although Fallin In Love was the biggest hit Furay ever sang.

 

Good call. Fallin In Love was vintage Poco. You'd think between the three of them they'd come up with more and better material.
Hillman's had an odd career. Key member in some great bands but he rarely stood out as a front man. I mean this guy wasn't John Entwistle, who knew what his place in the band was. (And don't interpret this as a denigration of Ox, but the dynamics of The Who are waaay different than anything Hill participated in.) Good vocalist, good songwriter, but always second fiddle to guys who didn't seem much more talented than he.

 

Nash himself only ever seemed to say that Crosby was called regarding the story of selling his car to a drug dealer and breaking into his house to steal back the paperwork for the car to re-sell it when the drug dealer overdosed. Apparently Crosby was happy for it to be included, owning up to "the BS that I put you all through". It was in several interviews that Nash did to promote the book.

Regarding the inaccuracies in the book, the Hollies are somewhat my Mastermind subject, and a lot of Graham's stories and tales were way off the mark in both content and timeline. Original Drummer Bobby Elliott has called out a few things over the years, I think also because he never specifically got named in the book, despite being referenced several times. The big elephant in the room was Nash saying that he had zero contact with the Hollies between December 1968 and their reunion in 1981. Not true. As early as 1969 Graham was quoted in the UK press saying how much he loved their new album (Hollies Sing Hollies) and if they'd have been wanting to record material like that two years ago, he'd never have left. They had several business meetings to fairly divide up their songwriting credits and split the Clarke/Hicks/Nash writing credit to the sole writer where necessary. This was around 1972/3, and it was at Graham's request, hence the Hollies recording their jibe-track "Hey Willy". They also bumped into each other in 1974 on their respective world tours, CSNY doing their monster stadium tour and the Hollies riding their worldwide hit "The Air That I Breathe". Graham was at their show. He was also pictured again with the Hollies at an airport in Germany in 1978. So that alone proves how much of his book was tainted to be more dramatic, so I don't dispute Crosby's claims.

That issue aside, I think Crosby has a lot more prospective on life, now living well and truly on 'borrowed time'. Although he was an addict and out of control, I feel that he now has a firmer grasp on reality than any of the CSNY clan. I think he was trying to save his friends from making mistakes that satisfied their egos, but they didn't want to listen to him.

 

back to 'american dream'


i love it, an almost perfect album (drivin thunder is just putrid, and stills re-did it on 'man alive and made it even worse)

and 'night song', the closer, is the single most under--rated song in the entire CSNY catalog.

 

It was used (very prominently) in a Twilight Zone episode, which led my wife and me to discover it in a roundabout way, and it's become kind of a meme of ours to turn to each other and sing "Ni-i-ight song..." in a Neil Young voice.

I just asked my wife what she thinks of the song, and per her: "I don't think it's a good song, but I enjoy it." Fair enough! It's certainly memorable in a way that a lot of the later CSN(Y) catalog hasn't been for me.

 

I always wondered why more wasn't made of his departure from the Hollies. He dropped his wife and his band and went to America.

Seems to be a pattern with the guy!

 

People here care who Graham Nash is having sex with these days and how?

Wow.

 

Once every 50 years is a “pattern”?

 

Apparently Graham himself wants all of us to know based on his interviews. He seems more excited about it than anything involving music these days.