http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090726/LIFE/907260306/1005/LIFE
These days, they're just doing it a little more carefully
By John W. Barry • Poughkeepsie Journal
July 26, 2009
The set of music Crosby, Stills and Nash performed at the Woodstock
Music and Art Fair in 1969 was iconic, historic and remains timeless today.
"Their performance was scary, brilliant proof of the magnificence of
music, and I don't believe it could have happened with such power
anywhere else," music journalist Greil Marcus said in Woodstock
promoter Michael Lang's memoir, "The Road to Woodstock." "This was a
festival that had triumphed over itself, as (David) Crosby and his
band led the way toward the end of it."
Graham Nash remembers things differently - "almost getting killed
going in; the helicopter tail rotor failing; getting thrown into the
ground," he said during a recent telephone interview with the Journal.
Tonight, Crosby, Stills and Nash will close out the Gathering of the
Vibes music festival in Bridgeport, Conn. Tuesday, the group will
play Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
But it was 40 years ago, in August 1969, Nash, Crosby and Stephen
Stills performed at Woodstock.
"I booked Crosby, Stills and Nash before their debut album was
released," Lang wrote in "The Road to Woodstock."
Their manager, David Geffen, Lang wrote, showed up clutching a test
pressing of the band's recently completed recording, their famous,
self-titled debut, which included future classics "Suite: Judy Blue
Eyes" and "Wooden Ships."
" 'Wait till you hear this!' Geffen gloated," Lang wrote. "Geffen was
looking for the right venue to kick off the band's first tour, and we
all agreed Woodstock should be it. I booked them on the spot, paying
his asking price of $10,000."
Speaking to the Journal recently, Nash said the cornerstone of the
Woodstock spirit and legacy was and remains "taking care of your
neighbor is what you do."
Less in the spirit of Woodstock was thinking 40 years ahead, and
pondering what the enduring spirit of Woodstock might be. Nobody, he
said, would have thought like that back then.
"You're lucky to wake up the next day," he said. "Nobody thought '40
years later.' No one."
Four decades later, CSN is still playing "Guinnevere" and "Wooden
Ships" and "Helplessly Hoping," the classics that enshrined them as
rock 'n' roll royalty.
"You have to first of all recognize there's a certain reason people
come to see us," Nash said. "We also recognize that, particularly in
today's economy, that a dollar is hard to earn. We want to give as
much value as possible, as we always have done and always will do.
That's why we always go on the road."
The group recently released a collection of songs originally cut as
demos, and plans to release an album of cover songs - including the
Grateful Dead's "Uncle John's Band" - produced by Rick Rubin.
CSN returned to the land on which Woodstock was held on Aug. 13,
2006, right around the 37th anniversary of the music and art fair,
for a concert at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, a performing arts
pavilion built on the site. They were joined at that show and on that
tour by Neil Young, who also performed with them at Woodstock.
"It was interesting," Nash said, "to go down and sit where the
original stage was."
Also interesting are the recollections of Nash and Crosby, captured
in Lang's "The Road to Woodstock," about playing Woodstock: "I
thought we did a lousy set," Nash is quoted as saying. "When you
consider playing acoustic guitars to 400,000 people and trying to
reach to the back of the crowd with songs like 'Guinnevere,' it was
absurd. But we certainly gave it our best shot. Sure, the 'Suite:
Judy Blue Eyes' was a little out of tune, but so what?"
Crosby, on the other hand, is quoted in "The Road to Woodstock"
saying, "We were good, thank God."
"It went down very well. The people who were my close friends - Paul
Kantner and Grace Slick (of the Jefferson Airplane), (Jerry) Garcia,
and a lot of people - they were all thrilled. They said, 'Wow! You
tore it up! It worked.' They loved it, everybody loved it. How could
you not love it? 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes' - what's not to like?"
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Reach John W. Barry at jobarry@poughkeepsiejournal.com or 845-437-4822
.
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