Wild Tales (52 page)

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.

The jury is still out on my long, strange trip with Neil Young. Neil has a big heart with two faucets on it: the hot and the cold. You never know which you’re going to get, and that’s one of the traits that makes him so interesting. But often Neil steps over a line that you cannot cross with me without expecting to hear me roar. A while ago, I poured my heart out to him in an e-mail about several things that had come between him and CSN. It was one of those confessionals, and I held nothing back. That’s the way it has to be between mates.

He answered me in few words, the crucial five of which were: “What a load of shit.” Quite the poet.

That hurt like hell. But several days later, he apologized for his hasty reply—he’d been devastated by the loss of one of his very closest friends, Ben Keith. I understood completely. Nevertheless, the ups and downs between us are not just emotionally draining; they can also be so disheartening that I feel my soul is being drained. On the other hand, I know I could always pick up the phone and hear that familiar voice say, “Hey, Willy—want to hear four new songs?”

Aw fuck!
Here we go again.

It all comes down to the music.

—Graham Nash, 2013                                  
Kauai, HI, and Manhattan Beach, CA

The cover of
Earth and Sky
, 1980
(© Joel Bernstein)

I have had much help from many, many people on this long road and I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank them.

First of all, my partner in my early life, Allan Clarke. We started this musical journey together and remain friends to this day.

Don and Phil Everly, whose music changed my life.

Tony Hicks and Bobby Elliott, the lead guitarist and drummer in the Hollies, and our producer Ron Richards. I learned much from them, as I did from one of my oldest friends, Ron Stratton.

Rodney Bingenheimer, who helped this story to unfold.

Cass Elliot, my muse, great friend, and mentor, who knew what I was going to do before I did and is largely responsible for one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.

David Crosby, my partner and great friend, and his wife, Jan. I may have been brutally honest in my descriptions of them in their past, but I’m delighted to tell you that they both came out of the darkness and into the light in a big, big way.

Stephen Stills, one of the finest musicians in the world; my compadre who has a great heart and soul.

Neil Young, the strangest of my friends. He remains true to himself, his family, and his music.

Joni Mitchell, my unforgettable inspirational mentor and girlfriend.

David Geffen, whose absolute brilliance guided the career of CSNY with love, cunning, and amazing skill. His business partner, Elliot Roberts, is one of the funniest men I’ve ever met. He’s the one man who really kept our spirits high.

Ahmet Ertegun, one of the classiest men I’ve ever met, who believed in us from the start.

I’d like to thank all my musician friends. I have made a great deal of music in my life and I am honored to have played and sung with all of them.

Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt: The world is a much better place because of you. I’m proud to be your friend.

I can say exactly the same thing for Tom Campbell and Margaret Holmes, and everyone at the Guacamole Fund.

Mike “Coach” Sexton, surely one of the great tour managers.

Jimmy Deluca who safely drives all our equipment to this day. Stanley Tajima Johnston, my producer and engineer for all these years.

Mrs. Sumiko “Baba” Masuda, my housekeeper and teacher.

Leslie Morris, my business associate and great friend for all those many years.

The lovely and soulful Rita Coolidge.

The calming, steadfast, and striking Calli Cerami.

My great friend Bill Long, Vietnam veteran, master builder, and road manager.

Rance Caldwell, John Gonzales, Mason Wilkinson, Jimmy Hatten, Kevin Madigan, Noel Casler, and Crook Stewart, crew extraordinaire.

John Bilotta, my master printer, and Christine Pan Abbe, who keeps Nash Editions running smoothly. Charles Wehrenberg, who first suggested the idea of starting Nash Editions.

Jane Tani, Jerry Rubinstein, and Gil Segel, my longtime business managers. And Todd Gelfand and Tyson Beem, my current business managers.

Barry Ollman, friend and trusted advisor.

Pete Long, for his mathematical memory.