Graham crackin'
Graham Nash pulls no punches when it comes to the details of his life. Here are excerpts from his new book.
FROM HIS post-World War II early years in the dreary, materially deprived north of England to his discovery of rock 'n' roll in the late 1950s to fame and fortune (and party-animal lifestyle) as a rock star, Graham Nash pulls no punches when it comes to the details of his life. Here are excerpts from his new book, Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life:
On David Crosby
"I just happen to love the guy. He's a really fascinating cat: curious, confident, complicated, imaginative, tasteful, generous, romantic, with a huge heart. He's also reckless, audacious, hotheaded [and] cheeky, which are attractive in their own Crosby ways . . . it's the whole package, take it or leave it."
On Stephen Stills
"Stephen was a guy in the Crosby mold. He was brash, egotistical, opinionated, provocative, volatile, temperamental and so f-----g talented. And a little crazy because he grew up in a f----d-up family. His father was a hustler and his mother devoted to booze. He felt 'less than' throughout his youth. The first time he felt 'more than' was when he picked up a guitar, so he often mixed bluster with insecurity."
On Neil Young
"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 one 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 email 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 a few words, the crucial five of which were: 'What a load of s--t.' Quite the poet."
On his intro to marijuana
"Crosby had a suspicion I'd never smoked dope before and seemed eager to initiate me. Honestly, no one was more eager than I was. There was no controlling my curiosity in those days. Little did I know at the time that Crosby had the best dope in Hollywood. . . . And I proceeded to get ripped, from my t--s to my toes. I was out of my mind. Man I loved the feeling, and instantly became a lifelong fan."
On CSNY's second gig ever - at Woodstock
"The stage sound sucked. . . . It was cold, and the guitars immediately went out of tune. At the time, we had no idea that [Young] had refused to have his songs filmed or recorded, something that the rest of the world would never have thought of, let alone agreed to. That's the main reason many people don't realize that the four of us performed at Woodstock. We only knew we had done well. We could sense it . . . We felt triumphant."
- Chuck Darrow