Imagine
It was 1980. I was teaching government at Watkins Memorial High School on December 8th, the day an assassin murdered John Lennon. It was shocking, one of the musical talents of a “generation” killed young and senselessly in front of his New York apartment building, across from Central Park. The next day, our Middle School guidance counselor came to school wearing all black. He was in mourning for the loss to music, and to our society.
It seemed a bit “over-the-top” to me. I was younger, twenty-four, and while I certainly knew all of the Beatles songs, I was too young to be part of “Beatlemania”. That was my older sisters: but I still have the “family” copy of “Meet the Beatles”, the 1964 album so old it’s in mono not stereo. I was eight when it came out – “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, “All My Loving”, and “It Won’t Be Long” can still call out with some static from my updated turntable, even today. But I was not a “Beatle-maniac”. Going into full mourning for the loss of John Lennon just seemed too much. I didn’t get it.
Too Late for Woodstock
“My music” came later – the music of the Vietnam war protests, and the beginnings of the psychedelic era. I listened to electricity of Hendrix and The Doors, and the folk protests of Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins. But “my” group combined both – the harmonies of the folk protests with the electrics of rock and roll. At fourteen, in 1970, I “discovered” Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
They were a “super-group”, made up of members from other highly successful groups. Crosby was from The Byrds of “Eight Miles High” fame. Stills and Young came from Buffalo Springfield. Stills wrote and sang “For What It’s Worth”, opening with the era evoking lyrics, “Something’s happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear…” Graham Nash was from the Hollies of “Bus Stop” fame. But they all left their respective groups to come together in a mix of talent, harmony, creativity and egoism.
The Super Group
They were like a nuclear critical mass. CSN and CSN&Y authored some of the historic music of the era. The meshed in every way, in instrumental talents, three and four part vocal harmonies, their ability to “float” through complex acoustics, and to “get down” and jam to electric rock and roll. They could pound through Neil Young’s “Southern Man” and Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock”. They could float with David Crosby’s “Triad” and “Lee Shore“. The audience jumped into Nash’s “Teach Your Children”, and stood for Young’s “Four Dead in Ohio”. And there was the strength of Still’s “Love the One You’re With” and “Find the Cost of Freedom”.
They began in 1968. And like every critical mass, they imploded, first in 1970. They flew off to make their own individual music, and to aid others like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, and Phil Collins . And they re-combined, as the “super-group” and pairing with each other for the next forty-six years, until their final meltdown only six years ago.
Probably Keep Us Both Alive
Their music is the theme song of my youth and young adulthood. I played the live album, “Four Way Street” so much in college, that my roommate Charlie finally tossed it out the window (I responded by launching his Bread album on the same trajectory). I timed long drives from Washington DC, to Cincinnati so that the tape would end in the pre-dawn morning hours, joining in the harmonies of “Find The Cost of Freedom” while I finished the last few miles.
As a coach, I travelled all over the country with high school track athletes. Somewhere on a highway in Nebraska or Oregon or Virginia or Florida, I would challenge them to “name that tune”. Most failed, but the ones that knew me best always said “Crosby-Still and Nash”. It was a good guess for me.
And I was haunted by “Four Dead in Ohio” about the Kent State shootings for decades. It took a track recruiting visit to the Kent campus, then indoor track meets there year after year to exorcise the ghosts of those protests, but never the song.
I saw Crosby-Stills-Nash and Young in a couple coliseum rock concerts, then Crosby-Stills and Nash in a symphonic hall, more acoustic performance. I aged along with CSN, listening to their old ballads, and letting their new efforts have a chance as well. Even when Stephen could no longer hit the “medium” notes, he could still play guitar. Even when Neil Young went off into strange projects about a fictional California town, Greendale, I went to see him in concert. I have tickets to see Graham Nash in May. My phone rings with the chorus from “Wooden Ships”.
Crosby
But in the “inside world” of Crosby-Stills-Nash and Young, I was always a Crosby guy. His voice, in lead or harmony, never faltered in six decades of performance. His songs: ethereal, stoned, evocative, or “straight-up” (“Almost Cut My Hair”) always resonated. Even when Crosby’s own behavior fractured the four, three, and then two (Crosby, when interviewed, explained that he was the asshole) his music still moved on. He released a live album last month.
And in our modern social media world, I followed Crosby on Twitter. I’m not usually a “groupie” like that. My usual mode is to listen to the new music, and make up my own mind. But having almost daily “notes” from David Crosby led me to other music, through his musical interactions. I didn’t directly communicate with him, but his constant contact made him feel close. I read how arthritis took away his guitars. But his voice never faltered.
Last week he tweeted about playing at a live concert in a California coast town in a couple of months.
Yesterday David Crosby died in his home in Santa Ynez, California. He was 81 years old. His wife said he was suffering from a long illness, but his recent Tweets gave no indication of disability. So it was a surprise last night to hear that Crosby was gone. He’s a part of my life, the songs I was likely singing, the background music to the joy and the sadness of my last fifty-two years.
If I was teaching today – I’d wear black in mourning. I get it now.
