The one singer David Crosby called the most “highly evolved”
Playing with the biggest names in the industry was something that David Crosby did by accident.
He had spent his time in the Byrds playing the best rock and roll that he could, but his taste went far beyond the traditional sounds of rock and roll half the time. It was completely natural for him to move on to different styles, and that meant trying his hand at working with every artist who excelled in their field.
Granted, it was only a matter of time before Crosby left The Byrds, anyway. He didn’t want to be playing the same style of folksy music for the rest of his life, and when he started to voyage out on his own, he saw that there were a lot of different avenues that you could go down while still having an acoustic guitar in your hand. And judging by his love for Joni Mitchell, he wasn’t going to be playing it safe, either.
What Mitchell was doing meant delving into the world of jazz and fusion from time to time, and Crosby was more than happy to dip his toes into new territory. An album like If I Could Only Remember My Name might not be the most commercial album that he’s ever released, but you can hear his love for the medium absolutely spilling out of every single song on the record. But who says that every great song needs to be complicated?
There are bound to be musos that love the idea of songs that take people on a musical journey, but there are plenty more that do the same thing with a couple of chords. Bob Dylan practically built his entire career around making the most adventurous pieces of poetry with only a few musical phrases, and while Graham Nash did offer a little bit more in his songs, Crosby felt that he was everything that rock and rollers were supposed to be.
He had already done his time working with The Hollies, but when Nash started harmonising with Crosby and Stephen Stills, it was like lightning struck in the middle of Joni Mitchell’s house. They had a formula that worked for them, but when Crosby heard Nash write songs, it was about more than the raw sound of their voices. He was making music that was pushing rock forward, and Crosby was convinced he needed to stay as close to him as possible.
When talking about Nash after their formation, Crosby had no problem calling him the next step in rock and roll artistry, saying, “Graham Nash is one of the most highly evolved people on the planet. He is my teacher, and he’s certainly the finest cat I know. Excuse me for usin’ that word, because I know a lot of really fine cats. He is just an incredible human being! And don’t just trust me. Ask anybody that knows him, and they will tell you that he is just one of the major joys in their life.”
While not everyone will be able to know that kind of warm presence personally, you can practically feel it in the way that Nash frames a lot of his songs. His pop sensibilities hadn’t left him since leaving The Hollies, but beyond the more extravagant moments on tunes like ‘Marrakesh Express’, a song like ‘Teach Your Children’ remains one of the most openhearted songs that any rock star has ever come up with.
The focus was still on making the greatest music possible, but Crosby wasn’t in it for the spectacle of playing together. It was all about chemistry, and whenever Nash threw together a tune, he knew that he was going to be getting something that warmed his heart while singing his harmony lines.
