December 26, 2023 • 48 mins
As we prepare to launch our fourth season at iHeartRadio, we’re revisiting some of host Alec Baldwin’s favorite episodes from the archives. In this episode, Alec speaks with the late David Crosby. Some combination of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young played together for 50 years – until 2016. The group even survived Crosby's near-total dissolution under the influence of cocaine and heroin. That was a brush with death that left him in need of a liver transplant and a new approach to life. His newfound joy is clear in this 2018 exuberant conversation with Alec. Crosby's childlike gratitude for his sixty years in music is palpable, but he is candid about the struggles, too: from wrestling with Roger McGuinn over control of The Byrds, to the terrifying culmination of the 2016 breakup of Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. Here before we launch our next
season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I
thought i'd play some of my favorite shows from the archives.
Next up is my interview with musician David Crosby. Crosby
is a founding member of Crosby Stills in Nash and
in adding the Why that is Neil Young created one
(00:23):
of the greatest quartets in music history. Here's my interview
with the late David Crosby.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And here before here before.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
As you know, it makes me wonder.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
What's going on c SN and sometimes why. Some combination
of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash played together
(01:30):
for fifty years until twenty sixteen, but always Crosby. He's
the constant in some of the greatest songs of the
twentieth century. His composition, harmonizing and non traditional guitar tunings
helped create the sound of the sixties and seventies. It's
a sound he honed with his first big act, The Birds,
(01:52):
turning counterculture anthems like Dylan's Tambourine Man into mainstream hits.
David Crosby is famous too for his addiction to cocaine
and heroin in the nineteen eighties. It almost killed him.
But even in his darkest moments, Crosbie always had people
pulling him up, even some of the biggest stars of
(02:13):
the era.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
All Right, I'm in the middle of my lowest point
of being a complete waste roll on hard drugs. Right,
it's a bitch. My phone rings Crosby. Yeah, who's this?
It's Townsen. I said, bullshit. He says, no, it's Townsen. Listen,
(02:35):
get off that stuff. Get the off that stuff. I
have to watch the four letter words, right, you can
let it rip. Heirs really good podcasting, and so he says,
you know you fucking get your shit, fucking getta you're
fucking up. Quit that shit in my face. Really seriously,
(02:57):
I was like, what the fuck came my number? I
still haven't deciphered how this all happened. Lord made him
think it would work. Everybody else had failed. Somebody put
him up to it. I'm not sure did it work? No? No,
what worked was they sent me to prison in Texas
for a year.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Right, that worked? So that's what That was a turning
point for you. Yeah, it got me sober and you
were largely or you were completely sober since then, I.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Was completely sober for fourteen and a half years.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
What happened with to prison? What year eighty four? And
you were how old? Forties? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I was born in forty one and I was deeply addicted.
And the only and I already tried in you know
rehab places, I think four or five times failed. So
the prison did it? You know, junk and freebase. That
that's a prison you carry around with you. You don't
(03:56):
get to get out prison. You get to get out,
and I don't regret.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It a bit. How were you treated by the inmate
population when you were in prison? Were they kind to you?
Did they dig you and admire you? A full range
went all the way from uh.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
I like your music man to uh hey, rock star?
How you doing now? Bet you wish you had some drugs,
don't you?
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Hey?
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Warn look over here rockstar throwing up a gia some
bitch oh Texas.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
And they didn't give me an aspir They didn't even
have AA meetings in the prisons, in fact, nothing.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You had no help at all. You crawled out of there.
It was bitter. It was bitter, but I woke up
when you get out of prison. What do you do well? Like?
Like who comes around? You do if people come to
you and say, let's get back to work, or what's
stuff like?
Speaker 4 (04:44):
As soon as I woke up, I started writing again.
I'm a hugely lucky human being.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Man. I have a raison.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Here's a fact about writing and creating and drugs. The
more drugs I did, the less I wrote. And you
can plot the two curves crossed at a certain point,
you know, And I just kept the more drugs identically
stopped writing. And then about two years went by, and
then I woke up in prison, remembered who I was,
and started writing again. And since then it's been a
(05:14):
steady increase and a steady increase in quality.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So I can only draw one conclusion. Now this is
going to sound strange, but you come from a nice family.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Yeah, we were comforted when I got to go to
good schools. I had a red juncle. My dad was
a cinematographer and a very good one. Not a warm
and fuzzy guy, but technically excellent. So yeah, I thought
I wanted to be an actor. You know what's really funny, man,
Most of the actors I know want to be musicians
(05:45):
and all the musicians.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
I don't want to be actors, right because no matter
what you're doing, you can be doing anything, and music
can be in your life, and therefore music will always
have a more powerful place in the lives of people
than any film or TV.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Any debatable, but I think you get to a lot
of evidence on your side there music. The way I
look at it, music all art can be and usually
is a lifting force. Just as war drags humanity down
and brings out the very worst in US, so music
(06:17):
and art lift. They're lifting force. They make things better.
And so I kind of think, I kind of think
I'm probably the luckiest guy in the world. I think
I've got probably one of the best jobs. I try
to acting. I'm not really good at it, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Don't know why you'd want to act. If I could
do what you do, you could never you couldn't get
me off stage with a gun. I just would play
music if I could do what you do. It's fun.
When I went to go see the Beatles Love, I
go to Vegas to go to see the circuslay the
Beatles Love, And what kits you in the beginning other
than the really kind of groovy meshing of the songs
and the kind of overdub and they did was the
(06:57):
idea of that all of them were born during the war,
all war babies in London, they were, and you talk
and talk in the opening of the show kind of
tips how that affected them and how they affected their
lives and how they viewed their country and so forth.
You're a war baby, you were born during the war
forty one, right, What was life like when you were
a kid.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
I remember my dad. I remember watching my dad at
a distance at you know where Burbank Airport is used
to be, Douglas Field. I remember my dad climbing into
the belly of a B twenty four and flying away
to the war. I remember watching he went, oh yeah,
he was. They commissioned directly into what was then the
(07:37):
Army Air Corps because he had this he was already
an Academy Award running.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
You know, cinema photographer.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
So they put him right in the Air Corps and
put him in this B twenty four that didn't that
was a camera plane, that's all it was. And he
went all over the world. He went every sh he had,
every theater reb there was.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
It was gone for how long five years.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Well, because he wasn't a bombing thing. You know, he
had to follow the bombers, but he wasn't bombing, so
he didn't get thirty five and out. He kept going
five years, every major theater of the war. And when
he came back.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
What was he like? You wouldn't ever talk about it.
So life at home when you were a child is
with your mother?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (08:18):
At first, yeah, and then both of them. But my
dad just wasn't a real homebody, family guy.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
He was off working. Yeah. And you go to boarding
school I did? Yeah, Kate, what was that like?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
What were you like? Were you always mischievous? Always?
Speaker 4 (08:35):
And it got me in a shitload of trouble.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 4 (08:38):
I don't know, but it's definitely true. I got thrown
out of almost every school I was ever in, including Kate.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
What was music in your life? Then?
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Music came early and well, my mom sang in choirs.
My dad liked music. He could play a mantle in.
My brother played guitar. We used to interesting thing when
we were growing up in the fifties, when TV started
to really happen. We didn't have a TV, so we
(09:10):
sang folk songs out of the Fireside Book of Folk Songs,
and that was where it started.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Did anybody tell you then you could sing? Did they
say you're a good singer?
Speaker 4 (09:18):
They did notice that I was singing harmony when I
was six.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And what's the first instrument you played? Guitar? My brother
turned me on the guitar when you were how old?
I guess maybe ten. What's the best time you think that.
My son is two and a half years, it's going
to be three in June. He's obsessed with simulating playing
the guitar. He actually has a band with my wife.
He calls her Trista, and he's mister pants, mister pants.
(09:45):
He'll turn to my wife. Literally, I've got an on video.
He'll turn to my wife and goes, Trista, what are
we going to play now? He's two and a half.
Don't let him be a musician. We wanted to know.
It's terrible.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
You'll never have a job. Actually let him.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Do you think that if you didn't When you say that,
do you think if you hadn't made it as big
as you made it, you wouldn't have stuck with it,
or you would have stayed with it just because you
loved it. I would have because I love it, right,
I love it so much. Like I can't tell you
I love singing.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
I'm good at it, but that's not really it's there's
a joy to singing in and of itself, and it's
it's an elevating thing. It's totally freaking wonderful. It's very
tough for me now, man, because I'm really old and
getting on the road to exhausting.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah. Well, it beats the crap out of me.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah, because you never get more than four hours sleep
in a row, and then in the middle of that
you hit an expansion joint and you're awake again, and
you know, and you're eating terrible food and restaurants.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
When when did you when you left home, you didn't
go to college. No, I went one year and you
went to.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
City College in Santa Barbara, which is now, oddly enough,
the highest rated city college in the country. It was
interesting and good, and I had one really good teacher
who hooked me up about some really interesting things about
semantics and language.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And No, you were sending music then no, in a band.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Then no, not yet, I was I was bussing tables
at the local coffeehouse because as a busboy. They would
let me sing harmony with the guy who was being
paid to sing.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And what was the first band you were in?
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Less Baxter's Balladiers Less Baxter, you know, band leader guy.
He had seen the Christy Mitchels, which at that guy
who bar his he had. I think he had three
of them out there, bands like that, all named the same.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
You know.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
It just was a commercial operation. It was really lame.
But if we was put food on the table. My
brother and I were in that. And then I ran
into Roger mcgwyn and Jeene Clark and where a tributaur
in l a yeah bar, it's a tributary and they
were singing and it was good and the songs were
(11:57):
you know, James is pretty good writer. And so when
those two have they had an act called they have
an act.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
They were just playing. They were in the bar. You know.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Roger had been a musician for a while and successful
and played with other bands, Lime Letders, Chairman's Trio, a
bunch of different people, so he knew what he was doing,
and he knew that Gene was talented and that this
stuff had value because it sounded a lot like Beatle songs.
And uh, so I started singing harmony to him. They said,
what's your name? And that works out really well. It
(12:30):
was a good band, simple good. Roger was extremely good
at taking Bob Dylan songs and turning them into pop records.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And you covered tambourine men. Yeah, that was our first hit.
Well what did you learn about bands in your first band?
What was that experience?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Like?
Speaker 4 (12:46):
I learned that I had a lot to learn. I
was just a young punk and I really had no
idea how to actually work with people and accomplish the
aim that I wanted to. I had an experienced early
on when I was young. My mom took me to
see a symphony orchestra in a park free show there
in LA and they tuned up and they got ready
(13:07):
and then he started the piece and it was this.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Huge, beautiful wave that hit me.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
I didn't know anything was like that. You know, the
symphony orchestra hugely powerful thing and it freaked me out.
And the thing I've realized, even as a kid, the
power came from they were all.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Doing it together. I can't believe you just said that.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
It's the truth, and it really and it penetrated.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So I've always wanted to be in a band. Yeah, always.
I love cooperative effort.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Competitive effort winds up at war, cooperative efort winds up atter.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
I'm watching Tom Petty's band play at a benefit and a
friend was with me. I turned to him and I said,
do you see what I'm seeing? My friend said what?
And I said, they're all doing the same thing at
the same time. Bingo, I said, they're all in service
to and feeding. You know, in my business, not everybody's
doing the same thing. They're kind of doing their own
thing off in the corner.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Thereatty's band was doing the same thing.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, it was really really, very very cool. Do you
find in a band does somebody always need to be
in charge? Does somebody need to be the boss?
Speaker 4 (14:09):
It can go both ways. And the Birds Roger was
definitely the leader of the band, and.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
That worked well.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Yeah, he knew a lot more than we did, and
he's also an extremely talented guy and a good singer,
and so it wouldn't you know. I challenged it at
every turn, but he was the leader of the band.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
CSNY.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
None of us was willing to admit anybody else was
the leader. It was and probably still is one of
the most competitive situations in the history, and why he goes.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Really just that simple. And in spite of all the
incredible success you've had. I mean, who's when you think
of people, when you think of men harmonizing in a group,
the first people that come to mind are the three
of you. Why do you think that that didn't bring
them any comfort?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
I don't think that's what they went in for, and
I don't think they realized exactly how.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Good it was.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
We did really like each other when we started, and
we were thrilled, you know, by each other's songs.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So you leave the Birds and and Still's leaves Buffalo Springfield,
and they bring you with them.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
The well Springfield through fell apart left right, which kind
of his m Steven was very appealing guitar player and singer.
I mean, it's really good. Remember how well he played
acoustic guitar back then? Beautiful, pretty stunning, And so I
started hanging out with him, and then Cass introduced me
to Graham.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
But when Nash leaves the Hollies, the Hollies are doing
very well, aren't they very successful? Yah?
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Why does he leave the Hollies? I stole him, you did?
I went to work. I went to London and I
told me she quit.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And how did you do that? We should quit? Why?
Because he could join us.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
He was at a very crux point with the Hollies.
They wanted to do an album of Dylan covers. Now
there are bands that should do Dylan covers and there
are bands that should not do Dylan covers. That was
one of the bands that should not do Dylan covers.
And they were ignoring his songs. He had already written
a Lady at the Island and they didn't get it.
(16:15):
The beautiful song they had already written right between the eyes,
they didn't get it. He was already outgrowing them. So
I walked in and I said, hmm, this is pretty ordinary.
And I was funnier than they were, and I knew
more than they did, and I did it on purpose
and they'll probably never forgive me. But it made a
(16:36):
great sound, the three of us when we heard each
other same it. It was spectacular. But bands get together
and you're in love with each other, it's all wonderful
and its exciting, and then it devolves, and forty years later,
it's turned on the smoke machine to play your heads
and you don't even like each other. You don't ride
(16:57):
the same bus, you do not hang out, and you
are come peating with the other guys.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So it's easier to do the touring and get on
stage and get that on and get that of what
than it is to be. You don't go into a
studio anymore because that's more intimate that died quicker.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yeah, the money still good on the road in a
band like that, you know that you you want to
stay there. I mean it's big crowds, big places, big deal.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, but it got to winbers no fun. Is it
about when it starts to crack, when it starts to shift?
Is it because of songwriting? No one's getting that too.
No one wants to sing my songs. I want my
songs on that album. Yea, who's the decider? Did you
guys acquiesce to producers?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
No?
Speaker 4 (17:36):
We uh, we always produced our records and uh and
are we had what we call the reality rule. You'd
come into the room, you know, virus, just us, nobody
else and I sing each other or song and they
either liked it or they didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
And if they liked it, you know.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Then we'd start figuring out how to sing it, and
these are hugely talented guys.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Man, they came with a lot of stuff. So before
it was the four of you, the three of you
was basically pretty good. Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
You know, Neil's nickname is sometimes it's CSN sometimes why
you know, and when it would be CS and Y
it was a lot bigger that.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
You've got to know that.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
That's the reason the CSNY is always Neil's decision is
because if there's twenty thousand people in the stadium, Neil
put ten of them there. That's the truth. And so
he's he's the one that's that's said that it's done.
He doesn't want to do that anymore, and I don't
think he needs to do CSM. I don't think you'll
(18:37):
ever see it again when you say he sometimes and
he comes and goes. Is that his nature in all things?
He just has a tough time committing to anything. No,
he's on his own path and he does not relinquish
that ever, under any circumstances. And he does not want
to be dependent on anybody else and probably doesn't wantly
(18:59):
split the money.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
I've never asked him, but I think it, you know,
I had to come to this decision. It's a very
hard decision, man, this is a very hard time for us.
I don't know if you know this, but streaming pretty
much destroyed our earning power. It took half, at least
half of our earning power away from us because they folks,
they don't pay us for records anymore. And that's really sad.
(19:26):
They got that deal passed us and they It's sort
of as if you worked your job and they paid
you a nickel for every two weeks. It's the proportion
is drastically tiny. So with Neil gone and CSN still earning,
but really frozen in place and really unpleasant I mean
(19:49):
incidents that I will not tell you about, but violently bad,
carefully chosen one.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
David Crosby is having a renaissance, three solo albums over
the past four years. We hear about his new burst
of creativity and why he thinks Stills and Nash are
still out there playing the hits when we come back.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Thing, a besturb.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Such a long long time, the.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Madness that's Crosby with Stills and Nash. We've heard about
the band's disintegration, but not what made it great? What
was the best time? Every time? Every time?
Speaker 4 (21:35):
For years at the beginning, every time we'd go on stage,
we would just kill it. We could sing together. Nash
is a fantastic harmony singer. He absolutely hates my guts.
That's not fun to work.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
But why do you think that's that's the case.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
I could tell you, but it would be personal stuff
and be better than be better if he told you. Yeah,
because you know he said, he said, he said, some
unfortunate stuff happened in his life, some of which is
his fault, some of which isn't, and he blames me
for it. And he mostly blames me because I shot
my mouth off about Neil's girlfriend and pissed off Neil,
(22:14):
which ended, see us, that's my fault, and it's it
was so innocent, you know. I finished in an interview
like this, and we shut the tape off and I
was walking down and he said, what do you think
of Neil's new girlfriend? Man? I said, oh, I think
she's a predator.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Bam on the net immediately wow.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And Neil says, okay, that's it, no more than oh wow.
And I went on stern and he said, why do
you feel man? I said, I didn't have any right
to do that. It was I shot my mouth off,
and he's pissed at me, and so I want to
apologize to him and Marrow. I want to apologize, sir.
I'm not really in a position to judge other people.
(22:58):
I'm the one who wound up in prison.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
A mistake.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Yeah, you know what I did, But you know what mistage?
These days, everybody's just waiting pounds you never, you never,
you never.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
You know, there's no forgetting. I mean, everybody knows the story.
I guess. I was fighting for custody of my daughter
and I'd have to go to court and spend twenty
five thousand dollars just to get my kid on the phone.
You know, they're going to coach the child how to
answer the phone. She was like eleven. And so I
leave this message on my daughter's voicemail, screaming at my
daughter on the phone. I go go nuts because I've
(23:29):
gone through all these stages of that. Now what I did.
I had this great therapist say this to me. Once
he goes, you realize that none of what you suffered,
no matter what you felt, was unfair, he said, You
realize that none of that would have happened if you
hadn't left the message. If you hadn't left the message,
none of this would have happened, regardless of what you
think about them leaking it to the press. But the
(23:50):
point is once that gets out there on the internet,
if you go online and you read my Twitter feed
or you go see any of my social media, there's
not a day goes by, not one that someone doesn't
throw that in my face. They send me a message
with it, they'll show me a YouTube tape with a LinkedIn,
so there's no forgetting anymore.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
No, And it's the people that we're up against here
are very very good at assaulting any vulnerability they see
in the people who criticize them. And we do criticize them,
both you and I do, because they are doing a
rotten job with this country. But his supporters, the level
(24:28):
of vitriol against people like you that have a conscience
and that love this country, and that really love the
constitution and really look the idea of a democracy which
we no longer have, they're very very hot to assault you.
They want that The level of vitriol is indicative it's
(24:52):
gone up, and I think they're getting uncomfortable because he
fucks up every day every day.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
But you've been p for a long time, haven't always.
I mean I read online where you were doing riffs
on stage. I don't know if it was Monterey or
where were you riffs about JFK's assassination.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
I said it was an assassination. I said the Warren
reports a lot. Yeah, and it is. It was absolutely
not true. But being an activist is kind of like,
you know, I had heroes. Man Secret is a hero
of mine. Joan Bia is a hero of mine. These
are people who actually put their lives on the line.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You know.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Harry Belafani, he walked from someone in Montgomery, arm in arm.
It was rifles in the bushes. Plenty of people wanted
to get them. I did a documentary about music and activism,
and he's one of my heroes because he was very brave.
I wrote a book about it. That's why we made
the documentary. Working on a new book now, got named
(25:51):
Jeff Benedict. Started out about politics, but I think it's
going to be about the whole United States of America
and democracy and what happened.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
What do you think is going to happen. It's fascinating, man.
I don't think we know.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Okay, okay, we didn't protect our democracy well enough. What's
gonna happen? I really don't know. I'm very encouraged by
these kids. I was very hugely encouraged to keep them active.
Oh they don't let that fire, Doug die out. It's
not gonna and we don't. We're not in charge of them.
(26:27):
They are gonna do that, and they are pissed. I
don't understand. They're being handed a world that's in deep
danger ecologically and a broken democracy. I don't think they
don't know it. They're pissed. My son is pissed. He's
getting handed the short end of the stick, and he
(26:48):
knows that he's too smart not to know it. They're
not going to go away. These kids are going to
see some change. And all politicians think he has always
been this way and it's all going to be this way.
We're close to the no while we can get the
goodies and we're gonna run things.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Uh huh.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Women's March, the women at the United States of America
may save the United States of America. We need more
of them in Congress.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Maybe Stormy Daniels is going to save the country. Yeah.
I thought it was interesting that you saw everybody attack
David Vidout, a kid that was the leader of the
Florida Movement. It becomes this lightning rod for all these
right wingers, especially Hannity, who I've always been, you know,
just just throttled Hannity whatever I can because he just died.
Because he drives me insane, because because first of all,
(27:34):
he has no talent none. I mean, as much as
I detest O'Reilly's positions and as much as I'm sickened
by the things that O'Reilly did, at least O'Reilly as
a broadcaster had some talent I had. I had a
showdown with the with the o'relly. He was using my
song a long time agoing and I found out, what
do you do? He came out to a show CSN
(27:54):
show at out on Long Island. What's his name, man, but.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
At that place Shoe's Beach, Yeah, Jones Beach. He came
out there and he was very you know, he is peacock.
You know, he's like very full of himself himself. Hi,
Bill O'Reilly, nice to meet you. And I said, mister O'Reilly,
stop using my song. And he said what I said,
I didn't give you permission. If you use my song anymore,
(28:17):
I'm going to see you. He said, why don't you
come on my show and talk about it.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I said, talk about it?
Speaker 4 (28:25):
I said, you bully. You just interrupted me three words
in I'm not going to come show. You disgusted me,
and he stopped. Boy, I don't like him at all.
I don't like any of them because they're they don't
really even believe what they're ranting about. They're ranting because
it makes them money.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
That's how they pay out multimillion dollar settlements. But handed
the attacks this guy and a lot of people. He's
a good kid. That's why they attacked me. Because he's effective,
because it's working. He's believable. These people have They assassinate
characters of leadership. They have a leadership assassination program. Anybody
on the other side is going to it. Was going
(29:03):
to get an attraction and get anything done. They try
to kill it. They try to kill it.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
They don't like it. And now I'm I'm tiny, I'm
not really worth coming after it, but they do come
after me. I'll give you a perfect example, I shot
may mouth off yesterday whenever it was his hotel got cockcire,
I said, burn baby, burn, stupid. And then a guy
dies fifty emails you heartless, worthless son of a bitch.
(29:27):
Somebody died and you loved it.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I don't love it.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Yeah, I don't want to be sometimes, duh. I don't
want anybody to die fifty like raging. I'm going to
kill you, you low, cheesy motherfucker.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
You can't communicate in the media at all the way
you thought you could or wanted to. Yeah, very carefully.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
YEA.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
The place I go where I can speak as long
as I want to, and I'm completely uncensored, and I'm welcome,
and nobody's got to is Howard Stern. I whenever I
want to talk about something, I want to talk about
an issue. If something's bothered me, I go on Howard.
It's the best. These are the nighttime shows. Some of
them are my friends. I like them. They have their
purpose promotionally, six minutes on the couch and out. They
(30:12):
have their function in the in the promotional world. But
Howard is a completely different thing. I have a real
conversation and he's a kind guy.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
He's a really interesting thing. You know what happened with Howard?
He grew up right, He started be out being you know, hey,
I'm gonna have strippers on my radio show, all right, Gabie.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Not so shit?
Speaker 4 (30:32):
And then he kept encountering stuff and learning stuff, and
you watch him he matured.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Eventually they realize Letterman and Howard in their own way,
they realize they're enough them just sitting there talking to
is enough. You don't need any more of this crap.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
I think Howard learned a lot and became smarter and
became much He's a serious, a serious guy to talk to.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Now.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
I feel the same way you do. I felt completely
free to say pretty much anything. I honestly felt you
say the thing about the fire at Trump's building. But
don't we all get pushed to the point where I mean,
there's things I almost hit send on Twitter that you
wouldn't believe, right right in line with what you said
about Birdie, Yeah it was. We get pushed to that point. Yeah,
(31:17):
well they make us mad exactly. You love this place, right,
You believed in this democracy all your life. You think
it's a great idea. We got taught it.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
We're going to ruin.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
Everything, and well they're ruining it, you know, and that's
really bad. And yes, I get pissed. And every once
in a while I make a mistake. I'm nineteen eighty nine.
I made a mistake that maybe there was one in
ninety one to two. You're supposed to smile. It was
a joke.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
But why was it a joke? Because I make mistakes
every day. I'm sorry. Okay, can I get it now?
I'm so earnest. Right now, I'm a little too earnest.
I want to ask you about your son. His name
is Raymond, James Raymond, James Raymond, and you were separated,
(32:00):
didn't see him a while ago, re united.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Yeah, his mom put him up for adoption, and when
he was just about to have his first child, his
parents said, well, you know, I shouldn't know what the
genetics are. You should find out who your dad is.
So he tracked and he found it and he said, nah,
no way, Oh.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
He didn't know. No. How old was he at that point,
probably almost thirty, So he didn't know you were his father.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
No, No, he did a wonderful thing, Alec. He normally does.
Meet ups go very badly. You know that somebody brings
too much baggage. How come you left me?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And Mom?
Speaker 4 (32:32):
We weren't good enough for you?
Speaker 1 (32:36):
It's usually bitter. It's usually a bitter pill. Well, he
came and he gave me a clean slate.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
He gave me a chance to earn my way into
his life, which was one of the kindest things anybody's
ever done to me. And he and I became very
close and we write extremely well. Because he's a better
musician than I am. Anybody tells you it's not genetic.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Have him come talk. That's interesting. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
He's a wonderful musician, much better musician than I am.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
A really good writer. We're taking a break. Stay with us.
Do you still have your band together, CPR?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Well, that's that band has evolved now into the sky
Trails Band band. Now I am in two bands, So
the Lighthouse Band, that's the one I'm working with down
John right now. It's an acoustic band, mostly vocals. And
you here recording. Yeah, we're here recording right now. We're
making our second record. My other band, Skytrails Band. That's CPR,
me and Jeff p Var and my son James Raymond
(33:34):
and this jazz bass player from Estonia named my Eigen
Young really nice, brilliant bass player. And then Michelle Willims
again because she's a stunning singer. She's an amazing singer.
But yeah, these two bands are the results of being
getting out of CSM. And it was a very tough
(33:56):
decision because streaming was taking away half our money. The
other half was live performance with CSN and I couldn't
do it anymore, and so I quit. And are you
just as happy or do you miss I'm so happy SNN?
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Not at all.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Really, these people are much better writers and much better
singer than those guys are now right, These people still
love it, They.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Love making music. They're not doing it for a paycheck.
They're doing it because do you think the other two
are really just doing it for a paycheck at this point? Yeah? Yeah,
I think that's the only thing they do. What are
they going to do? Do you think that they're going to
follow you inform another band and keep going there? You
know they're working.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
Stills was working with Judy Collins, he's been a friend forever,
and Nash be not working.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Were there people that you wanted to play with? Like,
was there a dream of somebody you wanted to play
with you and get to play with who do you
want to play with? Johnny? Really? And why didn't you?
She was my old lady.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
I produced her first record. She arguably the finest singer
songwriter of our times. I think probably pretty definitely the
best writer, even better than Paul or either one of
the Pauls or Randy, or even better than James Taylor,
who is one of my real heroes in life. And
(35:18):
most people come down to it's her, Bob, And she's
so much better musician than Bobbs.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Bob's a great poet. She's a great poet and a
great musician.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Wow, stunning singer, which is all over now because she
got had a really bad thing happened to her.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Dylan, but I worked with him. What was that like?
Was it everything you hoped they would be?
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Bob is such a piece of work man. I went
in and he says, Hi, you do it, And he
kissed my wife's hand. She's never watched it since. And
he says, come on, let's.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Go do it. And I said, Bob, I haven't heard this. Oh,
come on.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Because he loves to get you out on the edge.
He wants that edge stuff. He wants it so I said, Bob,
you got to sing me this song. So he says, okay,
he sings me the song. I see, okay, now let's
go to it. So we go in the other room
and he does it completely different. He's such, he's really
(36:26):
he's a piece of work, trust me, and I love
him and I get along great with him because I
don't butter his toast.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
You know, I.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Think that's that's comfortable for him. People I'd love to
work with there are still a bunch man, but I
think the younger people still have a lot of joy
in it.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
You know.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
It's still really exciting for him, and that produces a
different quality of music.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Unquestionably, we had build back hold to our hour little
(37:12):
hard guy here the night.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
M h.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
That's sign from young bird here, that's entry somebody here exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Right when we returned some of the truly great questions
you all submitted for this legend of rock and roll,
and a few of the less than great ones. I'm
(37:51):
Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
She shall be As she turned Bougis.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Down this slope to the hall. We have some questions
that were posed by people on our here is the
thing Twitter side. Yeah, you know, we went on on
our Twitter page and we asked people and it really
worked like a charm. You were kind of amazed how
(38:38):
many people We're gonna bring me the questions, bring those
in here? But ah, is that you, Adam? I want
to picked us a couple of these that I really
really liked. One of them is from a woman named
Barbara Fisher, and she says, one of my all time
favorite albums of yours is A Thousand Roads. Did you
(38:59):
have any thoughts of what inspired you to write these songs,
especially Hero? Was this a generalization? Was it a commendation
on someone specific that inspired you?
Speaker 4 (39:09):
I wish it were actually Hero. I'm not really sure
what I was talking about. What happened is I was
working on that set of words until Collins heard him
and he wrote the music. And this is the closest
I came to ever having a hit. Really, I never
(39:31):
have it because I write the weird shit. I'm not
really sure what I was talking about. I wish I
could give you a clear and concise answer what I
was trying to say, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Bill Vora Nicos and Bill if I mangled your name,
I apologized Bill Vornicos. I think this is a funny question.
Who was a rival artist or band during the sixties
or seventies that you couldn't stand or thought sucked other
than Jim Morrison. Did you think Jim Morrison sucked? Yeah? Absolutely,
(40:04):
really poser, really poser. You thought he was not a
good singer, not a good singer? No, no, why do you?
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Oh my god, I don't think he was a good singer.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
And when you say that, who is a good singer
to you? Oh? Man, I mean other than the three
of you? Who's a good singer?
Speaker 4 (40:18):
James Taylor?
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Wow, brilliant singer? Well, because he's just more honest, more straightforward?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
What what?
Speaker 1 (40:25):
What? Much more talented? Wow? No, Morrison was a poser.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
Anybody that wants up having a wave their dick at
the audience, you know, it's like they're pretty desperate.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
He was a poser.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Trust me. I That band was no good. They never swung. Ever,
they didn't have a bass player. He played terrible bass
on a keyboard, really badly, and it was awful.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
I don't like him.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
I never There were bands earlier than that that I
didn't like. Paul Overer in the Raiders. I mean, come on,
I set the bar pretty high. The people that I
liked were Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin and cass Ellie
had Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, that's those are your basic box set of the greatest.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Those are all my friends, and there are all people
that I think are really talented.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
No, I didn't like the doors at all. Well, we
have a woman here the question. I'm motivated by you
because you were so blunt about Morrison. I'm so blunt
about this question. Her name is Renee Champagne. Now that's
that's a that's a cool name, Renee Champagne. But the
question is a terrible question. She says, what is the
most memorable moment of your career so far? And why?
(41:32):
That's a terrible question.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
When you are terrible question and you get those two
right now, and we try to explain to him, and
when you get into the good stuff, it's all apples
and oranges. There isn't a best. Clapton wasn't better than Hendrix.
Hendrix wasn't better than Clapton.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
I got another one here that I really really liked.
John Packer. Is his name? Our contributor here from Twitter,
John Packer said, Hugh Masekela described how you helped him
move out of addiction and how that transformed his life.
How did he find you? Cass?
Speaker 4 (42:00):
Cass Elliott, the same person introduced me to Graham and
one of my best friends.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
In the world, A truly wonderful woman. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
She introduced me to Hugh and he and I and
she used to hang out together a lot. Hughes was
a very talented guy. He played on Rock and Roll Star.
That's his trumpet on Rock and Roll Star.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
I don't want you to answer these questions, but I
just want to read them to you because that's so
interesting to me. Jeffrey Paris says, if you had six
fingers instead of four, what will we hear from your guitar?
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Jeffrey Paris used to be the captain on my boat.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Is this somebody you know? Oh?
Speaker 4 (42:32):
I know, very somebody you know. He's one of my
best friends.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
If you have six fingers on your hand rather than
for what will we hear from your guitar?
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Clapped it?
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Is he somebody you admire? Oh?
Speaker 4 (42:43):
Hell yes, But more than his musicianship, I admire his courage.
What happened to him, would have put me back on.
He didn't go. He stayed sober in the face of that.
My god, man, that's courage. He's a very brave guy.
(43:06):
And you know, most people just have never really looked
at it and thought about what it must have taken
from him. But I admire his courage as much as
I admire his guitar playing. And I think he's an
even better singer than he is a guitar player.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Three last questions. Gloria Bernstein, who's a friend of mine.
Gloria Bernstein wants to know what's your favorite movie of
your dad's.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
But the one they got the Academy Award for it
is also a stunner. It's called Taboo, and it was
a black and white silent movie.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
It's that far back. You ever visit him on the set?
Oh yeah, lots of Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
I wanted to do your job. Man.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
I'm so glad you didn't. I'm so it worked out
well for all of us.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Oh, you know, it's not easy for every part in
film and TV. There's a thousand people trying.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
One last question from these, what are five albums you
could never do.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
With Jony's Blue Asia, Steely Dan, my favorite band, sad
that he died not I'm friends with Donald and Though
and I got to give two to Steely.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Dan, Gaucho.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
Pepper's Starry Peppers loved a classical piece called Theme from Thomas.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Tallis very fun. William, so you know about that. I'm
the announcer for the New York Philharmonic. You're on public radio.
I love that. How is your health and what recommendations
do you have to people, especially people in your business,
to take better care of their health. I think a
lot about that now what I might have done?
Speaker 4 (44:42):
I think, you know, my health has always been a
very serious issue. I had a hepatitis. See, I had
to have a liver transplant. I spent seventy two days
in the hospital at UCLA before they saved my life.
Oh is it really pretty pretty terrible? I've been a
diabetic for thirty years at least. My doctor, who is
(45:04):
a crusty old guy at UCLA named Gary Geitnik, you
gotta do better with his diabetes.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Ok, Gary, thank you? How do I do that? He said?
Eat less food?
Speaker 4 (45:16):
I said, oh, Gary, thanks, that's so simple. Oh wow,
you cleared it right up for me. You're so kind
you ask eat less food. I mean it, you're eating
too much. Turns out he's right. There's a delay period
between when you're actually full and when you feel ful
about twenty minutes, and you keep eating because it tastes good.
(45:39):
So what I do is I order a regular meal.
I don't order sugar, but I order a pretty regular meal,
and then I eat half of it. And I went
from two forty seven and I've been here for two years.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Do you campaign for people, for candidates ever anymore?
Speaker 4 (45:53):
I am very reticent about it because they turn on you.
I've been campaigning for a friend of mine named Dena
Steele down in Texas. She's running where it's home for
you now you live where Sentien is up by Santa Barbara.
I've been campaigning for Dana because she's a friend and
I know she's an honorable person, and she's running for
(46:14):
Congress in the thirty sixth district in Texas, and I
think she might win, even though she's an uphill battle.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
Sometimes if I know the character.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Of the person, I have to do something with you
that'd be fun. I'd love it too. Man out Nelly Alchemy,
I know it. You know, we've got to give it
a guy.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
I love this country man.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
I'm not giving up.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
I Am not going to roll over and put my
paws in here. I Am going to keep fighting until
I am dead.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
The inexhaustible creative engine that is David Crosby. He actually
worked in film. Recently. He and his son James wrote
a song for the documentary Little Pink House about the
human story behind the Supreme Court's Kilo decision, where a
town tried to bulldoze the woman's Little Pink House to
(46:55):
make room for commercial development.
Speaker 4 (46:57):
They put it in the movie and they're trying to
you thy can qualify as for an Academy Award.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
We traveled of course love and can put it next
to my dad, David Crosby. He chose the music for
today's program, and there's both joy and pain in it.
I'm Alec Baldwin. You're listening to here's the thing from
iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Six seven weeks now, six.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Ships on the Waters.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
You know the way it's supposed to.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
S the show.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Speed talking about very free.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
And active people.
Speaker 5 (48:07):
I don't know what pal pot bo
Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. Here before we launch our next
season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I
thought i'd play some of my favorite shows from the archives.
Next up is my interview with musician David Crosby. Crosby
is a founding member of Crosby Stills in Nash and
in adding the Why that is Neil Young created one
(00:23):
of the greatest quartets in music history. Here's my interview
with the late David Crosby.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And here before here before.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
As you know, it makes me wonder.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
What's going on c SN and sometimes why. Some combination
of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash played together
(01:30):
for fifty years until twenty sixteen, but always Crosby. He's
the constant in some of the greatest songs of the
twentieth century. His composition, harmonizing and non traditional guitar tunings
helped create the sound of the sixties and seventies. It's
a sound he honed with his first big act, The Birds,
(01:52):
turning counterculture anthems like Dylan's Tambourine Man into mainstream hits.
David Crosby is famous too for his addiction to cocaine
and heroin in the nineteen eighties. It almost killed him.
But even in his darkest moments, Crosbie always had people
pulling him up, even some of the biggest stars of
(02:13):
the era.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
All Right, I'm in the middle of my lowest point
of being a complete waste roll on hard drugs. Right,
it's a bitch. My phone rings Crosby. Yeah, who's this?
It's Townsen. I said, bullshit. He says, no, it's Townsen. Listen,
(02:35):
get off that stuff. Get the off that stuff. I
have to watch the four letter words, right, you can
let it rip. Heirs really good podcasting, and so he says,
you know you fucking get your shit, fucking getta you're
fucking up. Quit that shit in my face. Really seriously,
(02:57):
I was like, what the fuck came my number? I
still haven't deciphered how this all happened. Lord made him
think it would work. Everybody else had failed. Somebody put
him up to it. I'm not sure did it work? No? No,
what worked was they sent me to prison in Texas
for a year.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Right, that worked? So that's what That was a turning
point for you. Yeah, it got me sober and you
were largely or you were completely sober since then, I.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Was completely sober for fourteen and a half years.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
What happened with to prison? What year eighty four? And
you were how old? Forties? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I was born in forty one and I was deeply addicted.
And the only and I already tried in you know
rehab places, I think four or five times failed. So
the prison did it? You know, junk and freebase. That
that's a prison you carry around with you. You don't
(03:56):
get to get out prison. You get to get out,
and I don't regret.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It a bit. How were you treated by the inmate
population when you were in prison? Were they kind to you?
Did they dig you and admire you? A full range
went all the way from uh.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
I like your music man to uh hey, rock star?
How you doing now? Bet you wish you had some drugs,
don't you?
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Hey?
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Warn look over here rockstar throwing up a gia some
bitch oh Texas.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
And they didn't give me an aspir They didn't even
have AA meetings in the prisons, in fact, nothing.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You had no help at all. You crawled out of there.
It was bitter. It was bitter, but I woke up
when you get out of prison. What do you do well? Like?
Like who comes around? You do if people come to
you and say, let's get back to work, or what's
stuff like?
Speaker 4 (04:44):
As soon as I woke up, I started writing again.
I'm a hugely lucky human being.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Man. I have a raison.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Here's a fact about writing and creating and drugs. The
more drugs I did, the less I wrote. And you
can plot the two curves crossed at a certain point,
you know, And I just kept the more drugs identically
stopped writing. And then about two years went by, and
then I woke up in prison, remembered who I was,
and started writing again. And since then it's been a
(05:14):
steady increase and a steady increase in quality.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So I can only draw one conclusion. Now this is
going to sound strange, but you come from a nice family.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Yeah, we were comforted when I got to go to
good schools. I had a red juncle. My dad was
a cinematographer and a very good one. Not a warm
and fuzzy guy, but technically excellent. So yeah, I thought
I wanted to be an actor. You know what's really funny, man,
Most of the actors I know want to be musicians
(05:45):
and all the musicians.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
I don't want to be actors, right because no matter
what you're doing, you can be doing anything, and music
can be in your life, and therefore music will always
have a more powerful place in the lives of people
than any film or TV.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Any debatable, but I think you get to a lot
of evidence on your side there music. The way I
look at it, music all art can be and usually
is a lifting force. Just as war drags humanity down
and brings out the very worst in US, so music
(06:17):
and art lift. They're lifting force. They make things better.
And so I kind of think, I kind of think
I'm probably the luckiest guy in the world. I think
I've got probably one of the best jobs. I try
to acting. I'm not really good at it, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Don't know why you'd want to act. If I could
do what you do, you could never you couldn't get
me off stage with a gun. I just would play
music if I could do what you do. It's fun.
When I went to go see the Beatles Love, I
go to Vegas to go to see the circuslay the
Beatles Love, And what kits you in the beginning other
than the really kind of groovy meshing of the songs
and the kind of overdub and they did was the
(06:57):
idea of that all of them were born during the war,
all war babies in London, they were, and you talk
and talk in the opening of the show kind of
tips how that affected them and how they affected their
lives and how they viewed their country and so forth.
You're a war baby, you were born during the war
forty one, right, What was life like when you were
a kid.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
I remember my dad. I remember watching my dad at
a distance at you know where Burbank Airport is used
to be, Douglas Field. I remember my dad climbing into
the belly of a B twenty four and flying away
to the war. I remember watching he went, oh yeah,
he was. They commissioned directly into what was then the
(07:37):
Army Air Corps because he had this he was already
an Academy Award running.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
You know, cinema photographer.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
So they put him right in the Air Corps and
put him in this B twenty four that didn't that
was a camera plane, that's all it was. And he
went all over the world. He went every sh he had,
every theater reb there was.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
It was gone for how long five years.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Well, because he wasn't a bombing thing. You know, he
had to follow the bombers, but he wasn't bombing, so
he didn't get thirty five and out. He kept going
five years, every major theater of the war. And when
he came back.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
What was he like? You wouldn't ever talk about it.
So life at home when you were a child is
with your mother?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (08:18):
At first, yeah, and then both of them. But my
dad just wasn't a real homebody, family guy.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
He was off working. Yeah. And you go to boarding
school I did? Yeah, Kate, what was that like?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
What were you like? Were you always mischievous? Always?
Speaker 4 (08:35):
And it got me in a shitload of trouble.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 4 (08:38):
I don't know, but it's definitely true. I got thrown
out of almost every school I was ever in, including Kate.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
What was music in your life? Then?
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Music came early and well, my mom sang in choirs.
My dad liked music. He could play a mantle in.
My brother played guitar. We used to interesting thing when
we were growing up in the fifties, when TV started
to really happen. We didn't have a TV, so we
(09:10):
sang folk songs out of the Fireside Book of Folk Songs,
and that was where it started.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Did anybody tell you then you could sing? Did they
say you're a good singer?
Speaker 4 (09:18):
They did notice that I was singing harmony when I
was six.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And what's the first instrument you played? Guitar? My brother
turned me on the guitar when you were how old?
I guess maybe ten. What's the best time you think that.
My son is two and a half years, it's going
to be three in June. He's obsessed with simulating playing
the guitar. He actually has a band with my wife.
He calls her Trista, and he's mister pants, mister pants.
(09:45):
He'll turn to my wife. Literally, I've got an on video.
He'll turn to my wife and goes, Trista, what are
we going to play now? He's two and a half.
Don't let him be a musician. We wanted to know.
It's terrible.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
You'll never have a job. Actually let him.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Do you think that if you didn't When you say that,
do you think if you hadn't made it as big
as you made it, you wouldn't have stuck with it,
or you would have stayed with it just because you
loved it. I would have because I love it, right,
I love it so much. Like I can't tell you
I love singing.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
I'm good at it, but that's not really it's there's
a joy to singing in and of itself, and it's
it's an elevating thing. It's totally freaking wonderful. It's very
tough for me now, man, because I'm really old and
getting on the road to exhausting.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah. Well, it beats the crap out of me.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah, because you never get more than four hours sleep
in a row, and then in the middle of that
you hit an expansion joint and you're awake again, and
you know, and you're eating terrible food and restaurants.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
When when did you when you left home, you didn't
go to college. No, I went one year and you
went to.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
City College in Santa Barbara, which is now, oddly enough,
the highest rated city college in the country. It was
interesting and good, and I had one really good teacher
who hooked me up about some really interesting things about
semantics and language.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And No, you were sending music then no, in a band.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Then no, not yet, I was I was bussing tables
at the local coffeehouse because as a busboy. They would
let me sing harmony with the guy who was being
paid to sing.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And what was the first band you were in?
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Less Baxter's Balladiers Less Baxter, you know, band leader guy.
He had seen the Christy Mitchels, which at that guy
who bar his he had. I think he had three
of them out there, bands like that, all named the same.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
You know.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
It just was a commercial operation. It was really lame.
But if we was put food on the table. My
brother and I were in that. And then I ran
into Roger mcgwyn and Jeene Clark and where a tributaur
in l a yeah bar, it's a tributary and they
were singing and it was good and the songs were
(11:57):
you know, James is pretty good writer. And so when
those two have they had an act called they have
an act.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
They were just playing. They were in the bar. You know.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Roger had been a musician for a while and successful
and played with other bands, Lime Letders, Chairman's Trio, a
bunch of different people, so he knew what he was doing,
and he knew that Gene was talented and that this
stuff had value because it sounded a lot like Beatle songs.
And uh, so I started singing harmony to him. They said,
what's your name? And that works out really well. It
(12:30):
was a good band, simple good. Roger was extremely good
at taking Bob Dylan songs and turning them into pop records.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And you covered tambourine men. Yeah, that was our first hit.
Well what did you learn about bands in your first band?
What was that experience?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Like?
Speaker 4 (12:46):
I learned that I had a lot to learn. I
was just a young punk and I really had no
idea how to actually work with people and accomplish the
aim that I wanted to. I had an experienced early
on when I was young. My mom took me to
see a symphony orchestra in a park free show there
in LA and they tuned up and they got ready
(13:07):
and then he started the piece and it was this.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Huge, beautiful wave that hit me.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
I didn't know anything was like that. You know, the
symphony orchestra hugely powerful thing and it freaked me out.
And the thing I've realized, even as a kid, the
power came from they were all.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Doing it together. I can't believe you just said that.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
It's the truth, and it really and it penetrated.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So I've always wanted to be in a band. Yeah, always.
I love cooperative effort.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Competitive effort winds up at war, cooperative efort winds up atter.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
I'm watching Tom Petty's band play at a benefit and a
friend was with me. I turned to him and I said,
do you see what I'm seeing? My friend said what?
And I said, they're all doing the same thing at
the same time. Bingo, I said, they're all in service
to and feeding. You know, in my business, not everybody's
doing the same thing. They're kind of doing their own
thing off in the corner.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Thereatty's band was doing the same thing.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, it was really really, very very cool. Do you
find in a band does somebody always need to be
in charge? Does somebody need to be the boss?
Speaker 4 (14:09):
It can go both ways. And the Birds Roger was
definitely the leader of the band, and.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
That worked well.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Yeah, he knew a lot more than we did, and
he's also an extremely talented guy and a good singer,
and so it wouldn't you know. I challenged it at
every turn, but he was the leader of the band.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
CSNY.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
None of us was willing to admit anybody else was
the leader. It was and probably still is one of
the most competitive situations in the history, and why he goes.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Really just that simple. And in spite of all the
incredible success you've had. I mean, who's when you think
of people, when you think of men harmonizing in a group,
the first people that come to mind are the three
of you. Why do you think that that didn't bring
them any comfort?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
I don't think that's what they went in for, and
I don't think they realized exactly how.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Good it was.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
We did really like each other when we started, and
we were thrilled, you know, by each other's songs.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So you leave the Birds and and Still's leaves Buffalo Springfield,
and they bring you with them.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
The well Springfield through fell apart left right, which kind
of his m Steven was very appealing guitar player and singer.
I mean, it's really good. Remember how well he played
acoustic guitar back then? Beautiful, pretty stunning, And so I
started hanging out with him, and then Cass introduced me
to Graham.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
But when Nash leaves the Hollies, the Hollies are doing
very well, aren't they very successful? Yah?
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Why does he leave the Hollies? I stole him, you did?
I went to work. I went to London and I
told me she quit.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And how did you do that? We should quit? Why?
Because he could join us.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
He was at a very crux point with the Hollies.
They wanted to do an album of Dylan covers. Now
there are bands that should do Dylan covers and there
are bands that should not do Dylan covers. That was
one of the bands that should not do Dylan covers.
And they were ignoring his songs. He had already written
a Lady at the Island and they didn't get it.
(16:15):
The beautiful song they had already written right between the eyes,
they didn't get it. He was already outgrowing them. So
I walked in and I said, hmm, this is pretty ordinary.
And I was funnier than they were, and I knew
more than they did, and I did it on purpose
and they'll probably never forgive me. But it made a
(16:36):
great sound, the three of us when we heard each
other same it. It was spectacular. But bands get together
and you're in love with each other, it's all wonderful
and its exciting, and then it devolves, and forty years later,
it's turned on the smoke machine to play your heads
and you don't even like each other. You don't ride
(16:57):
the same bus, you do not hang out, and you
are come peating with the other guys.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So it's easier to do the touring and get on
stage and get that on and get that of what
than it is to be. You don't go into a
studio anymore because that's more intimate that died quicker.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yeah, the money still good on the road in a
band like that, you know that you you want to
stay there. I mean it's big crowds, big places, big deal.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, but it got to winbers no fun. Is it
about when it starts to crack, when it starts to shift?
Is it because of songwriting? No one's getting that too.
No one wants to sing my songs. I want my
songs on that album. Yea, who's the decider? Did you
guys acquiesce to producers?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
No?
Speaker 4 (17:36):
We uh, we always produced our records and uh and
are we had what we call the reality rule. You'd
come into the room, you know, virus, just us, nobody
else and I sing each other or song and they
either liked it or they didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
And if they liked it, you know.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Then we'd start figuring out how to sing it, and
these are hugely talented guys.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Man, they came with a lot of stuff. So before
it was the four of you, the three of you
was basically pretty good. Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
You know, Neil's nickname is sometimes it's CSN sometimes why
you know, and when it would be CS and Y
it was a lot bigger that.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
You've got to know that.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
That's the reason the CSNY is always Neil's decision is
because if there's twenty thousand people in the stadium, Neil
put ten of them there. That's the truth. And so
he's he's the one that's that's said that it's done.
He doesn't want to do that anymore, and I don't
think he needs to do CSM. I don't think you'll
(18:37):
ever see it again when you say he sometimes and
he comes and goes. Is that his nature in all things?
He just has a tough time committing to anything. No,
he's on his own path and he does not relinquish
that ever, under any circumstances. And he does not want
to be dependent on anybody else and probably doesn't wantly
(18:59):
split the money.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
I've never asked him, but I think it, you know,
I had to come to this decision. It's a very
hard decision, man, this is a very hard time for us.
I don't know if you know this, but streaming pretty
much destroyed our earning power. It took half, at least
half of our earning power away from us because they folks,
they don't pay us for records anymore. And that's really sad.
(19:26):
They got that deal passed us and they It's sort
of as if you worked your job and they paid
you a nickel for every two weeks. It's the proportion
is drastically tiny. So with Neil gone and CSN still earning,
but really frozen in place and really unpleasant I mean
(19:49):
incidents that I will not tell you about, but violently bad,
carefully chosen one.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
David Crosby is having a renaissance, three solo albums over
the past four years. We hear about his new burst
of creativity and why he thinks Stills and Nash are
still out there playing the hits when we come back.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Thing, a besturb.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Such a long long time, the.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Madness that's Crosby with Stills and Nash. We've heard about
the band's disintegration, but not what made it great? What
was the best time? Every time? Every time?
Speaker 4 (21:35):
For years at the beginning, every time we'd go on stage,
we would just kill it. We could sing together. Nash
is a fantastic harmony singer. He absolutely hates my guts.
That's not fun to work.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
But why do you think that's that's the case.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
I could tell you, but it would be personal stuff
and be better than be better if he told you. Yeah,
because you know he said, he said, he said, some
unfortunate stuff happened in his life, some of which is
his fault, some of which isn't, and he blames me
for it. And he mostly blames me because I shot
my mouth off about Neil's girlfriend and pissed off Neil,
(22:14):
which ended, see us, that's my fault, and it's it
was so innocent, you know. I finished in an interview
like this, and we shut the tape off and I
was walking down and he said, what do you think
of Neil's new girlfriend? Man? I said, oh, I think
she's a predator.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Bam on the net immediately wow.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And Neil says, okay, that's it, no more than oh wow.
And I went on stern and he said, why do
you feel man? I said, I didn't have any right
to do that. It was I shot my mouth off,
and he's pissed at me, and so I want to
apologize to him and Marrow. I want to apologize, sir.
I'm not really in a position to judge other people.
(22:58):
I'm the one who wound up in prison.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
A mistake.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Yeah, you know what I did, But you know what mistage?
These days, everybody's just waiting pounds you never, you never,
you never.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
You know, there's no forgetting. I mean, everybody knows the story.
I guess. I was fighting for custody of my daughter
and I'd have to go to court and spend twenty
five thousand dollars just to get my kid on the phone.
You know, they're going to coach the child how to
answer the phone. She was like eleven. And so I
leave this message on my daughter's voicemail, screaming at my
daughter on the phone. I go go nuts because I've
(23:29):
gone through all these stages of that. Now what I did.
I had this great therapist say this to me. Once
he goes, you realize that none of what you suffered,
no matter what you felt, was unfair, he said, You
realize that none of that would have happened if you
hadn't left the message. If you hadn't left the message,
none of this would have happened, regardless of what you
think about them leaking it to the press. But the
(23:50):
point is once that gets out there on the internet,
if you go online and you read my Twitter feed
or you go see any of my social media, there's
not a day goes by, not one that someone doesn't
throw that in my face. They send me a message
with it, they'll show me a YouTube tape with a LinkedIn,
so there's no forgetting anymore.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
No, And it's the people that we're up against here
are very very good at assaulting any vulnerability they see
in the people who criticize them. And we do criticize them,
both you and I do, because they are doing a
rotten job with this country. But his supporters, the level
(24:28):
of vitriol against people like you that have a conscience
and that love this country, and that really love the
constitution and really look the idea of a democracy which
we no longer have, they're very very hot to assault you.
They want that The level of vitriol is indicative it's
(24:52):
gone up, and I think they're getting uncomfortable because he
fucks up every day every day.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
But you've been p for a long time, haven't always.
I mean I read online where you were doing riffs
on stage. I don't know if it was Monterey or
where were you riffs about JFK's assassination.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
I said it was an assassination. I said the Warren
reports a lot. Yeah, and it is. It was absolutely
not true. But being an activist is kind of like,
you know, I had heroes. Man Secret is a hero
of mine. Joan Bia is a hero of mine. These
are people who actually put their lives on the line.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You know.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Harry Belafani, he walked from someone in Montgomery, arm in arm.
It was rifles in the bushes. Plenty of people wanted
to get them. I did a documentary about music and activism,
and he's one of my heroes because he was very brave.
I wrote a book about it. That's why we made
the documentary. Working on a new book now, got named
(25:51):
Jeff Benedict. Started out about politics, but I think it's
going to be about the whole United States of America
and democracy and what happened.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
What do you think is going to happen. It's fascinating, man.
I don't think we know.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Okay, okay, we didn't protect our democracy well enough. What's
gonna happen? I really don't know. I'm very encouraged by
these kids. I was very hugely encouraged to keep them active.
Oh they don't let that fire, Doug die out. It's
not gonna and we don't. We're not in charge of them.
(26:27):
They are gonna do that, and they are pissed. I
don't understand. They're being handed a world that's in deep
danger ecologically and a broken democracy. I don't think they
don't know it. They're pissed. My son is pissed. He's
getting handed the short end of the stick, and he
(26:48):
knows that he's too smart not to know it. They're
not going to go away. These kids are going to
see some change. And all politicians think he has always
been this way and it's all going to be this way.
We're close to the no while we can get the
goodies and we're gonna run things.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Uh huh.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Women's March, the women at the United States of America
may save the United States of America. We need more
of them in Congress.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Maybe Stormy Daniels is going to save the country. Yeah.
I thought it was interesting that you saw everybody attack
David Vidout, a kid that was the leader of the
Florida Movement. It becomes this lightning rod for all these
right wingers, especially Hannity, who I've always been, you know,
just just throttled Hannity whatever I can because he just died.
Because he drives me insane, because because first of all,
(27:34):
he has no talent none. I mean, as much as
I detest O'Reilly's positions and as much as I'm sickened
by the things that O'Reilly did, at least O'Reilly as
a broadcaster had some talent I had. I had a
showdown with the with the o'relly. He was using my
song a long time agoing and I found out, what
do you do? He came out to a show CSN
(27:54):
show at out on Long Island. What's his name, man, but.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
At that place Shoe's Beach, Yeah, Jones Beach. He came
out there and he was very you know, he is peacock.
You know, he's like very full of himself himself. Hi,
Bill O'Reilly, nice to meet you. And I said, mister O'Reilly,
stop using my song. And he said what I said,
I didn't give you permission. If you use my song anymore,
(28:17):
I'm going to see you. He said, why don't you
come on my show and talk about it.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I said, talk about it?
Speaker 4 (28:25):
I said, you bully. You just interrupted me three words
in I'm not going to come show. You disgusted me,
and he stopped. Boy, I don't like him at all.
I don't like any of them because they're they don't
really even believe what they're ranting about. They're ranting because
it makes them money.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
That's how they pay out multimillion dollar settlements. But handed
the attacks this guy and a lot of people. He's
a good kid. That's why they attacked me. Because he's effective,
because it's working. He's believable. These people have They assassinate
characters of leadership. They have a leadership assassination program. Anybody
on the other side is going to it. Was going
(29:03):
to get an attraction and get anything done. They try
to kill it. They try to kill it.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
They don't like it. And now I'm I'm tiny, I'm
not really worth coming after it, but they do come
after me. I'll give you a perfect example, I shot
may mouth off yesterday whenever it was his hotel got cockcire,
I said, burn baby, burn, stupid. And then a guy
dies fifty emails you heartless, worthless son of a bitch.
(29:27):
Somebody died and you loved it.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I don't love it.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Yeah, I don't want to be sometimes, duh. I don't
want anybody to die fifty like raging. I'm going to
kill you, you low, cheesy motherfucker.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
You can't communicate in the media at all the way
you thought you could or wanted to. Yeah, very carefully.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
YEA.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
The place I go where I can speak as long
as I want to, and I'm completely uncensored, and I'm welcome,
and nobody's got to is Howard Stern. I whenever I
want to talk about something, I want to talk about
an issue. If something's bothered me, I go on Howard.
It's the best. These are the nighttime shows. Some of
them are my friends. I like them. They have their
purpose promotionally, six minutes on the couch and out. They
(30:12):
have their function in the in the promotional world. But
Howard is a completely different thing. I have a real
conversation and he's a kind guy.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
He's a really interesting thing. You know what happened with Howard?
He grew up right, He started be out being you know, hey,
I'm gonna have strippers on my radio show, all right, Gabie.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Not so shit?
Speaker 4 (30:32):
And then he kept encountering stuff and learning stuff, and
you watch him he matured.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Eventually they realize Letterman and Howard in their own way,
they realize they're enough them just sitting there talking to
is enough. You don't need any more of this crap.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
I think Howard learned a lot and became smarter and
became much He's a serious, a serious guy to talk to.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Now.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
I feel the same way you do. I felt completely
free to say pretty much anything. I honestly felt you
say the thing about the fire at Trump's building. But
don't we all get pushed to the point where I mean,
there's things I almost hit send on Twitter that you
wouldn't believe, right right in line with what you said
about Birdie, Yeah it was. We get pushed to that point. Yeah,
(31:17):
well they make us mad exactly. You love this place, right,
You believed in this democracy all your life. You think
it's a great idea. We got taught it.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
We're going to ruin.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
Everything, and well they're ruining it, you know, and that's
really bad. And yes, I get pissed. And every once
in a while I make a mistake. I'm nineteen eighty nine.
I made a mistake that maybe there was one in
ninety one to two. You're supposed to smile. It was
a joke.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
But why was it a joke? Because I make mistakes
every day. I'm sorry. Okay, can I get it now?
I'm so earnest. Right now, I'm a little too earnest.
I want to ask you about your son. His name
is Raymond, James Raymond, James Raymond, and you were separated,
(32:00):
didn't see him a while ago, re united.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Yeah, his mom put him up for adoption, and when
he was just about to have his first child, his
parents said, well, you know, I shouldn't know what the
genetics are. You should find out who your dad is.
So he tracked and he found it and he said, nah,
no way, Oh.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
He didn't know. No. How old was he at that point,
probably almost thirty, So he didn't know you were his father.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
No, No, he did a wonderful thing, Alec. He normally does.
Meet ups go very badly. You know that somebody brings
too much baggage. How come you left me?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And Mom?
Speaker 4 (32:32):
We weren't good enough for you?
Speaker 1 (32:36):
It's usually bitter. It's usually a bitter pill. Well, he
came and he gave me a clean slate.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
He gave me a chance to earn my way into
his life, which was one of the kindest things anybody's
ever done to me. And he and I became very
close and we write extremely well. Because he's a better
musician than I am. Anybody tells you it's not genetic.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Have him come talk. That's interesting. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
He's a wonderful musician, much better musician than I am.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
A really good writer. We're taking a break. Stay with us.
Do you still have your band together, CPR?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Well, that's that band has evolved now into the sky
Trails Band band. Now I am in two bands, So
the Lighthouse Band, that's the one I'm working with down
John right now. It's an acoustic band, mostly vocals. And
you here recording. Yeah, we're here recording right now. We're
making our second record. My other band, Skytrails Band. That's CPR,
me and Jeff p Var and my son James Raymond
(33:34):
and this jazz bass player from Estonia named my Eigen
Young really nice, brilliant bass player. And then Michelle Willims
again because she's a stunning singer. She's an amazing singer.
But yeah, these two bands are the results of being
getting out of CSM. And it was a very tough
(33:56):
decision because streaming was taking away half our money. The
other half was live performance with CSN and I couldn't
do it anymore, and so I quit. And are you
just as happy or do you miss I'm so happy SNN?
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Not at all.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Really, these people are much better writers and much better
singer than those guys are now right, These people still
love it, They.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Love making music. They're not doing it for a paycheck.
They're doing it because do you think the other two
are really just doing it for a paycheck at this point? Yeah? Yeah,
I think that's the only thing they do. What are
they going to do? Do you think that they're going to
follow you inform another band and keep going there? You
know they're working.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
Stills was working with Judy Collins, he's been a friend forever,
and Nash be not working.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Were there people that you wanted to play with? Like,
was there a dream of somebody you wanted to play
with you and get to play with who do you
want to play with? Johnny? Really? And why didn't you?
She was my old lady.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
I produced her first record. She arguably the finest singer
songwriter of our times. I think probably pretty definitely the
best writer, even better than Paul or either one of
the Pauls or Randy, or even better than James Taylor,
who is one of my real heroes in life. And
(35:18):
most people come down to it's her, Bob, And she's
so much better musician than Bobbs.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Bob's a great poet. She's a great poet and a
great musician.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Wow, stunning singer, which is all over now because she
got had a really bad thing happened to her.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Dylan, but I worked with him. What was that like?
Was it everything you hoped they would be?
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Bob is such a piece of work man. I went
in and he says, Hi, you do it, And he
kissed my wife's hand. She's never watched it since. And
he says, come on, let's.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Go do it. And I said, Bob, I haven't heard this. Oh,
come on.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Because he loves to get you out on the edge.
He wants that edge stuff. He wants it so I said, Bob,
you got to sing me this song. So he says, okay,
he sings me the song. I see, okay, now let's
go to it. So we go in the other room
and he does it completely different. He's such, he's really
(36:26):
he's a piece of work, trust me, and I love
him and I get along great with him because I
don't butter his toast.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
You know, I.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Think that's that's comfortable for him. People I'd love to
work with there are still a bunch man, but I
think the younger people still have a lot of joy
in it.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
You know.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
It's still really exciting for him, and that produces a
different quality of music.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Unquestionably, we had build back hold to our hour little
(37:12):
hard guy here the night.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
M h.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
That's sign from young bird here, that's entry somebody here exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Right when we returned some of the truly great questions
you all submitted for this legend of rock and roll,
and a few of the less than great ones. I'm
(37:51):
Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
She shall be As she turned Bougis.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Down this slope to the hall. We have some questions
that were posed by people on our here is the
thing Twitter side. Yeah, you know, we went on on
our Twitter page and we asked people and it really
worked like a charm. You were kind of amazed how
(38:38):
many people We're gonna bring me the questions, bring those
in here? But ah, is that you, Adam? I want
to picked us a couple of these that I really
really liked. One of them is from a woman named
Barbara Fisher, and she says, one of my all time
favorite albums of yours is A Thousand Roads. Did you
(38:59):
have any thoughts of what inspired you to write these songs,
especially Hero? Was this a generalization? Was it a commendation
on someone specific that inspired you?
Speaker 4 (39:09):
I wish it were actually Hero. I'm not really sure
what I was talking about. What happened is I was
working on that set of words until Collins heard him
and he wrote the music. And this is the closest
I came to ever having a hit. Really, I never
(39:31):
have it because I write the weird shit. I'm not
really sure what I was talking about. I wish I
could give you a clear and concise answer what I
was trying to say, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Bill Vora Nicos and Bill if I mangled your name,
I apologized Bill Vornicos. I think this is a funny question.
Who was a rival artist or band during the sixties
or seventies that you couldn't stand or thought sucked other
than Jim Morrison. Did you think Jim Morrison sucked? Yeah? Absolutely,
(40:04):
really poser, really poser. You thought he was not a
good singer, not a good singer? No, no, why do you?
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Oh my god, I don't think he was a good singer.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
And when you say that, who is a good singer
to you? Oh? Man, I mean other than the three
of you? Who's a good singer?
Speaker 4 (40:18):
James Taylor?
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Wow, brilliant singer? Well, because he's just more honest, more straightforward?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
What what?
Speaker 1 (40:25):
What? Much more talented? Wow? No, Morrison was a poser.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
Anybody that wants up having a wave their dick at
the audience, you know, it's like they're pretty desperate.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
He was a poser.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Trust me. I That band was no good. They never swung. Ever,
they didn't have a bass player. He played terrible bass
on a keyboard, really badly, and it was awful.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
I don't like him.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
I never There were bands earlier than that that I
didn't like. Paul Overer in the Raiders. I mean, come on,
I set the bar pretty high. The people that I
liked were Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin and cass Ellie
had Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, that's those are your basic box set of the greatest.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Those are all my friends, and there are all people
that I think are really talented.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
No, I didn't like the doors at all. Well, we
have a woman here the question. I'm motivated by you
because you were so blunt about Morrison. I'm so blunt
about this question. Her name is Renee Champagne. Now that's
that's a that's a cool name, Renee Champagne. But the
question is a terrible question. She says, what is the
most memorable moment of your career so far? And why?
(41:32):
That's a terrible question.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
When you are terrible question and you get those two
right now, and we try to explain to him, and
when you get into the good stuff, it's all apples
and oranges. There isn't a best. Clapton wasn't better than Hendrix.
Hendrix wasn't better than Clapton.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
I got another one here that I really really liked.
John Packer. Is his name? Our contributor here from Twitter,
John Packer said, Hugh Masekela described how you helped him
move out of addiction and how that transformed his life.
How did he find you? Cass?
Speaker 4 (42:00):
Cass Elliott, the same person introduced me to Graham and
one of my best friends.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
In the world, A truly wonderful woman. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
She introduced me to Hugh and he and I and
she used to hang out together a lot. Hughes was
a very talented guy. He played on Rock and Roll Star.
That's his trumpet on Rock and Roll Star.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
I don't want you to answer these questions, but I
just want to read them to you because that's so
interesting to me. Jeffrey Paris says, if you had six
fingers instead of four, what will we hear from your guitar?
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Jeffrey Paris used to be the captain on my boat.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Is this somebody you know? Oh?
Speaker 4 (42:32):
I know, very somebody you know. He's one of my
best friends.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
If you have six fingers on your hand rather than
for what will we hear from your guitar?
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Clapped it?
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Is he somebody you admire? Oh?
Speaker 4 (42:43):
Hell yes, But more than his musicianship, I admire his courage.
What happened to him, would have put me back on.
He didn't go. He stayed sober in the face of that.
My god, man, that's courage. He's a very brave guy.
(43:06):
And you know, most people just have never really looked
at it and thought about what it must have taken
from him. But I admire his courage as much as
I admire his guitar playing. And I think he's an
even better singer than he is a guitar player.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Three last questions. Gloria Bernstein, who's a friend of mine.
Gloria Bernstein wants to know what's your favorite movie of
your dad's.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
But the one they got the Academy Award for it
is also a stunner. It's called Taboo, and it was
a black and white silent movie.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
It's that far back. You ever visit him on the set?
Oh yeah, lots of Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
I wanted to do your job. Man.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
I'm so glad you didn't. I'm so it worked out
well for all of us.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Oh, you know, it's not easy for every part in
film and TV. There's a thousand people trying.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
One last question from these, what are five albums you
could never do.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
With Jony's Blue Asia, Steely Dan, my favorite band, sad
that he died not I'm friends with Donald and Though
and I got to give two to Steely.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Dan, Gaucho.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
Pepper's Starry Peppers loved a classical piece called Theme from Thomas.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Tallis very fun. William, so you know about that. I'm
the announcer for the New York Philharmonic. You're on public radio.
I love that. How is your health and what recommendations
do you have to people, especially people in your business,
to take better care of their health. I think a
lot about that now what I might have done?
Speaker 4 (44:42):
I think, you know, my health has always been a
very serious issue. I had a hepatitis. See, I had
to have a liver transplant. I spent seventy two days
in the hospital at UCLA before they saved my life.
Oh is it really pretty pretty terrible? I've been a
diabetic for thirty years at least. My doctor, who is
(45:04):
a crusty old guy at UCLA named Gary Geitnik, you
gotta do better with his diabetes.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Ok, Gary, thank you? How do I do that? He said?
Eat less food?
Speaker 4 (45:16):
I said, oh, Gary, thanks, that's so simple. Oh wow,
you cleared it right up for me. You're so kind
you ask eat less food. I mean it, you're eating
too much. Turns out he's right. There's a delay period
between when you're actually full and when you feel ful
about twenty minutes, and you keep eating because it tastes good.
(45:39):
So what I do is I order a regular meal.
I don't order sugar, but I order a pretty regular meal,
and then I eat half of it. And I went
from two forty seven and I've been here for two years.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Do you campaign for people, for candidates ever anymore?
Speaker 4 (45:53):
I am very reticent about it because they turn on you.
I've been campaigning for a friend of mine named Dena
Steele down in Texas. She's running where it's home for
you now you live where Sentien is up by Santa Barbara.
I've been campaigning for Dana because she's a friend and
I know she's an honorable person, and she's running for
(46:14):
Congress in the thirty sixth district in Texas, and I
think she might win, even though she's an uphill battle.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
Sometimes if I know the character.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Of the person, I have to do something with you
that'd be fun. I'd love it too. Man out Nelly Alchemy,
I know it. You know, we've got to give it
a guy.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
I love this country man.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
I'm not giving up.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
I Am not going to roll over and put my
paws in here. I Am going to keep fighting until
I am dead.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
The inexhaustible creative engine that is David Crosby. He actually
worked in film. Recently. He and his son James wrote
a song for the documentary Little Pink House about the
human story behind the Supreme Court's Kilo decision, where a
town tried to bulldoze the woman's Little Pink House to
(46:55):
make room for commercial development.
Speaker 4 (46:57):
They put it in the movie and they're trying to
you thy can qualify as for an Academy Award.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
We traveled of course love and can put it next
to my dad, David Crosby. He chose the music for
today's program, and there's both joy and pain in it.
I'm Alec Baldwin. You're listening to here's the thing from
iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Six seven weeks now, six.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Ships on the Waters.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
You know the way it's supposed to.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
S the show.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Speed talking about very free.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
And active people.
Speaker 5 (48:07):
I don't know what pal pot bo
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