[ Priscilla Ahn's "Dream" plays ] ♪♪ -♪ I was a little girl ♪ ♪ Alone in my little world ♪ ♪ Who dreamed of a little home for me ♪ ♪♪ ♪ I played pretend between the trees ♪ ♪ And fed my houseguests bark and leaves ♪ ♪ And laughed in my pretty bed of green ♪ ♪♪ ♪ I had a dream ♪ ♪ That I could fly ♪ ♪ From the highest swing ♪ ♪ I had a dream ♪ ♪♪ -This was the last time I rode to the beach with Mama Cass.

-♪ Long walks... ♪ -It was 1968, and we both lived in Laurel Canyon.

-♪ I asked God who I'm supposed to be ♪ / ♪ The stars... ♪ -Cass was a catalyst who brought many musicians together -- above all, those living legends Crosby, Stills, and Nash, who were paramount in creating West Coast rock.

♪ I could fly ♪ ♪ From the highest tree, I had a dream ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ -Sadly, our dear, dear friend Cass passed away in London in 1974... -♪ Ooh ♪ -...and left behind a beautiful baby girl, Owen Vanessa.

-♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ [ Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" plays ] ♪♪ -♪ There's something happening here ♪ -...directly behind the presidential car.

There were also bodies in that car.

Another Secret Service man spread-eagle over them.

We don't know.

Perhaps there were some hit in that car, as well.

We're not sure.

-The President of the United States is dead.

-♪ Got to beware ♪ ♪ I think it's time we stop ♪ ♪ Children, what's that sound?

♪ ♪ Everybody look what's going down ♪♪ [ Rock music playing ] [ Cheers and applause ] -You know, they're shooting this for television.

I'm sure that they'll edit this out.

I want to say it anyway, even though they will edit it out.

When President Kennedy was killed, he was not killed by one man.

He was shot from a number of different directions by different guns.

The story has been suppressed.

Witnesses have been killed.

And this is your country, ladies and gentlemen.

[ Applause ] ♪♪ -Kennedy got assassinated.

-President Kennedy, our beloved president, was killed.

-The youth culture in America turned to the establishment and asked this very profound question.

"Why didn't you protect him?"

-There was kind of a gloom that settled over the country.

-When they had no answer, everybody went to the thing that the establishment hated the most at the time, which was the Beatles.

♪♪ -My God.

There were the Beatles.

And the music was so joyful and so just harmonious and so beautiful.

-Long-haired dirty bugs from England.

Right?

And they said, "We're going with them."

And that changed the world.

-The Beatles, who originated as a small-time act out of Liverpool, now have no rivals as the kingpins of the teenage set.

You can repeat that loud and long.

This young mob is generating enough energy to put three Atlas missiles in orbit and power 54,000 transistor radios.

[ Crowd cheering ] -It was -- It was incredible.

-There was a shift and a change in terms of subject matter, what one was saying, what one wanted to say.

There was a sense of political awareness.

-In the middle-'60s, there began to be a kind of an awakening and a kind of a growing awareness, you know, about life.

And certainly it was fueled by smoking God's herb.

[ Chuckles ] I played with a folk group called the Modern Folk Quartet.

Our group went electric after we heard the Beatles, and so did many of the other folk groups.

Many groups sprouted up among folk singers who wanted to make this new kind of music, and among them were the Buffalo Springfield, certainly, and the Byrds.

Now, those were two groups that were into this new sort of folk-rock sound.

You know, they had electric guitars.

Stephen Stills and Neil Young and the Buffalo Springfield.

And then you had Jim McGuinn with his electric Rickenbacker singing Bob Dylan's "Tambourine Man" and David Crosby singing the harmony.

And these were some of the new sort of groups doing this new, joyful kind of what we called folk rock.

-We became an electric group, and we continued to tour the country, playing folk clubs and doing TV shows.

Somewhere along the way, I believe it was in Michigan, we stopped our motor home in front of a little secondhand store and all ran in just to try to spend a few bucks on some kind of junk that we didn't need.

And there was a table full of secondhand cameras there, and someone in the group said, "Oh, I'll have one of those.

A camera."

And I said, "Oh, I'll get one, too."

And we -- we -- all four of us bought cameras.

So we all came out of this secondhand store holding these cameras, took pictures for the next two or three weeks as we were returning to L.A., and we would stop beside the road and shoot a herd of cows.

We'd stop in a junkyard and shoot, you know, toilets with flowers growing out of them and just anything we saw.

And when we got back to L.A., we had a big slideshow.

One day, walking down the hill in Laurel Canyon, I heard this bit of music coming out of a house, and I knew the guy who lived in the house.

So I went up to the door, and Stephen Stills was in there playing his guitar, and he said, "Henry, we're gonna go down to this little folk club in Redondo Beach later today.

You want to come with us?"

And I thought, "Great.

I'll come along so I can photograph people on the beach."

So, while the Buffalo Springfield was doing their soundcheck, I was out at the beach photographing people.

I walked back to the club, and there was a huge pink mural on the wall of a guy riding a bicycle.

And I thought, "That will be great in my slideshow."

And I was just focusing on it when the door opened and the Buffalo Springfield came filing out of the back of the club, and I said, "Hey, why don't you guys stand under that big painting and I'll take your picture there," thinking it'll give some scale to the photo.

I wasn't thinking, "Oh, my God.

There's a group.

I'll photograph them."

I just wanted some people in there.

A week later, I got a call from TeenSet magazine, and they said, "We hear you have a picture of the Buffalo Springfield.

We'd like to run it in our magazine, and we'll pay you $100."

So I gave them the picture, and they ran it, and they paid me 100 bucks, and I was off and running.

"Oh!

People will pay for these things."

You know?

Now I had a -- I had a direction.

[ Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" plays ] ♪♪ -The incredible danger and excitement about people crossing over from folk and then adding a little bit of electrical, you know, amps and stuff... it was a dangerous moment.

-Transition from folk to rock and the Beatles' influence upon it was a two-way street.

If you listen to the early Beatle tunes, these were not sophisticated tunes.

And what happened was they ran into Bob Dylan in London, and they had deep admiration for him and his songs.

And basically Dylan said to them at the time, "Well, you're great, but you have nothing to say."

And that drove John Lennon mad.

And John Lennon went out and started to say something.

-The idea of crossing folk music with classical music or folk with rock, you could actually be booed on stage.

You could go up there, and if you had the wrong audience, they would -- they would boo you off the stage because you -- you had copped out and you weren't doing folk anymore, you know, or you weren't doing political anymore.

-When Bob Dylan played the Hollywood Bowl with the band for the first time, he did an acoustic set in the first half of the show, and then when he came out for the second half, he had the band backing him up, and the audience booed.

I was shocked.

I looked around like, "Wow.

They're booing Bob Dylan."

-Well, Bob Dylan kind of came from the traditional side of folk music, you know?

I mean, he played ballads on an acoustic guitar, and he idolized Woody Guthrie.

And so there were a certain amount of followers of traditional music who were disappointed when he went electric.

But the rest of us who had seen the Beatles understood, you know, where this was going.

-But, of course, everybody electrified eventually, and then folkies started folk rock, and they continued to have their social impetus and desire to fix what was broken in the Woody Guthrie tradition, and folk rock became very powerful.

♪♪ -You would descend down the hill and go into Hollywood.

West Hollywood, where the Troubadour was.

And then eventually there was The Trip, which was a big club on Sunset Strip that my group played in quite often.

Then there was the Whisky a Go Go.

There was a -- There was a bar called The Action.

At one point, we played five 45-minute sets a night in The Action.

And it was contemporaries and little flower children, you know, dancing to the lights and the music.

There was a whole scene happening down on Sunset Strip while all this new music was turning everybody on.

And you'd have all these little girls in bellbottoms, you know, and flowered shirts and flowers in their hair and love beads all walking down the sidewalk like a carnival midway.

-It was very important to bands that really wanted to make it, or artists that really wanted to make it, that weren't already established names to play at the Troubadour and at the Whisky.

But at the Troubadour, it was more of a transition because they had their Monday night "hootenannies," which had a lot of -- That was open mic, you know, and a lot of people came in and just were there with a guitar and sang folk songs.

-The Troubadour people came to electric guitars a little more slowly there than they did on the Strip, where it was already, you know, rock 'n' roll from the beginning.

-If you describe the music scene on the Sunset Strip and The Doors and the Buffalo Springfield and everything, you could really make a strong argument that that scene was one of the defining moments.

-The Whisky was huge, but the Troubadour was probably more eclectic, where you would see more cutting-edge stuff.

I think the Whisky was a little more of -- more rock, and you kind of made it a little bit.

-We get so many young people here that are, you know, musicians that are good musicians, and some are bad, but, you know, I have a way about myself that I actually tell a guy, "Man, you suck.

You're terrible."

Tell them right out.

"Well, what do I got to do?"

"Well, you got to go to bed with your drums and you got to get up with your... you got to keep playing every day.

You got to practice.

You're not gonna be what you want to be."

-If he liked you, there's nothing -- He was wonderful.

He was on your side.

But if you crossed Mario... -Very caring of the girls.

And he didn't let customers -- If customers got kind of out of hand a little bit or something, he would send somebody, if he didn't come himself, you know, to take care of it, so... -I remember one night he chased a guy across the street and broke his leg in the gas station -- or that's what I was told.

-Mario treated the musicians very well because he wanted them to do a good job because, you know, it was a launching place, and a lot of industry people came.

You know, we had the booths in the back for all the VIPs.

And that was very important to Mario.

Everybody always wanted to see who was there, and there would be performers sitting there and the girls would come there.

♪♪ -Well, a typical day in Laurel Canyon, which was the hills right up above the Sunset Strip.

It was very quiet up there in the daytime.

We were musicians, so we slept late.

So we'd get up, you know, in the late morning, light a bit of incense, you know, maybe sit there and watch the smoke curl up in the air.

Roll up a number, you know, wait for the phone to ring.

In the afternoon, we'd go visit a friend, go over to Mama Cass' house, go down and see Stephen Stills playing his guitar somewhere.

Somebody would come by with a guitar and say, "Look at this new chord I figured out."

It was all -- There was a burgeoning music scene of everybody starting to write songs and share all these ideas.

-Laurel Canyon originally was where the stagecoach would come over, and it was just all dirt.

-Where the saber-toothed tiger once roamed.

Beautiful, beautiful hummingbirds abounding.

And all kinds of exotic flora and fauna that gave everybody a chance to see California on an intimate level.

-It was the center of where the musicians lived.

-It was a very cool place to live.

It had charming, rustic homes.

You didn't have to live in an apartment building like you would if you were in Hollywood.

And there was a feeling of unity and... Just, like, that was our neighborhood.

-The Country Store.

Yeah.

That's exactly what it was called, you know?

And it was right down at the end of Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

And that was where you'd go and get your groceries.

And, you know, who knows who you'd run into down there.

You know, you'd probably run -- Jim Morrison.

-I always felt that a lot of people lived in the canyon -- Laurel Canyon -- because it was just convenient to Sunset Boulevard.

I mean, that's -- 'Cause a lot of people in those days hitchhiked.

-You know, we -- I remember Stephen and I going down from -- from their house to go down and check out what was going on at the Troubadour.

And we we walked in there, and down the street carrying a bottle of vodka was John Lennon with a Kotex taped to his head.

And he was, like, drunker -- He was drunk and belligerent, looking for a fight.

I mean, I never seen anything like -- I mean, John, you know.

But that was his way of saying, you know... to the world, you know?

-So, as I drove up Laurel Canyon from the Sunset Strip up to my house up on Lookout Mountain Avenue, I would first pass the house where Frank Zappa lived on the corner.

And Frank's house was like an open house.

-Houdini lived up there.

-And then just up from that was Joni Mitchell's house.

And next to that was the house where David Blue and Elliot Roberts had lived.

-You know, a lot of -- a lot of the Doors guys had houses up there, you know.

-And then just around the corner at Horseshoe Canyon was where Micky Dolenz lived.

And next to him was Alice Cooper.

Danny Hutton from Three Dog Night was in that house.

-John and Michelle Phillips.

Cass Elliot.

David Crosby.

Gene Clark.

Henry Diltz.

-Joe Schermie lived on Lookout Mountain.

-Then I would round the corner to go up the hill.

On the left was Mark Volman's house.

Mark Volman was in the Turtles.

And then I would finally get to my house.

And if I kept going, then I would get up to where Denny Doherty from the Mamas & Papas lived.

And Steven Spielberg and Carole King.

And the list went on and on.

-On my street, Gene Clark from the Byrds lived, and he had an old maroon Porsche.

And I remember him speeding up the street in his Porsche with music blasting and me speeding down the hill in my T-Bird with music blasting and... -♪ And there ain't no place I'm going to ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man ♪ ♪ Play a song for me ♪ ♪ In the jingle jangle morning ♪ ♪ I'll come following you ♪ ♪♪ -I mean, the first time I met Gene Clark was down at the Troubadour.

And Roger McGuinn.

Jim McGuinn, at the time.

Jim McGuinn and David Crosby were sitting at a little table with this new guy, and I came over to say hello.

And they said, "Hey.

Meet Gene Clark.

He's just come in from Missouri, and we're gonna start a group.

We're gonna call it the Beefeaters."

And I said, "Great, you guys!

That's great."

-Yeah, we tried a bunch of different, you know, names.

Um... "Jet Set" I remember was one of them.

There were a couple others.

Beefeaters.

Trying to, you know, imply that we were almost as good as the Brits.

-I think Roger must have come up with "Byrds."

-When the Byrds formed and had "Mr. Tambourine Man" and started playing at Ciro's, the music business was a sea change.

We went -- It wasn't just the Beatles.

The Beatles were -- came from somewhere else and were part of the music business before we heard of them.

But we knew the Byrds, and they'd made the change to long hair and electricity, and everybody followed them.

-I met Roger McGuinn at the Troubadour.

He was singing with Gene Clark.

And Gene had somehow managed to catch the essence of Beatle tunes.

He had this way of writing that was very Beatle-esque, and yet it was his own.

And Roger could play these tunes really well.

And they were sitting in the little bar in the front of the Troubadour playing those tunes, and I started singing harmony to them.

As soon as I started hanging out with them, we were singing original material, Gene's stuff.

-Byrds formed and had hit records prior to the Buffalo Springfield forming up.

They came straight off the Troubadour stage in folk music.

Chris Hillman was from a bluegrass group called the Green Grass Singers that Randy Sparks had put together.

Mike Clark came off the beach.

They found him playing bongos on the beach, is what I heard.

-Yeah, I met Michael in Big Sur, and he looked right.

[ Laughs ] He looked great.

He looked like Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones.

And he learned how to play, just as Chris learned how to play the bass.

Chris was a mandolin player.

-When I met Crosby, he was playing with the Byrds, and they were the house band at a go-go lounge called the Peppermint Tree in San Francisco up on Broadway in North Beach.

And the Byrds were playing background for go-go dancers, fringed bikinis, bucking away in little chrome cages.

Crosby was wearing his Borsalino hat and cape, and we thought the Byrds were a bunch of poseurs from Los Angeles.

-David had a really amazing dark-green suede cape that he was always wearing -- always.

Not just on the motorcycle.

Wherever he was.

You were in his house with him, and he had his cape on.

[ Chuckles ] It was a little weird.

-Ah, the cape was just window dressing, but the spirit of things then was quite interesting because it was very, very yeasty, very full of life, very full of creative stuff.

There was a whole, large group of musicians that had descended upon Los Angeles from everywhere in the country.

And -- And there was...

There was an incredibly fertile field there.

-Crosby's melodic lines fill in the chords.

They're not the top or the bottom or the root or the dominant.

They just complete it.

And he's able to weave that kind of seamlessly through a song and make the harmonies sound dense and textured.

-We were trying to be the Byrds, but we -- As far as we were concerned, nobody could get anywhere near the Beatles, particularly us.

My first inspiration for harmonies would have been the Everly Brothers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They wrote the book.

They've -- Just did it better than anybody else, you know?

And their two-part harmony didn't always just go parallel.

It did really interesting things.

But I know the Beatles listened to them, too.

You know, people were trying to come up with labels, you know, to be able to understand what we were.

And when we would say that we came from folk music, they'd call it folk rock, and then when we would experiment with Indian kind of sounds, they'd say it was raga rock.

And then when we listened to some jazz and do "Eight Miles High," they'd say it was jazz rock.

They were frantically trying to come up with a label for it.

And the reason people do that is so they can dismiss it.

Once they have a label for it, they don't have to think about it anymore.

They don't have to do all that nasty hard work of thinking.

Roger's a brilliant arranger and a brilliant transformer of music.

He took those songs and arranged them to come out that way.

And I think the credit's all his.

I mean, I added something with the harmonies, but the basic approach to the song was Roger's.

-I always thought that Roger McGuinn, whom I didn't know very well -- But I thought he was very controlling.

Gene was so vulnerable.

So sad a lot of the times.

And he just seemed very afraid of things.

Just seemed very afraid.

-He made all the gigs up until the time that he got off the airplane.

And Roger told him, you know, "If you get off the airplane -- If you can't fly, you can't be a Byrd."

And he got off the airplane.

-McGuinn and Crosby were kind of pummeling Gene, you know, and Gene was so insecure that...

Although he did some good stuff, I think that he could have done, you know, amazing stuff.

He was an amazing songwriter.

-Gene Clark is known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his generation.

We lost our dear friend Gene in 1991, shortly after the Byrds were admitted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

♪♪ -There was a lot of grief between us, a lot of, you know, ego stuff.

We didn't have the vaguest clue.

You know, we were inexperienced kids, and we had not the vaguest clue how to deal with each other or deal with the situation.

We had a lot of money and big egos and no brains.

-He almost always was, you know, full of himself, for good reason.

He had the talent.

He had the band.

And it was just a question of the rest of the world catching up.

-I don't think I was very easy to deal with.

You know, I was -- I was young, and I thought my songs were getting pretty good, and I wanted to see them on the records.

And that was always a struggle.

-♪ Turn, turn, turn ♪ -And -- I don't know.

I was -- I was one to, you know, push boundaries back some more.

-I think he was very unhappy to leave them prematurely.

But within a year after he had left them, Crosby, Stills & Nash had become a hit... and the Byrds were kind of dissolving and reforming and kind of lacking cohesiveness.

So I think it was only after he left they appreciated, or failed to appreciate, that he was a glue.

He was an adhesive.

♪♪ -Joni moved over to the U.S. from Canada, and she blew us all away with her musical genius.

Rolling Stone called her one of the greatest songwriters ever.

And they're not wrong.

♪♪ -Overwhelming.

I'm a singer-songwriter.

You walk in, and somebody's doing it at that level?

It's gonna blow your mind.

And she did.

I walked in, and she was singing, you know, "Both Sides Now" or "Michael from Mountains" or something like that and just slayed me completely.

Brought her back to Los Angeles.

And I'd gather a bunch of people in a room... and we would all adjust ourselves and get ourselves ready.

And then she would sit down and sing.

That's all it takes.

-She's just an amazing artist.

-Can you imagine when she was that young and you've only heard her sing a couple of times and... She can intimidate anybody.

Unless you're a narcissistic fool.

-Joni Mitchell is the best songwriter ever born, as far as I'm concerned.

She's, you know -- She's prolific.

She outdoes them all.

I think that's the little -- probably the trouble that they have with each other.

You know, she's -- I think they're all in awe of her.

I think they all respect her songwriting and her abilities.

And she's very complex and very intimidating.

-I think that there were a handful of people that everybody wanted to get the nod from, and Joni was certainly one of those people.

-Well, you work all week on a song, and, you know, you'd say, "Hey, honey, listen to this!"

♪ Guinevere had green eyes ♪ You know?

And she'd come and say, "That's really nice, David.

Here.

I did these ones... this morning."

And she'd sing three.

And they'd be fantastic.

And you'd go -- [Whimpers] -Really?

Crosby thinks it was tough being in the same room as Joni as a songwriter?

You know, join the club, friend.

What do you think it was like for me living with her in Laurel Canyon with one piano?

She was constantly writing.

Constantly.

And I loved it.

I mean, I witnessed some incredible moments of creation from Joni Mitchell, but it was tough to get to the piano.

-You know, I mean, you can't help but be thrilled by the music, but...

Uh...

The truth is, I think I was inspired by it more than discouraged by it.

I wasn't really discouraged by it.

It's just a joke.

I was inspired by it, I think, very strongly.

I would put her and Michael Hedges as the two best manipulator of tunings -- manipulators of tunings in the world.

I don't think anybody else came close to those two.

I realized that she had done what a folk singer does.

They do kind of an indicated arrangement.

Their thumb becomes the bass, and their fingers become the band.

She had a very complete arrangement in her guitar playing and her dulcimer playing.

-But, you know, when you're talking about people like Van Dyke or Randy or Joni or Neil or whoever, you're dealing with visionaries, and what they see and how they look at the future is unlike us, you know?

-We actually moved into David Geffen's house right up on Doheny above Sunset.

He was renting a house from the actor George Montgomery.

And at the time, Joni Mitchell was living in the house, too.

So we moved into this house, all of us, and we're living with Joni Mitchell.

David had this lovely lady, a housekeeper, a middle-aged lady who was cooking for David and keeping the house clean, and she'd get so upset because Joni was staying up all night playing the grand piano.

and she was writing, I think, "Blue" or one of these masterpiece albums.

And she'd say, "I'm quitting if that girl doesn't quit playing the piano all night!"

I'm thinking, "Man, she's playing, you know, these masterpieces and stuff."

So it was a mind-blowing time for us.

-I met Stephen as a real young kid in New York, just starting out, I think it was in '63 -- my folk group played in a place called the Village Gate, which was a jazz club.

Down the street from this club was a little basket house.

Now, a basket house was a coffeehouse where someone could get up and play a song and pass the basket around, and that was the pay they got for doing it.

And we went in there one evening, and we saw this young kid with a guitar.

Got to talking to him, as musicians always do.

You know, you go up and talk to the guy and say, "Hey.

I like your playing.

Where'd you get that song?"

And da-da-da-da.

"Come down and see us.

We're down the street."

-Everybody wanted to be a Beatle or a Rolling Stone or, you know -- or an American version of the same.

And -- And once we saw those movies and heard this record, what else were we going to do?

Continue singing those boring folk songs?

Not me.

-Stephen would risk it, and he wrote some of just truly the most amazing songs of all time.

And people would be shocked -- shocked if they saw on a list how many wonderful songs they love that were written by Stephen Stills.

-He had an idea of a band he wanted to put together.

He worked around town for a while, played with a bass player I knew called Ron Long in a group called the Two Shaggy Gorillas Minus One Buffalo Fish, which presaged the Buffalo Springfield, but I don't think the name connected.

-You know, I called Richie up and said, "Come on, Richie.

Come on out.

We're gonna have a group.

It's gonna be great, We're gonna have a group, and it's gonna be great.

And there's the group."

And he came up, and it was just me and him... Neil Young happened to show up in the middle of that, as if by fortuitous, you know, divine provenance.

-Neil and Bruce showed up.

They ran into them on the street somewhere and knew them from Toronto.

-On Sunset Strip.

He was traveling west -- or traveling east.

And we pulled in behind.

And two cars up, I saw a hearse with Ontario plates, and I knew immediately who it was.

They stopped at a stoplight, and I jumped out of the van and ran up and beat on the window and went, "Neil!

It's me!"

And they went, "Yeah!"

Because Neil had come to New York looking for me, as I'd found out.

We had met in Fort William, Ontario, some months before.

And I had gone to get jobs for his band so that he could come to America and not continue to be thrown out.

-Came to Los Angeles in an old hearse to start -- you know, to try -- you know, make stars, you know?

"We're gonna be stars."

So, we were just about to leave, and I saw him in a van going the other way on Sunset, and he stopped me, and we stopped, and we all stopped.

And then we started.

-It was a vocal sound.

Steve and Richie's voice.

And then Neil and Stephen sort of dueling lead guitars.

Although, Neil was supposed to be lead and Stephen was supposed to be rhythm, Richie was supposed to be doing the best he could.

-He's a very unique individual.

He's one of the nicest people in the world and has a wonderful, passionate singing voice.

-It was -- I thought it was America's answer to the Beatles.

And I presented it that way to William Morris.

I agreed to sign Buffalo Springfield halfway through one song.

That's how obviously great they were.

And if you look at the seminal position that they took in the evolution of not only folk rock, but where rock 'n' roll went as a whole, being the progenitor of Poco, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Neil Young and his various configurations, I mean, there was a lot of talent rolling there.

-As soon as I saw the Springfield, I wanted to be friends with those guys and I liked them because they did stuff that was thrilling to me.

You know, they had good songs, and then they would do that two-guitar thing, and that was pretty good.

You know?

Nobody else was doing that.

They had two very different styles.

They would -- They were interesting.

-Stephen really had a strong desire to play lead guitar, and the guitar sound that evolved was that competition between Stephen and Neil, where they would trade the lines, and Steve would, as often as possible, break out of rhythm guitar into lead guitar.

Neil could accommodate it.

He was a fine guitar player and just, you know, made room.

It really worked very well, and it showed up on the recordings after that.

They would, you know, each improvise lead lines.

-Stephen and Neil would have to be considered co-leaders.

And I think it was that struggle that probably caused the demise of the act, but in a sense that there was Lennon and McCartney, there was Stills and Young, and both are really significant songwriters.

-Neil was not just a great lead guitar player, he was also a great visual presence on stage.

He wore large, fringy jackets, and when he played, that fringe went everywhere.

He was probably the strongest visual on stage, with the exception of Bruce, who was very strange.

Bruce would, a lot of times, never acknowledge the audience, just play with his back to the audience, something the audience picked up on and loved.

And so they were kind of like a contrast.

Stephen was strong on stage.

And Richie was very strong.

Richie was a dancer.

He used to -- He used to get up on his toes and dance around the stage.

He couldn't play guitar, but he could certainly make it look like he could.

And, I mean, he played well enough to hit the right chords, but he wasn't a strong guitar player like the other two.

-There was a little club in the middle of Sunset Boulevard.

And the "middle" -- I mean, the street went around both sides of it.

-There were all these kids.

They were basically celebrating a funeral for a bar called Pandora's Box.

-And the cops all came because they thought it was a riot.

-You know, this moron named Sam Yorty was mayor of L.A., and he thought, "Oh, this is a riot."

And it wasn't anything of the kind.

-It was just a bunch of kids going from club to club and sort of having a love-in, you know, on the sidewalks.

-We came over to Sunset Boulevard and went, "What the heck?

Turn around."

Bunch of riot police in full Macedonian battle array across the street.

And I went back to Topanga Canyon and wrote the song.

-Moby Grape was an absolute imitation, vocally and instrumentally, of Buffalo Springfield.

And there was a -- there was a certain amount of grumbling about it, and they had a song called "Murder in My Heart for the Judge."

And Stephen rewrote that song into "For What It's Worth."

Neil put those little lead guitar touches on, that little growling, angry electric guitar and the harmonics.

And you could just hear hit written all over it.

-The Buffalo Springfield!

[ Cheers and applause ] [ "For What It's Worth" plays ] ♪♪ -♪ There's something happening here ♪ ♪♪ ♪ What it is ain't exactly clear ♪ ♪♪ ♪ There's a man with a gun over there ♪ ♪ Telling me I got to beware ♪ ♪ I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound?

♪ ♪ Everybody look what's going down ♪ ♪♪ -Anytime I got that dazed look, caught that dazed look from any of them -- "What do we do now?"

I would think of something.

That made me the leader, I think.

You know?

But not for long.

Neil was bound to reassert himself.

He had his, you know, control issues.

-Stephen desperately wanted to play lead guitar.

And one night on tour, we were in a girls' college in New York.

Bruce got deathly ill and couldn't go on stage for the second set.

We closed the first set with "Mr.

Soul" and the second set with "Bluebird."

And Steve played lead guitar on "Bluebird."

Steve had to go play bass.

And as it came into time what we called the raga, which was the long, elaborate instrumental portion of the song, which came at the end of the closer, building up, and then eventually, just like it does on the record, and then going back into the vocal, Steve started to play the bass.

He started to play lead bass.

And they weren't -- It wasn't going nowhere.

So he started frailing the bass like a banjo.

And he took all the skin off his knuckles.

And he started -- There was blood going everywhere.

And the audience came up out of their chairs.

The audience was electrified.

And Stephen was absolutely unaware.

He was just so furious he was unable to play his guitar line that in the end he threw the bass against the amplifier where it just began feeding back Jimi Hendrix style and stomped off the stage.

And I'll bet to this day he doesn't know that they stood there for 10 minutes screaming, "More," and he wouldn't come back out.

-What was interesting in the Buffalo Springfield was the competition between Neil and Stephen.

It was a good competition for them because it really made both of them do their best.

I mean, they wrote some of their best songs, you know, when they were competing to see who would get what.

-It was part of the dynamic that made the group great and tore the group apart at the same time.

They were competitors.

Stephen, especially, competed with Neil for songwriting and for lead guitar.

-Charlie Greene and Brian Stone, who were their managers for a while.

Charlie would have a way of playing one against the other, Stephen against Neil, you know.

"Oh, you'll get the 'A' side."

You know, that kind of thing.

-A lot of times, it led to real conflict.

Backstage once, up in Washington somewhere, they actually went at each other, you know, with guitars in hand.

I was terrified they were gonna break the guitars and we weren't gonna be able to go on stage for the next set.

There were strong disagreements between the two from the beginning.

Neil responded by leaving the group a couple of times, as you probably know, -♪ Stop, children, what's that sound?

♪ ♪ Everybody look what's going down ♪ ♪♪ ♪ There's battle lines being drawn ♪ ♪ Nobody's right if everybody's wrong ♪ ♪ Young people speaking their minds ♪ ♪ Getting so much resistance from behind... ♪♪ [ Buffalo Springfield's "Rock and Roll Woman" plays ] -♪ Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh ♪ ♪ There's a woman ♪ ♪ That you ought to know ♪ ♪ And she's coming ♪ ♪ Singing soft and low, singing... ♪ -What a time of expanded consciousness, because there was so much more going on.

There were the books that we were reading, and we were reading books about Tibetan Buddhism.

You know, we were learning about the American Indians, you know, spiritual quests.

-We were young.

We were smart.

We were ambitious.

We love America.

And, you know, to have it in the hands of corrupt politicians and greedy corporations that have no governance, you know, that was abhorrent to us.

So we all fought against that.

And the music was the catalyst.

And drugs were the fuel.

-Marijuana was -- It was the drug.

It was like martinis, you know, on Long Island.

It was one of those things that if you smoked marijuana, you were welcome in a group of people that otherwise were very closed to you.

And we all had, you know, those incredible experiences.

And everybody talked and sort of ranted and rambled on.

It seemed everybody became creative under the influence of marijuana.

Music was better, and all the comedians were funnier.

-I mean, you know, it was total hippie... You know, I mean, everybody was swimming naked.

And, you know, I was so embarrassed.

I didn't want to take my trunks off, you know?

But if you didn't, you weren't cool, man, you know?

I had an embarrassing moment where I came over to visit Graham and walked in, and Joni was standing there stark naked.

It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

And she laughed.

-All of us were living a life of sensual pleasure.

You know, we were making music, right?

We were in love with colors and sounds.

You know, we were wearing colored love beads.

All the beautiful girls were around.

And we were discovering each other.

It was like -- It was hedonistic.

♪♪ -Mama Cass was full of energy.

And she was -- she was -- Three things that made her exceptional.

She was extremely intelligent.

She was very funny.

And she was also -- The third thing was very, very hip.

She was an Earth mother.

She liked to take care of people and make sure they were fed and make sure they were happy.

So people just gravitated to her.

-Well, Cass kind of got to be known as the Gertrude Stein of Laurel Canyon.

And I think the reason that that happened was because she didn't -- she wasn't married.

She didn't have a particular boyfriend, although she had a lot of boyfriends.

-She was in a band called The Big 3.

We were on tour together.

And we became immediate friends.

She was a brilliant woman and extremely funny.

-When they started making money and Cass had that house up by Lake Hollywood, there were a lot of people stayed there with her.

Back then, if you had a house, you had a lot of friends.

A lot of people stayed with you.

-Cass told me these wild stories about herself, and I realized that she was just a unique person.

She was really, really funny and really smart and completely independent.

She had come to New York, actually, to be on Broadway, and I think Barbra Streisand kept getting the parts that she was -- that she was singing for.

But she wanted to work.

And so she was in a group at the time called The Big 3.

And before that, she had been in a group with Denny called the Mugwumps.

I met John Phillips at the Hungry i.

The Hungry i was the coolest club on the West Coast.

It was pretty obvious when we walked in, and these three guys just kind of looked at us, these two blond girls coming in.

And I remember sitting there and thinking, "God, these guys really sing."

I fell in love with the tall guitar player sitting there that first night I saw him on stage.

-She was sweet, quiet, very, very much in love with John, very just overwhelmed by John.

-When I was supposed to go back to school in the fall, I just kind of told my dad that this was not gonna happen.

I was gonna go to -- I wanted to go to New York with John.

When the Journeyman broke up, John told me, you know, "When I put the group back together, you're gonna be in it."

And my whole world fell out from under my feet.

I said..."Why?"

-♪ All the leaves are brown ♪ -♪ All the leaves are brown ♪ ♪ And the sky is gray ♪ -♪ And the sky is gray ♪ -♪ I've been for a walk ♪ -♪ I've been for a walk ♪ -♪ On a winter's day ♪ -♪ On a winter's day ♪ -♪ I'd be safe and warm ♪ -♪ I'd be safe and warm ♪ -♪ If I was in L.A. ♪ -♪ If I was in L.A. ♪ -♪ California dreamin' ♪ -♪ California dreamin' ♪ -He put this group together of Mama Cass, whom I had seen around the village a year earlier, who had a fantastic voice, and she was in the group.

And Denny Doherty from Canada had a tremendous voice.

And Michelle Phillips was this beautiful young girl who just looked great.

And the four of them made up this tremendous group with this four-part harmony.

It blew everybody's mind.

-Denny the handsome guy.

Michelle the gorgeous girl.

Cass, that amazing voice.

And John, that amazing writing talent.

-The Mamas & Papas were -- created a buzz.

People would create buzzes, and and there'd be a lot of little activity going on and trying to figure out what this new opportunity in California suggested in terms of recording opportunities.

And everyone secretly, I think, wanted to make a record.

♪♪ ♪♪ -♪ All the leaves are brown ♪ -♪ All the leaves are brown ♪ -♪ And the sky is gray ♪ -♪ And the sky is gray ♪ -♪ I've been for a walk ♪ -♪ I've been for a walk ♪ -♪ On a winter's day ♪ -♪ On a winter's day ♪ -♪ If I didn't tell her ♪ -♪ If I didn't tell her ♪ -♪ I could leave today ♪ -♪ I could leave today ♪ -♪ California dreamin' ♪ -♪ California dreamin' ♪ -♪ On such a winter's day ♪ -♪ California dreamin' ♪ -♪ On such a winter's day ♪ -♪ California dreamin' ♪ ♪ On such a winter's d-a-a-ay ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ -You know, everybody's got their different story about this.

John has one story.

I have another.

But since I'm the one that's alive, I'll tell my story.

[ Chuckles ] Cass would not go on the stage with us, even though John really wanted her to, because she said that she would never let the audience make the distinction between -- the physical distinction between the two of us.

And John tells the story that she didn't have the range to sing with us, which is ludicrous.

-Well, you know, she wanted to be, you know, beautiful and svelte.

And, you know, she was zaftig.

She was a large lady.

You know, but, you know, and she loved Denny.

And then Michelle took Denny.

And she loved other people, and their girlfriends, you know, had a better body or whatever.

But you know something?

Cass was a cerebral beauty.

You know, I loved Cass Elliot.

We were never lovers, but I loved her to death.

-Well, she was overweight and conscious about that, but as far as I know, and I never saw her let it spoil a good time.

-Cass was not happy being fat.

She was a very popular person, but she did not have a lot of boyfriends.

She was, I think, pretty lonely.

But she was also very popular with our gang of people.

We all loved her.

-Um, I can remember reading about Cass' death.

I walked out of Bob's Big Boy in the Valley, and it was headlines in the newspaper, in the box of newspapers there.

"Cass Elliott dead in London."

And... She was a lot of fun.

Cass never stopped having fun.

She just -- She -- She was full of life.

I -- I can -- I'll just tell you.

When I saw that she died, all I could say is -- I spoke to her.

I said, "It's headlines, Cass.

Just remember.

It's headlines."

-♪ Longing to linger till dawn, dear ♪ ♪ Just saying this ♪ ♪ Sweet dreams till sun beams find you ♪ ♪ Sweet dreams that leave our worries behind you ♪ -John Phillips was an amazing guy.

He was.

He was talented.

He...

I think he had a good head about business for at least a time.

His problem, I think, was that he was too -- too controlling, you know, too controlling.

I think that's what ruined his relationship with Michelle.

-I met Gene at Cyrus' house.

He was a great guy.

Very talented.

Very moody.

He had these very... kind of strict mores.

He knew that even though John and I were separated, the fact that we were having a little affair, he really considered that wrong.

It was actually allowing Gene to come to one of our concerts that got me fired.

We were playing Melodyland.

And Gene said, "You know, I've never seen you guys in concert."

Well, he's sitting in the front row in a red shirt.

We were doing theater in the round, so when Cass saw him there, she just pulled me towards her so that we would be standing on that side of the stage.

And the guys would be looking out on the other side of the stage.

But, um, John finally did see Gene.

I grabbed my purse and I ran into the parking lot and I got into my car.

He came up to me and he says, "You're fired."

I said, "Really?

I don't think you have the authority to do that."

He said, "Yeah?

You wait and see."

[ Chuckles ] And my butt was fired!

-Yeah.

-But Michelle, you know -- Everybody thought that she was, like, this pretty little girl maybe with not too many brains in her head.

She's a smart girl, you know?

She's a very smart girl.

And she -- she got herself back in there, you know, and back into that whole scene.

-One summer afternoon in New York City, Mama Cass called The Lovin' Spoonful and said, "Are you guys gonna be there for a little while?

I want to bring some friends by to meet you."

She showed up a little while later with The Hollies, who were this great English group that we had all heard of but never met.

And we all got to be really good friends drinking margaritas that afternoon.

And Graham Nash from The Hollies said, "Well, Henry, you're a photographer.

We really need a new publicity photo.

Could we come around tomorrow and have you photograph us?"

I said, "Sure."

And I took a lot of fantastic pictures of them because they pose just like Vogue models.

♪♪ -♪ I'm nothing... ♪ -I was still with the Hollies when I first sang with David and Stephen.

I had already become embittered about my time with The Hollies, you know, the well-stated reasons of them wanting to do a Bob Dylan album of Las Vegas-type, big-band kind of karaoke versions of Bob songs, which I completely disagreed with, even though I did sing on "Blowin' in the Wind," which, you know, upsets me to this day.

-He was faced with a very odd situation in The Hollies.

And there are many groups who should do albums of Dylan songs, but the Hollies are not amongst those groups.

-They wouldn't record my songs.

There's a Hollies version of "Marrakesh Express," which is, you know, just horrible.

They just weren't into it.

And they wouldn't record -- I'd written "Teach Your Children."

They wouldn't record "Sleep Song."

You know, you know... "When you awake, I'll kiss your eyes open.

I'll, you know, take off my clothes and I'll lie by your side."

"Oh, bloody hell.

You can't say that.

No."

-And he was writing really good songs.

"Marrakesh Express."

"Right Between the Eyes."

"Lady of the Island."

I mean, beautiful stuff.

Beautiful stuff.

-The difference between marijuana and LSD and beer.

Big difference.

That's what led to me opening up my mind to realize I didn't want to write any more "Moon, June, screw me in the back of the car" tunes.

I mean, I'd done -- I'd done six, seven years of that with The Hollies.

We were great at it.

We were absolute experts at creating the, you know, 2.5-minute pop song that made it onto the radio right before the news.

We knew how to do that, and we'd done it consistently.

When I left The Hollies, I think we'd had, you know, at least 15, you know, top-ten, top-five hits.

I knew how to do that.

I didn't want to do that anymore.

I didn't want to repeat myself constantly.

I wanted to write better stuff, you know?

So all this came as a -- like a nexus.

I was unhappy with The Hollies.

They weren't recording my songs.

I was writing songs that I thought were pretty decent.

Crosby came into my life and said, "You know, it's those guys that are crazy.

Come on.

We'll do something."

-I mean, you've got to remember that Graham Nash was the big star, that The Hollies had like 20 top five singles over the span of their career.

Far bigger than The Byrds or the Buffalo Springfield.

-We would mess around at Cass's house.

She was just a born star, you know?

She was, like -- She was Queen, and one thing the Queen does is arrange things.

I run into Cass at the Troubadour in front on the sidewalk, and she walks up to me and she says, "So, do you think you and David would like to have a third singer?"

And I went, "Probably, but it would have to be somebody really good."

And she said, "Okay, when David calls you tomorrow or the next day, just say yes," and walked away.

And then David calls me and says, "Come to Cass's house."

-Mama Cass's house is not where we sang together for the first time.

Check with Graham Nash.

He'll tell you the same thing.

It was Joni's.

Stills gets really pissed when we say that because he's sure that it was Cass's, but he's wrong.

-The next time I visited, we were in Joni's living room and David said, you know, "Sing Willie that song," and we were off and running.

-Now, they insist that we sang together the first time at Joni's house, which I know would have been impossible because she intimidated me too much.

I would have never done that in front of her.

Cass was my friend.

I would do that.

We go into the dining room.

I sat at the head of the table.

David sat here, and David said, "Sing those two songs.

I was thinking of one with one verse."

And so, I started singing it, and very blasé about it, because I barely know this guy.

I certainly -- He's just visiting, so this is a jam, right?

So -- ♪ In the morning, when you rise -- ♪ And Graham says, do that again.

-They looked at each other, they shrugged, and they sang it again, and I said, "Okay.

: -And we sang it the third time, and he put his harmony part on, and he had the whole song completely, and he knew exactly what he was doing, and it sounded glorious.

-And that vocal sound that you hear of Crosby, Stills, & Nash was born at that very moment.

-♪ You are living a reality... ♪ -Only after we had done that, though, I found out, "Hey, he wants to leave The Hollies.

He wants to stay in California.

He's in love with Joni Mitchell," and all the stuff that I had no idea about.

I walked in totally clueless.

-I had to leave my band.

I had to leave my bank account.

I had to leave my family.

-It was not that hard for me to go in there and steal him.

I went to England to get him.

-Nash went to The Hollies, who didn't like some of the songs he was writing, and he went to his publisher and got his publishing back and came here because he had sung with Crosby and Stills at Joni Mitchell's house, and he knew this was his future.

-It was this beautiful harmony and you would just go, "Wow, that is just dynamite."

Here were these three great voices of three guys that I knew very well from past groups, and here they were, suddenly together, harmonizing, like three of the folk heroes, you know, one from The Byrds, one from the Buffalo Springfields, one from The Hollies, all of whom I had photographed and all of whom I knew, and then what would you say?

You'd hear this and your mouth would drop and you'd say, "Wow!"

-When they heard themselves sing, they went, "Oh, my God."

And before, "Oh, my God" was even a phrase.

They flashed on the intensity of that particular blend, and all being musicians and all being kind of trained to listen for it, it struck them that it was truly unique.

-The relationship between the three of us was magic.

We loved each other.

We were discovering each other.

We were discovering our own idiosyncrasies and our own sense of humor, our own viewpoint of the world.

It was like a romance.

We were falling in love with each other as people, certainly not on a sexual level, but on a very basic level, this was a romance that was flowering, you know, and you add to that the vocal sound that we'd found, you add to that the times, you add to that the songs, and you add to that the drugs, you've got, you know, a recipe for greatness.

-But they were the social leaders and the manipulators.

I let them do that.

Crosby knew everybody, loved networking, you know, complete social animal, and I was incredibly shy.

So, I said, "Great.

This is perfect.

I don't have to do anything but what I can do, and they'll do all that star business."

-He enjoyed the party atmosphere, and that was something that he learned very early from a producer, a manager named Jim Dixon, who instilled in Crosby and The Byrds the notion that the event, that the party was as important as the music that was being played there, and they created these, you know, scenes where you kind of had to be there to hear them, and that was a root of a great deal of their early success, as they were scene makers.

-Stephen was already signed to Atlantic, ATCO, as the Buffalo Springfield, and we went to Ahmet and said, "We want to be a band together and this is what we sounded like."

And he said, "Alright, no problem.

We'll make it happen."

-What I did for many years was most of my artists because I produced almost all the records that we put out on Atlantic until we got Leiber and Stoller to come in, and until the rock 'n' roll bands, you know, like Crosby, Stills -- I mean, Buffalo Springfield or the various other rock 'n' roll groups... ...they write their own songs.

They rehearse them and they go in the studio and perform.

-Ahmet's a rare person that I've never heard anything negative about him.

People just seem to love him so much.

-I did.

He was a true connoisseur.

-Stephen was Ahmet's fair-haired boy.

Yeah.

Stephen could do no wrong when it came to Ahmet.

You know, he just -- he loved Steven.

He saw his talent and he wanted to do something with Steven.

He didn't care what it was.

-And I had gotten off of Columbia on my own.

I told him I was quitting the business.

It's a little -- little fib there.

And we traded one of the guys in Poco for Nash.

And then we all signed to Atlantic with Ahmet.

-Elliot and I were baby doctors helping them deliver their baby, but it was about them.

They were genuinely exciting.

When you heard them sing, you were blown away.

I mean, when Stephen wrote "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" about Judy Collins, who he was having a relationship with at the time, and you heard them sing that song, it was awesome.

-Ahmet was our mentor.

He was a very good old guy.

Funny.

Wonderful, wonderful man.

He was -- You know, he was that thing that doesn't exist now.

You know, people who run record companies very seldom, like, are people who like or understand music, and he loved music and understood it very well, knew what it was.

Nowadays, they know they moved 40,000 pieces out of Dallas this week, but they got no idea what pieces are what.

-They were what was referred to as a supergroup at the time, which was where bands that were being put together strictly out of successful members of other groups or other endeavors, and Atlantic Records put them together, and they were equals.

-It wasn't one person telling the other people what to do.

It was the three of us developing it as it went along.

-First record undeniably was guided by Stephen.

He played almost every instrument on every track.

Maybe not "Lady of the Island", and he certainly got David to play guitar on "Long Time Gone", and David, of course, played guitar on "Guinnevere".

The rest, pretty much, is Stephen -- bass, organ, piano, lead guitar was Stephen.

We called him "Captain Manyhands".

He could do anything.

-Was it an easy process for you to lay down all those tracks, do it all yourself?

-Actually, yeah, which they would happen pretty fast, you know?

And some would get a little difficult and they would get bored and go, "Okay, shoo."

And then the next day it was, "So, I fixed your song.

Do you like turquoise?"

-He was an amazing spectacle to watch, to watch him build those tracks and to be part of it, giving him the respect and giving him the room to really create like that -- it was Stephen Stills, there's no doubt about it.

-Young.

Egotistical.

Talented.

Little crazy, but we all were.

-We had a good engineer.

Bill Halverson was a great engineer because he listened and he stayed out of the way.

But it was just me and David and Stephen with all the stuff in David's Volkswagen that would pull up to Wally Heider's, we'd unload it, and we'd start making records.

-We finished the session and I said, "Can I stay with John for a little bit and do these things?"

"Don't you stay up all night."

And that's why it's called "Just Roll Tape".

I said, "No, just keep tape rolling.

Don't stop."

And I just kept changing instruments.

-Hmm.

-♪ Are you thinking... ♪ -You know, they found out that I could play without, you know, overwhelming acoustic guitars and vocals, and they had to have me in the band.

Stephen and I just became recording fanatics.

You know, he'd wake me up at 3:00 in the morning and go, "Dude, I just --" Well, we didn't use the word "dude" He goes, "Man, I just got this great idea.

Let's go to the studio."

So, poor Bill Halverson -- We wake Bill Halverson up at 3:00 in the morning.

We'd call poor Studio Instrument Rentals, SIR, up.

They'd have to, you know, to wipe the sleep out of their eyes and bring down the B-3, and we'd go in the studio and lay down these incredible songs, you know?

-♪ You don't have to cry ♪ ♪ I said, cry, my baby ♪ ♪ You don't have to cry ♪ -David sometimes starts with a lyric and then finds a melody to fit it, and more often, he finds a set of chords or a melody that appeals to him and then he puts it together and strings it out, and it reflects a whole lot of influences that are way beyond folk and pop music.

-And that's one of the reasons why I love Crosby, because his sense of harmony is much different than mine.

You know, his chordal structure comes from jazz to a large degree, and that's very different than my sensibilities.

But when you put them both together, then you get Crosby, Nash music, you get Crosby, Stills, & Nash music, and you get Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young music.

-Problem in terms of being prolific is that he wasn't writing, you know, pop A -- you know, A, A, B, A songs that fit, you know, 2 minute and 40 second singles and had a conventional form, things which made them hard to even explain to your fellow musicians.

You know, we start in four, then we go to three, and then we go back to four, and it's a weird tuning that I just discovered while I was very high.

So, one reason for the fact that there's fewer Crosby tunes than other songs is that they are, for the most part, more complicated songs, more difficult to write, more difficult to express, and more difficult to collaborate on.

-It's what basically happens.

Whoever wrote the song takes the melody.

Big deal, right?

And the others fit in where it is.

Sometimes, if Stephen's got a low voice and he's singing the melody here, the one underneath it, it might be too low for David, so he'll go above and then I'll have to go above him, you know?

So, it just depends on what the melody is.

But normally, each one of us that wrote the song sings the melody.

-You just seem so plugged in at the time, making the albums, writing so many songs.

What was enabling you just to do so much at that time?

-I have no idea, and the only one that can still do it is Neil, but he's a mutant, you know?

I mean, if you've got a really old songwriting team that stays together and really loved each other, them kind of guys can do it when they're older, but eventually, you run out of steam.

It didn't seem like it at the time, but I learned to be patient with writer's blocks and you just wait them out.

-Every one of them will tell you they were the leader.

You know, Stephen, on the first album, I don't know if people know this, but Stephen played every instrument except the drums.

David played rhythm guitar.

Everything else on that record was -- I think Dallas Taylor was the drummer, and Stephen played every other instrument on the record, the first Crosby, Stills & Nash record.

-You know, the vocal magic was between the three of them, and the musical magic was between Stephen and I, and we ended up -- most of the tracks were just Stephen and I.

We did a basic track.

He played guitar, acoustic guitar, and I played drums.

He played B-3 and I played drums.

He'd play electric guitar and I played drums, and he overdubbed the bass.

You know, we were like -- we built -- we painted a picture and then put the vocals on top of it and it was -- it was magic.

-♪ You are what you are ♪ -In the bridge of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes", that's Stephen on the very top, not me.

David's underneath, I'm taking the melody, and Stephen's doing the high harmony, and we often change, you know, within a song.

In "Teach Your Children", the harmony and the melody exchanges three times.

♪ La-la-la-la ♪ ♪ La-la-la-la ♪ ♪ La-la-la-la-la ♪ ♪ La-la-la-la-la ♪ Your turn.

♪ Our... ♪ -♪ House ♪ ♪ Is a very, very, very fine house ♪ -Alright.

The way I wrote "Our House" is Joni and I had gone to breakfast at Nate'n Al's on Ventura Boulevard, right?

And we finished breakfast, go to walking back to the car, a little antique store, and Joni found this vase in the window that she really liked.

She bought it, we took it back, and I said, "Hey, go put some flowers in that vase.

Are you in the kitchen?

Good."

We went right to the piano.

I mean, there was a beautiful house.

They were beautiful -- She had two little stained glass windows in the -- Beautiful.

The fire -- It was a rainy day.

A fire going.

The cats are in the -- I mean, it was there.

I mean, all I did was put words to this incredible visual that I saw.

[ Cheers and applause ] Whoo!

I mean, it was an incredibly ordinary moment, but I realized that if I could pin that moment in my own memory, then I stood a chance of pinning it in yours, because everybody has a house, everybody has pets, everybody has lit a fire, everybody's put flowers in a vase.

-Collectively, if you saw them anywhere as a trio, you know, they were kind of bubbling over with enthusiasm for what they were doing, and everybody was very happy with how it was going.

So, almost -- It was kind of like a train headed down the track.

It was kind of inevitable, and it was an express.

So, you know, you couldn't lead it any more than you could drive a train off the tracks.

-We could sing that entire first record with one or two acoustic guitars.

We did that constantly.

Henry'll tell you.

-After a while, we could just walk in with a guitar and sit down -- or a couple of guitars and sing you the whole record.

-We would go to Peter Fonda's house and we'd go to Cassie's house and Paul Rothchild's house and sit down and say, "Listen to what we're doing."

-If we had a piano, we could do it even more.

-Paul Rothchild once said to me -- He said, "You know, after I heard the entire first Crosby, Stills & Nash record with a couple of acoustic guitars with the guys sitting in front of me, I would have made them President of the United States."

Who the hell would want that job?

But it was an interesting compliment.

-♪ Always ♪ ♪ I am yours, you are mine ♪ ♪ You are what you are ♪ ♪ You make it ♪ -♪ Hard ♪ ♪ Something inside is telling me that I've got your secret ♪ -♪ Are you still listening?

♪ -♪ Fear is the lock ♪ ♪ And laughter the key to your heart ♪ -It's not quite.

-♪ Listen, I love you ♪ ♪ I am yours, you are mine ♪ ♪ You are what you are ♪ -♪ You make it ♪ -♪ Hard ♪ -♪ Yes, and you make it ♪ -♪ Hard ♪ -♪ Oh, Lord, you make it ♪ -♪ Hard ♪ -♪ Yes, and you make it ♪ -♪ Hard ♪ ♪♪ -Well, Stephen wanted another guitar player so that when he had to play the organ or the piano, somebody else could be playing guitar, and he also wanted to be in a band with Neil.

He wanted Neil back.

And I think anybody who's ever heard, you know, a handful of Neil's songs would want to be in a band with him.

Why not?

And I wasn't so sure about that because we were doing fine on our own.

-I needed one more guy and I thought, "Keyboard player, because eventually, I'm going to get good at this lead guitar stuff, I promise."

But I mean, all the practice in the world doesn't get you ready for playing in front of people, and it was pretty dreadful for a while.

But thanks to Neil and Jimi Hendrix, I finally got my way around it.

But I went to Ahmet's office and he said, "Ah, man, wow, wow, wow.

Why didn't you get Neil Young, man?"

-When we finished the first record and it was becoming a hit, Graham and David said, "Well, see you guys.

We're going sailing.

You guys go find us a band."

We asked one of the Everly Brothers.

I think it was Phil Everly.

We asked Stevie Winwood, we asked John Sebastian, we asked George Harrison.

-George Harrison.

Ha!

-[ Laughs ] -[ Laughs ] That's gonna make me laugh all day.

-George politely said, "No thank you.

You know, I'm doing my own thing, you know," and he hadn't even heard us yet, I don't think.

-And now -- -See, I don't even know if Dallas said it.

This guy might be just making that up.

-No, Henry was there.

-Yeah, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Winwood.

He tried the lot.

He talked to Clapton.

He talked to a lot of people.

Not me, though, because, you know, I liked what we'd created.

I didn't see a need for a fourth harmony, I must confess.

I understood that Stephen needed to play lead guitar off against somebody else and he had a past relationship with Neil, but I didn't want to make this change because I didn't really know who Neil was.

I loved his songwriting and his record making ability.

I mean, "Expecting to Fly" was one of my absolute favorite records.

I said, "You know, I can't make a decision here.

I got to go to breakfast with Neil," and we were in New York on Bleecker Street, and we went to breakfast, and I swear to God, after that breakfast, I made him Prime Minister of Canada.

-When I first really made contact with Neil, really got to know him at all, was sitting on the trunk of a car in Joni's driveway on Lookout Mountain.

This was when we were trying to figure out, you know, what to do with Crosby, Stills & Nash, and he came along and saw that I was there and pulled in and we sat on the trunk of this car, and he sang me about three or four songs in a row, and I said, "Okay, now I know what to do."

-Well, I mean, if your choice was Neil Young or a sideman and you had the choice between the two, Neil looked a little better on paper, I think.

He was an amazing songwriter and amazing guitar player, but physically, how could they replicate what they had created on the record without an additional player?

-Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Crosby, Stills, & Nash.

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ -♪ It's getting to the point ♪ ♪ Where I'm no fun anymore ♪ -♪ I am sorry ♪ -♪ Sometimes it hurts so badly, I must cry out loud ♪ -♪ I'm lonely ♪ -♪ I am yours, you are mine ♪ ♪ You are what you are ♪ -♪ You make it ♪ -♪ Hard ♪ -A little less bottom end on the guitar, please.

-One day, in my kitchen in Laurel Canyon, I got a phone call from my old friend Chip Monck, who was a lighting director and whom I had met on the road in my own folk group.

He said, "Henry, we're going to have a big concert out here in New York later this summer, and you ought to be out here."

Now, this was two weeks before the concert, so I got out there and they were just building this big wooden stage in the middle of a green field of alfalfa.

It looked like a big wooden aircraft carrier.

Here were all these new planks of wood and the alfalfa was waving in the wind going up the hill, and for a week and a half, I would photograph all these people building this stage, and they'd given me a station wagon to drive back and forth in, and my job was just to document the setting up of this huge concert.

We didn't know what it was going to be like.

In fact, about three or four days before the actual date of the concert, suddenly, there was a little group of about 20 people sitting up on this hill of waving alfalfa, and the first reaction was.

"What are those people doing out there in the middle of the field?

Oh, yeah, it's going to be a concert.

I forgot."

You know?

And because it was this idyllic sort of summer hippie summer camp or something, you know, all the guys were pounding the nails and sawing the boards, and all the lovely hippie girls were bringing the sandwiches over for lunch, and then we'd kind of get together and party in the evening at the boarding house.

The one day, suddenly, there's this group of people sitting in the field, and the next day, there was a thousand people sitting out there, and the third day, there was 100,000 people.

My job was to document everything that happened on the stage and in the surrounding areas.

So, the evening that Crosby, Stills & Nash went on, I had walked up to the hog farm in the woods to photograph these hordes of people being fed brown rice and coleslaw because they'd run out of food.

So, I started wandering back, and I was at the back of this crowd of several hundred thousand people when I heard Chip Monck say, "Ladies and gentlemen, Crosby, Stills & Nash," and I went, "Holy...

There's my friends.

They're going on."

And I'm way back here a quarter of a mile away.

I had to make my way down through all these people.

"Excuse me, excuse me."

Stepping over blankets, you know, and tents.

I had my all-access pass, and then I'm rushing to get up on stage and the guy says, "Wait a minute.

You've got the all-access pass, but you need the purple star or you can't get on."

"Oh, my God."

Then I have to go find Chip Monck, get a purple star put on there.

Finally, I got up to the front of the stage in time to shoot a couple of numbers of Crosby, Stills & Nash, and then the light went up and Neil Young stepped out and here was the the first time anyone had ever seen Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young play.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Thank you.

Thank you.

We needed that.

-This is our second gig.

-This is the second time we've ever played in front of people, man.

We're scared... [ Cheers and applause ] And all of a sudden, the stage would move, the amplifiers would move forward, and there was me and Neil, you know, and it was, like -- it was -- People went nuts.

-You know, Stephen's often quoted "We're scared..." And, you know, he may have been.

I wasn't.

You got to understand, I'd already been through seven years of this with The Hollies.

Not on such a scale, but certainly in front of thousands of people, right?

So, it was no big deal to me.

But with David and Stephen, what happened is -- and with me to a certain extent -- it was our peers were standing on the side of the stage, everybody we loved, you know, Janis and the Jefferson Airplane and the band and, you know, all the people that were there, Sebastian and Richie Havens, and they were going, "Well, we love this record, but can they do it?

Can they walk the walk?"

-I was terrified to play Woodstock.

You know, I was terrified because it was -- Everybody was watching us, waiting for us to blow it.

It was our second gig we'd ever played.

We were nervous as hell.

You know, we'd have probably been nervous in a nightclub.

-There was a lot of people, but your mind goes, "One, two, three, many."

You know, you can't wrap your head around how many people there are there, so you really sort of give up.

You're playing to the first 50 rows.

-You know what?

I just kept my hat on and didn't take anything anybody offered me.

And so, I was very clear-minded because I knew it was going to be -- this is going to be a battle because we have cold, wet winds blowing.

So, during the first few frames of the suite, you can see me tuning my guitar while I sang with the cameras going, and there's only going to be one take.

The tension mounted as our equipment continued to not arrive, and in fact, it was stuck on the other side of all those muddy people.

I didn't get to enjoy any of the show because we were off negotiating with other bands that preceded us and were going to follow us to use their equipment, like the Airplane and Canned Heat specifically.

But yeah, they were, "Oh, yeah, you can use my stuff," and, you know, show business was like that for a brief, shining moment.

-Now, Woodstock -- it was important because of other stuff than what actually happened that day.

A whole lot of great music got played.

A whole lot of people had a blast.

But the important thing was that it was a moment of self-awareness for a generation.

That's when that generation woke up and said, "Oh, we're an us.

We are an entity."

-Woodstock was the epitome of humanity and, you know, us -- me feeling safe in a crowd of half a million people.

I'm terrified in a crowd of 10.

You can't describe that feeling.

In fact, that's how Joni wrote "Woodstock".

-♪ By the time we got to Woodstock ♪ ♪ We were half a million ♪ -Right?

I mean, Joni was supposed to play Woodstock, but at the same time, the day after, she was supposed to do "The Dick Cavett Show" and "The Dick Cavett Show", at that point, was a very important television show in the United States.

So, management, David Geffen and Elliot Roberts, decided that she wouldn't go.

So, she was stuck in the hotel watching it all on television, and when we got home, we enthused tremendously to Jone, but she'd really had a good 80% of the song done, finished, and when she played it for us, Stephen, in his inimitable Captain Manyhands style, said, "Hmm, can we have that?

Because I know exactly what to do with that song."

-You've got to remember that there had been Crosby, Stills & Nash, right?

So, it was an iconic moment in music.

I mean, that first album will -- I doubt that any artist will ever have that kind of impact again.

The bottom line is that it was a brilliant move.

You know, instead of trying to follow up one of the greatest albums of all time, they added an element that made "Déja Vu" one of the next greatest albums of all time, if not greater.

-It's what he is, you know?

He's one of the best writers in the world.

-Neil and Stephen have always needed each other.

As much as they've had a hard time getting along, they fed off each other's creativity.

-I said, "Isn't Neil the reason you and Buffalo Springfield broke up?

Isn't, you know, the fact that you guys used to get in fistfights on stage?"

"Yeah, yeah, but it'd be different this time, man."

And it wasn't.

It was arguments.

It was a miracle that we got anything recorded.

-Neil was very much into "Let's do it right now and right now and right now."

And it's, like, but that just -- it wasn't -- very amateurish.

"It doesn't matter.

He had passion."

Okay.

We had different schools of thought.

-You know, Neil would do his stuff separately, track it separately by himself, and then bring it in, and we'd work on it.

It would have been more fun if we could have been involved in the tracking, but it made a fantastic album.

-Really, the producer was Bill Halverson.

He is responsible for capturing those moments.

There were only snippets of real magic moments.

Very few people know this, but there's a lot of editing going on in those songs.

-He was a good engineer.

He helped us get it down.

I think we could have done the same with any one of a dozen guys, but Bill was good.

At the time, he was drinking quite a bit, so that held him back some.

-When we recorded "Déja Vu", it took us all night to get it.

It wasn't an easy song to play.

It finally worked when David went to sleep and Stephen and I got the basic track.

-Do you remember writing "Déja Vu", where that came from?

-Just popped out of my head.

-The music on that first record reflects it a lot.

We were in love, not only with each other, but with people that we really cared about and we really admired, and we were invincible at that point.

That's why "Déja Vu" is such a bleak record in many ways, you know, because my time with Joni had run its course.

Christine had been killed in the middle of that record.

I think that Neil was going through, you know, troubles in his private life, and Stephen wasn't with Judy anymore.

-It was very hard during making "Déja Vu".

My girlfriend, Christine Hinton, had just been killed in a car wreck, and so, I was not able to really...

I would come to the studio and wind up just sitting on the floor crying.

-I remember bursting into tears at one point during those sessions.

We were completely blowing it.

You know, me and David -- we'd mix something and then we'd go home because it was 4:00 in the morning and Stephen would would stay there with Halverson and remix the whole...thing.

-And I was just kind of watching it all go down.

I remember watching Graham break down and cry, saying, "What are you guys doing, man?"

You know, "What are you guys doing?

You're killing us.

You're killing a good thing."

-It was a difficult time.

Neil was at his ranch recording his stuff, you know, and then bringing it into the studio, and we couldn't mix that.

You know, it was a difficult time.

Neil is nowhere near "Teach Your Children" or "Our House".

He never sang or played a note on either of those tracks.

It was a difficult time, but one of the great things that happened is we recorded, like, the nine or 10 things, whatever it was, and David and I say to Stephen, "You know, remember the first record?

You remember how he'd opened with 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes'?

It was over from that moment.

You really wanted to hear the rest of the record."

I said, "We don't have that song."

He said, "Really?"

I said, "No, I don't think so.

I don't think we have that song."

The next day, he comes in and plays me "Carry On".

The next day, we had our opening song.

-Wow.

That's impressive.

-Impressed me.

-Yeah.

-When Neil joined the group and it became Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, that inherent in that greatness was the seeds of its destruction.

-That's a lot of whirling egos that were bound to clash somewhere.

I thought it was going to be a lot of songwriters and a lot of competing for space on the album sides.

-The tensions are the natural result of three strong-willed people who think they know how it should be done, and when they're in agreement, it's effortless, and when they're at odds, the tension becomes outward friction.

-These things between the band members and how they kind of ran their musical relationships were like a marriage.

You know, you're not privy to the dynamics of those conversations.

What was going on between them was going on between them.

-The songs would get put off and then change, and that wasn't necessarily a good thing.

So, that's why we decided the whole concept of calling it Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young was that we could use it as a mothership and then go do solo projects, because there were too many songs and too many guys and there was stuff going to get left off or it would be changed and that was not necessarily going to be a good thing all the time.

-I'll never forget.

We had our own 707.

"CSNY" on it.

I couldn't believe it.

When I walked up to that jet, I said, "Man, we are in the big time now."

When we played in Denver, this is where we fell apart.

You know, some reason, Neil slammed his guitar down on the stage, walked off, and said, "I'm never playing with Stephen Stills again."

And they had a meeting.

Graham, David, and Neil had a meeting without Stephen and decided they were going to finish the tour without him.

They asked me to finish the tour without him, and I made the fatal mistake of saying, "No, I'm with Stephen", and I flew back to Los Angeles with Stephen, and that's when Ahmet Ertegun came out and said, "I'll break your...legs.

You finish this tour.

I don't care what you have to do."

And apparently what happened in a meeting that I wasn't in was Neil said, "Well, if I got to play with Stephen, Dallas has to go."

It was that simple.

And not one of them stood up for me.

They were all like, "Oh, man, I'm so sorry.

I'm really sorry, man.

I'm really sorry."

But, you know, and here I am.

My dream is just pulled out from under me.

-That's a gray area.

You know, we were trying to be inclusive and nice to them, but we didn't want to give them a piece of the band.

We did, you know, put their pictures on the record and include their names and stuff.

-Were you on the "4 Way Street" album?

-No.

-No.

-That was -- I had to show -- What was his name?

Johnny Barbata.

I had to show him my parts.

-You showed him the parts?

-I was stupid enough to agree to go to the rehearsal where he played with them, and I showed him how to play some of the parts.

-That was nice of you.

-It was -- It was -- My heart was ripped out.

You know, my whole purpose for living was gone, you know?

And that's when I dove right smack headfirst into the drugs.

Cocaine and booze.

Cocaine and pills.

Cocaine and more cocaine.

You know, I was trying to commit suicide via cocaine, via drugs.

They offered me a piece of the pie.

You know, I got a point from each of them.

You know, I got a pat on the head, saying, "Don't worry, kid.

We'll take care of you.

We don't need any stinking contracts."

And I was naive enough to believe that that would be, you know, what happened.

Unfortunately, it didn't happen that way.

-Crosby was one of the guys that didn't handle it very well.

He went overboard.

First of all, cocaine is kind of a rich man's drug.

I mean, you have to be pretty successful to be able to afford that stuff.

So it was many of these guys at the top of the heap that were overdoing that stuff, and then you had these guys who died from it.

You know, you'd have successful pop stars who died of drug overdoses because they were the ones that could afford it, and they were the ones that bought it all the time and just went overboard.

They didn't handle it very well.

-These drugs are killing people left and right.

I says, "Janis, you're going to die, and it won't be long before you do die, because that stuff you're taking is no good.

I know what kind of pills -- what you're doing, but that's your business, but you better stop it.

Wake up."

Couldn't talk to her.

They don't seem to get it.

I don't know.

You try to talk to them.

It's like talking to the wall.

-The bottom line was that David survived experiences and excesses that have killed many of his peers... ...,through either blind luck, an instinct for self preservation.

or some sort of rational calculation that, you know, enough is enough.

None of the people I know who did die, whether it was John Belushi or any of the others, Janis Joplin, I'm sure they all planned on waking up the next morning.

I don't think anybody consciously said, "Well, this is the last time.

I think I'll die now."

I think everybody said, "Whoa, I'm really messed up.

I'll feel better in the morning."

And then there was no morning.

David always managed to wake up.

-These were the times of peace and love.

I mean, we would say, "Peace," and we really meant it.

I know I really meant it, I meant "Peace".

I meant "Brother".

I loved my fellow human beings, and always, if I was driving up the canyon and some guy or some girl or a group of people were hitchhiking, I would pull over in a second, without a thought, and pick them up.

"Climb in, you guys."

And then when this horrible Manson murders happened, by these -- I mean, these horrible animals, you know, that killed innocent families one night and, you know, done -- I mean, Sharon Tate had been murdered and her friends had been murdered in a brutal fashion and for no reason at all.

It was just senseless, you know?

Why would anybody do this?

And it did change the entire feeling of brotherhood.

-These so-called hippies going around killing people.

People became a little more, you know, guarded.

You know, you did lose some of that, you know, hippie love and love and flowers and all that kind of stuff.

Although, I don't believe that really ever existed.

Not really.

-The Summer of Love lasted about a minute and a half.

You know, it was like a couple of years at the most, and then reality kind of set in, you know?

-I think when the cocaine started coming in is when, you know, a lot of people went crazy, and that's when the Manson...started, and, you know, it turned dark very quickly.

-At parties with the people that could afford it, they started doing coke, you know, and the white powders were kind of the death of anything really creative because it made it seem to you like you were doing something really great, when it really wasn't.

It was a pile of rubbish, you know?

When you use coke, you're using up the energy of tomorrow.

You're borrowing energy from tomorrow into today so that when tomorrow comes, you've had it.

-I think it was a good era in the sense that it opened up, you know, the civil rights and the ER aid.

I think it also left -- It left legacies that were not that good.

I think there was too much promiscuity, too much dope, too many people lost their lives or lost their minds.

But a lot of good music came out of there.

[ Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's "Almost Cut My Hair playing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -♪ Almost cut my hair ♪ ♪♪ ♪ It happened just the other day ♪ ♪ It's gettin' kinda long ♪ ♪ I coulda said it wasn't in my way ♪ -The thing that most excited me about my participation with these guys was how political they were.

I mean, we were on tour with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when the National Guard killed four kids in Ohio.

Neil wrote that song the day after that happened.

I mean, I think we even tried to get to Kent to do a show and we were deferred or deflected from that pursuit by the police and National Guard.

But that was their intent was to go there and do a show in the street in Kent, and when we got off the plane back to L.A., they went in the studio, and keep in mind that he had written the song, like, a day or two after the event.

They went in the studio.

They rehearsed, I don't know, 20 minutes.

They did one take, they were finished, and it was out on the radio within 10 days.

It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life.

It made me really proud.

-Gentlemen, thank you for coming on.

-I'm so pleased to have Crosby, Stills & Nash because it gives me the opportunity to interview you sitting on Neil Young.

[ Laughter, applause ] Alright, alright.

Oh.

Oh.

Feels good.

You okay back there?

You okay back there, Neil?

-Oh, Neil loves -- Neil's going to love that.

-Let me ask you something.

Is it hard to redo the stationery every time Neil drops out of the band?

[ Laughter ] -Costs us a fortune.

A fortune.

-Do you guys just have, like, a wide sticker that you put on back and forth?

-We write, "Crosby, Stills, Nash & Sometimes Young".

And actually, we call him that sometimes.

-Sometimes Young.

-Sometimes Young.

That's very nice.

Would you like to apologize to President Nixon for singing such hurtful things about him?

-[ Laughs ] -Come on.

-No.

-Come on.

-I must tell you.

When I saw him at his funeral, he was still lying.

[ Crosby, Stills & Nash's "Teach Your Children" playing ] -♪ You ♪ ♪ Who are on the road ♪ ♪ Must have a code ♪ ♪ That you can live by ♪ ♪ And so ♪ ♪ Become yourself ♪ ♪ Because the past ♪ ♪ Is just a goodbye ♪ ♪ Teach your children well ♪ ♪ Their father's hell ♪ ♪ Did slowly go by ♪ ♪ And feed them on your dreams ♪ ♪ ...glimpses of gentle true spirit ♪ ♪ He runs, wishing he could fly ♪ -Four men with conviction came together and created songs that not only spoke to the hearts and minds of a generation, but spoke for this generation and its disillusioned youth.

-♪ Wordlessly watching... ♪ -Time has passed and the war they railed against ended.

America is again at war, and a similar host of pain and injustice rears its ugly head.

-♪ Heartlessly helping himself... ♪ -Crosby, Stills & Nash's words resonate.

-♪ Did he hear a goodbye?

♪ -They are one person.

They are two alone.

They are three together.

-♪ ...hello ♪ -They are for each other.

-♪ ...one person ♪ ♪ They are two... ♪ -Everybody in the group has had their brushes with excess, and David's were more widely publicized and more publicly visible.

The others didn't get arrested.

The others didn't break bond.

The others were not publicly outed.

I mean, if David had gone through what he went through in the late '70s, early '80s, in this media era, he would have pushed Lindsay and Paris and Britney off the pages of the tabloids.

-If you had the chance to all put it back together in the way that you wanted to, how would you have done that?

-No hard drugs.

That was happening when we started, and I would prefer that we had never done any at all.

They got in the way.

I think a lot of things got in the way.

The regret is -- Overall, the regret is music that didn't get made.

-I'm here sitting, talking to you in sweaty Alabama, and I'm about to go into a Crosby, Stills & Nash show that I can't wait to get to.

Does that tell you anything?

It doesn't matter how we stabbed each other in the back.

It doesn't matter how we call each other names.

None of that matters.

The only thing that matters is the music and we're still making it.

I'm doing a song tonight called "In Your Name", where the audience applauds after the first verse.

Do you think I nailed it, whatever it is I'm trying to talk about?

My point is that we're still doing it, and we still have years to go.

-I never thought I'd be in Alabama 40 years later.

It's just -- It's real interesting being here after all these years, because I always wanted to come and play here, and it's part of the country because it's my home.

But no one ever liked us because we were always anti-war and long-haired music.

-You know, the truth is that I envy you, and the reason is that I don't know what we sound like.

I've never -- I wish that I had no knowledge whatsoever of Crosby, Stills & Nash.

I wish I'd smoked a big one, taken off the shrink wrap, and put that record on and been blasted by "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes", because you have a better understanding of what we do than we do, because once you've written it and sung it and recorded it and mixed it and mastered it, you're onto the next thing, but you were a virgin at it, and I would love that perspective, and I don't.

-Yeah, well, it's astounding.

And you're right.

I was a virgin at the time when I heard it.

[ Laughs ] [ Priscilla Ahn's "Dream" playing ] -♪ I was a little girl ♪ ♪ Alone in my little world ♪ ♪ Who dreamed of a little home for me ♪ ♪ I played pretend between the trees ♪ ♪ And fed my house guests bark and leaves ♪ ♪ And laughed in my pretty bed of green ♪ ♪ I had a dream ♪ ♪ That I could fly from the highest swing ♪ ♪ I had a dream ♪ ♪m ♪ Long walks in the dark through woods grown behind the park ♪ ♪ I asked God who I'm supposed to be ♪ ♪ The stars smiled down on me ♪ ♪ God answered in silent reverie ♪ ♪ I said a prayer and fell asleep ♪ ♪ I had a dream ♪ ♪ That I could fly from the highest tree ♪ ♪ I had a dream ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Now I'm old and feeling gray ♪ ♪ I don't know what's left to say ♪ ♪ About this life I'm willing to leave ♪ ♪ I lived it full and I lived it well ♪ ♪ There's many tales I lived to tell ♪ ♪ I'm ready now, I'm ready now ♪ ♪ I'm ready now to fly ♪ ♪ From the highest wing ♪ ♪ I had a dream ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪