Stephen Stills: ‘I miss Crosby dreadfully, but I think he got out of here just in time’

By editorial board on May 9, 2023

The 78-year-old folk rock icon talks to Kevin E G Perry about Woodstock and the Sixties, the death of David Crosby and his new live album from 1971.

In August 1971, Stephen Stills arrived in Berkeley for the final dates of his first ever solo tour to be greeted by a surprise visitor: David Crosby. (Excerpt from The Independent, to read the full article click HERE)

Just a year earlier their pioneering folk rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young had imploded in a blizzard of booze, cocaine, rampant egos and lopsided love triangles.

That night, however, there were no hard feelings. “He came to see me in the dressing room before the show,” remembers Stills, who promptly invited his old friend to join him on stage. “I said: ‘Let’s do “The Lee Shore”’ and he said: ‘Alright!’ We didn’t run through it that many times – and it shows! But that’s the way we rolled back then. It was marvellous.”

Now 78, Stills is speaking to me over a video call from his airy home in the hills above Los Angeles. The snowy white beard sprouting in a tuft from his chin may give him the appearance of a medieval friar but in conversation he’s mischievous and puckish, with an irreverent attitude towards his own music.

“There are some rather strange vocals,” he says of the live album, which features a solo-acoustic set followed by a full-throated electric performance backed by legendary Stax musicians the Memphis Horns. “I remind myself of… well, the term ‘barking mad’ comes to mind. We were very enthusiastic, and by the end of the shows I was literally barking because I couldn’t make the notes and everything was too fast!”


Neil Young and Stephen Stills Honor David Crosby with Buffalo Springfield classics

Neil Young and Stephen Stills performed together  at Stills' Light Up the Blues concert, which raised funds for Autism Speaks. at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. The show has marked the first time Young has performed live since September 2019.

(Check video below)


During the recording of the song Stills met and began a relationship with backing singer Rita Coolidge, who then left him for Nash – only compounding romantic rivalries in a group that had already seen both Crosby and Nash date Mitchell. The song’s free-love-advocating title and chorus (“If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with”) was inspired by a line Stills heard keyboardist and Beatles collaborator Billy Preston say at a party. “He threw it off on the fly and I said: ‘That’d be a great song,’” remembers Stills with a nostalgic laugh. “He said: ‘Do it!’ So I did.”

When the group splintered, all four members released solo albums but Stills had the distinction of outselling the rest with Stephen Stills, helped by hit single “Love the One You’re With”. During the recording of the song Stills met and began a relationship with backing singer Rita Coolidge, who then left him for Nash – only compounding romantic rivalries in a group that had already seen both Crosby and Nash date Mitchell.

The song’s free-love-advocating title and chorus (“If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with”) was inspired by a line Stills heard keyboardist and Beatles collaborator Billy Preston say at a party. “He threw it off on the fly and I said: ‘That’d be a great song,’” remembers Stills with a nostalgic laugh. “He said: ‘Do it!’ So I did.”

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