Crosby, Love, and Marriage
"Everybody's saying that music is love, everyone's saying it's love"-David Crosby
And then there was that time that Barb and I met President Barack Obama with David Crosby. David and Graham Nash and their families, to be exact.
A friend was putting on a big-money fundraiser for Obama’s second term run for Presidency at his home in Atherton and needed a music artist to entertain the guests. He asked for my help in finding someone, I got the permission to reach out to folks saying I was calling on behalf of Barack Obama (oh yeah) and within 24 hours I booked Crosby and Nash for the gig. I had never met them. Within twenty-four hours, Barb and I were asked for social security numbers from an official working on the event, and twenty-four hours after that we were offered two tickets to attend.
Barb is a huge Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young fan. We saw both Crosby, Stills and Nash and Neil Young during the Glastonbury weekend where we got engaged. At the time of the Obama party, Barb was three or four months pregnant with Asher and while she was not feeling completely herself, there was no way she or I were going to miss the big event. We showed up, in full suit and fancy dress, to what was a garden party behind the host’s home. A big tent had been set up for the dinner and show, and we were offered appetizers and cocktails while waiting for the President to show up, mingling with many of the recognizable Silicon Valley folks you would expect to be there, sharing a drink and a chat with other special guests Don Cheadle and Bridgid Coulter.
A few minutes later, it was announced that the president would be arriving imminently and that the guests were to line up to meet the president. And thus, Barb and I watched as a gaggle of millionaires and billionaires formed a single-file line outside the room where the President would be accepting visitors. We were stopped from walking over to join the line by security and told that Crosby, Nash, and their families had shown up and that we were to join them….in front of the line. We walked past everyone in waiting, all eyes looking at us, wondering who we were and how we were jumping to the front.
Cheadle and Coulter were both there with us, and soon the Crosby/Nash group showed up, told upon arrival who we were, and greeted us as if we had known each other for years. And then we waited. And waited. The President, it seemed, was running late, leaving sixty or so party guests shuffling about in formation, with our small group hanging lax in front, shooting the breeze, talking about the weather, laughing at the air.
And then it happened. Crosby turned to Barb and I and started asking us if we were married…and how long we had been married…and as we answered he turned to me with an outstretched pointer finger and started his lecture. “Marriage is a sacred trust,” he said to me…using an outside voice that everyone around us could hear, “you can NEVER disrespect the act of marriage. You should never even consider cheating on your wife and you should treat her well. You should treat her better than well and never forget who she is and the vow you made.” I felt the eyes of everyone behind me looking at me, wondering why Croz was confronting me in this manner. What did he have on me? What did he know? I imagined that Barb was thinking the same thing. Hell, I even wondered what he thought he knew…and if he maybe was mistakening me for someone else. Why was this rock legend choosing me to run down the sacred rites of marriage?
This went on until Obama showed up, until the meeting and greeting began. Obama thanked us for bringing Crosby and Nash and gave us time enough together to have a few laughs. When we came back into the garden, we were told that we were to have dinner with Crosby, Nash and their families instead of sitting in the big tent with the big donors…which was fine by us. The Mexican food meal we were given in the house next door was delicious, and we spent the meal talking about family…about our next child coming…about their children…about our hopes that Obama would be elected again. I knew Crosby was a big Alan Lomax fan, so we talked about the Haiti project we had produced, and he seemed excited to hear the recordings Alan had made there in the 1930s. We finished the night sitting in the big tent watching Nash and Crosby sing Teach Your Children.
About three months later, Crosby Stills and Nash played the Fillmore and we got after-party passes. In between that time, I had sent Crosby the Alan Lomax in Haiti Boxset. Barb was showing her pregnancy BIG TIME, and when Nash saw her stomach asked if he could put his hands on it and bless out unborn child (yes, Asher was blessed by Graham Nash). Crosby was nearby. I went up to him and he looked at me wondering if he should know me…or if I was just another fan…so I started by saying we had met at the Barack Obama event and that I had sent him the Lomax boxset. He remembered getting the boxset, and thanked me….but I could tell he still did not have a clear memory. So I said, “Don’t you remember me? I was the guy who you talked to about marriage being a sacred thing.” His eyes got huge, and he turned to face me more directly, took his pointer finger out again and, as if it was a needle rejoining the grooves on a record, started lecturing me once again about respecting the bonds of matrimony. Loudly, almost sternly. This went on for a while until he was pulled away to meet someone else, leaving me with a dumfounded smile.
David Crosby was an incredible artist, a crazed human, and a larger-than-life character that I feel lucky to have had such a strange interaction with. I loved him in the Byrds…damn was he good in that band…and think his first solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name is one of the most beautiful, artful recordings ever produced (featuring my hands-down favorite Jerry Garcia solo on the track Laughing). I loved that he answered any question posed to him on twitter, and got a little emotional when he used that platform to apologize to Roger McGuinn saying that he should have never forgotten who the true leader of the Byrds was. For a person who burned as many bridges as he wrote beautiful songs, the sentiment seemed pretty historic. The documentary on his life showcased a true artist whose conversational words were poetry (thank you Jon Blaufarb for our Covid-era screening)…along with the tragedy that he created for himself along a career of great bands, records, and hits...and his coming to terms with everything, the good, the bad, the sad, the unfinished. It was the type of meditation one might give at one’s own funeral, if that was a possibility.
Long live the memory and music of David Crosby.
David Crosby’s outspokenness at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival is thought to be one of the last straws before he was fired from the Byrds. But damn…what a performance.
The above video is what Graham Nash posted yesterday when remembering his old musical partner. What a beautiful version of Guinnevere, with the two artists’ voices a perfect blend.
Great story David. I, too, love that first solo record. I listened to it as well as the first two Byrds records, several times yesterday. What a voice!
Hi-larious story...thanks for that.