Crosby, Stills, & Nash (and Young) bassists

[So Low Bass]

I am borrowing the Movie "Long Time Comin'" and and once again stuck by the bass playing. Who played with them on the road, and when? That goes for the drummers too. MAN! There's some great live playing. (the singing goes without saying)

Please fill me in.

[jerry]

First bassist was Greg Reeves followed by Calvin Samuels, George Perry, Gerald Johnson, Tim Dummond, Duck Dunn and a lot of others, what time frame is the movie from. They even had slap master Alexis Sklareveski for awhile.

[So Low Bass]

I guess I'm talking to the right guy! Pre woodstock to 1992 is the movie range. Can you tell me about these guys. I got glimpses of Ps. I'd say that there were three different players.

We're talking flatwounds for sure.

[Sneckumhaw]

BTW in the studio Stills played a lot of their best bass.

[jerry]

Originally Posted by So Low Bass

I guess I'm talking to the right guy! Pre woodstock to 1992 is the movie range. Can you tell me about these guys. I got glimpses of Ps. I'd say that there were three different players.

We're talking flatwounds for sure.

That probably would have been Greg Reeves, Calvin Samuels and George Perry. Whenever Neil was in the band, he picked the sidemen, the others deferred to him to keep him happy. That's one of the reasons Dallas Taylor was jettisoned after being a original member[ that and coke & heroin]. One of the reasons Reeves got booted[he was a fantastic player] was before they started recording 4-Way Street he wanted to do some of his originals, not going to happen. Another side, side note, George 'Chocolate' Perry was also in Little Beaver, the same band Jaco did some playing with.

[dcr]

Didn't Lee Sklar play for them some as well?



dcr

[Dave R]

I don't recall Sklar playing for them, but I always liked Calvin Samuels. Not long after I became aware of him, I saw him live, not knowing it was him. Was thinking to myself "Who is this guy? He's a flippin' poet on the bass." When he was introduced, I pretty excited.

[Sneckumhaw]

Originally Posted by Dave R

I don't recall Sklar playing for them, but I always liked Calvin Samuels. Not long after I became aware of him, I saw him live, not knowing it was him. Was thinking to myself "Who is this guy? He's a flippin' poet on the bass." When he was introduced, I pretty excited.

Manassas FTW.

[JTE]

Sklar played with variouis combinations of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, but I don't recall seeing his name on any projects with Neil Young. And like Jerry said, Stills did a lot of the studio work.

jte

[corinpills]

Originally Posted by Sneckumhaw

BTW in the studio Stills played a lot of their best bass.

I'm pretty sure most of their studio stuff is Stills. He supposedly has some magic P Bass that has the original strings form the 50's on it and he says it's the best sounding bass in the world. sounds pretty great on those tracks.

Not a huge fan, but i like solo Neil Young a lot, I LOVE the Byrds with Crosby and I've always been a Graham Nash fan- I adore the Hollies and I really like his "Songs For Beginners" solo album. Something about Stills' music and voice rubs me the wrong way.

[Thunderthumbs73]

I loaned my copy of that VHS video to a friend, and have never gotten it back. Otherwise, I could probably tell from the footage. From an older post I made on this topic:

Hi. Stephen Stills played bass on that Suite Judy song, and that whole album. He also played lead guitar and organ. Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuels played bass on 4 Way Street, and would play with Stephen, most notably in Stephen's own "supergroup" of sorts, called Manassas. Bill Wyman (The Rolling Stones) also played on a few songs with Manassas. Anyways, back to Calvin- he recorded with Stephen on a few occasions post-Manassas, in his solo albums.

Other bassists with the group:
1970 CSN&Y- Deja Vu- Greg Reeves
1988 CSN&Y- American Dreams- Bob Glaub, Stephen
1977 CSN- CSN- George Perry, Tim Drummond, Gerald Johnson
1982- CSN- Daylight Again- George Perry, Bob Glaub, Leland Sklar, Timothy B. Schmit
1990 CSN- Live It Up- Leland Sklar, Bob Glaub
1975 C&N- Wind On The Water- Tim Drummond
1977 C&N- Live- Tim Drummond (taken from 1975-76 tours)

-I have seen footage of Stephen playing a upright, live, on a 1969/1970 TV show.
-Manassas contained another famous bass player, Chris Hillman of the Byrds, who in this setting plays guitar and mandolin, and never played bass on the Manassas recordings, as far as I can tell.

I have separate David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and some Neil Young info if/as needed. Let me know on/off this forum.

Hope this helps.

[these_go211]

when stills played bass in the studio i read once that he liked to dip his fingers in chicken grease before he played. i think he said this in a bass player magazine article not too long ago. p-bass->flatwounds->chicken greased fingers! that's the, uh, recipe........

[JTE]

Originally Posted by these_go211

when stills played bass in the studio i read once that he liked to dip his fingers in chicken grease before he played. i think he said this in a bass player magazine article not too long ago. p-bass->flatwounds->chicken greased fingers! that's the, uh, recipe........

Actually, it's a quote from Guitar Player Magazine from around 1974 or so. He said he soaked new bass strings in barbecue sauce for a while before he put them on the bass. It was to kill the new sound of them. I don't recall him specifying, but I think they were always LaBella flats. And at the time there was only one LaBella flat (different gauges, but most used the "mediums") which was used by Jamerson, Duck Dunn, Joe Osborne, Jack Bruce, and a whole raft of others.

jte

[ThunderLizard]

FYI-
BassPlayer did an interview with a bassist on the CSN tour a while back. Don't remember his name. He mentioned that Stills knew what he wanted from a bass part. I've always enjoyed Still's bass playing, very melodic.

[Sneckumhaw]

Originally Posted by JTE

Sklar played with variouis combinations of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, but I don't recall seeing his name on any projects with Neil Young. And like Jerry said, Stills did a lot of the studio work.

jte

Me, not Jerry.

[edmidlifecrisis]

When I saw CSNY about five or six years ago here in S Florida, they had Booker T and the MG's as their backup band. It was unbelievable.

I've seen CSN several times in the nineties, Stills at Carnegie Hall, Nash, solo, both in the seventies, and Neil with Crazy Horse in 1970 at the Fillmore. All great shows. That recent CSNY tour was a monster, though.

When I was in high school and it was announced that CSNY would play the Fillmore East (it became the LP "Four Way Street"), several of us cut school to go down to the Fillmore box office for tickets. We couldn't get near the building the crowd was so large and all the shows sold out FAST. Ah, a missed opportunity....one of many. Same thing happened for the Who at the Met....bummer..

[JTE]

I saw CSNY 2K in 2000. They had Jim Keltner on drums and Duck Dunn on bass (he used a red Lakland Bob Glaug all night. Had another Lakland in the rack next to his 'burst/anodized guard maple neck P with the duck sticker and some sort of Amgpeg with a graphic EQ and an 8x10). Everything else was them. Everyone except Crosby played keys, and they all played guitars at different times. I saw them in Chicago and they apparently decided to use Nash's song about the Chicgao 7 as the encore- without rehearsal. For the first part of it Stills was showing Duck the chords!

jte

[MLysh]

David Crosby tells the story in the Young bio "Shakey," about what a pain it was for bass players to be around Stills. He said something to the effect, "Why do you think we have a different bass player every time you see us? We could have had Lee Sklar playing with us, but at one of the rehearsals, Steve took the bass out of Lee's hands and said, "No, it goes like this." Lee packed up his stuff and left."

That's a paraphase of the actual quote, but the elements of the story are the same.

[Thunderthumbs73]

Originally Posted by ThunderLizard

FYI-
BassPlayer did an interview with a bassist on the CSN tour a while back. Don't remember his name. He mentioned that Stills knew what he wanted from a bass part. I've always enjoyed Still's bass playing, very melodic.

I believe it was David Santos.

[thecarkid7]

hey you guys all obviously like CSN&Y so i was wondering if any of you could help me out! i need a bass line for helplessly hoping asap! its for a wedding i just started playing and cant create one myself! so if you could please help!