More than a year after the death of David Crosby, the music he made with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash will be saluted in a tribute concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall this spring.
Set for May 13, the show — simply titled “The Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash” — will present interpretations of both group and solo songs by an eclectic lineup, including Americana soul singer Yola; classic rock visionary Todd Rundgren; singer-songwriters Shawn Colvin, Rickie Lee Jones, and Aoife O’Donovan; indie-rockers Iron & Wine and Real Estate; and jam-rock vanguard Grace Potter.
“We didn’t want every artist to be from that era or be colleagues,” says City Winery founder Michael Dorf, whose MDP (Michael Dorf Presents) company is producing the show. “Those harmonies are so much in our collective subconscious. So we were also thinking of new artists or other voices who can interpret the songs so you can hear the lyrics in a different and more profound way.”
The lineup, courtesy City Winery vice president of programming Shlomo Lipetz, also includes the folk trio Joseph, Taylor Meier of the band Caamp, and indie singer-songwriters Neal Francis and Sammy Rae. Additional artists are likely to be announced in the weeks ahead. The house band will include Michelle Willis, who was a member of Crosby’s Lighthouse Band, and keyboardist Todd Caldwell, who played with various incarnations of the trio.
The concert will be the 19th annual addition of Dorf’s “The Music of …” series, evenings devoted entirely to the work of one music legend. Past shows have included salutes to Paul McCartney (with Lake Street Dive, Natalie Merchant, and Allison Russell), David Bowie (with the Pixies, Cyndi Lauper, Patti Smith, and the Flaming Lips), and Prince (featuring the Roots, Elvis Costello, and D’Angelo). As in the past, proceeds will benefit numerous music education programs around the country, including Music Will (formerly Little Kids Rock), the Center for Arts Education, Save the Music, and Grammy in the Schools. VIP tickets for the show go on sale today, with a public on-sale date of March 20.
Given that one of the previous tribute shows saluted Neil Young (2011, featuring Smith, the Roots, Aaron Neville, Jakob Dylan, and J Mascis), Dorf says the decision was made to intentionally focus on the original trio. (Young was only added to the band’s lineup after the release of 1969’s Crosby, Stills & Nash.) Dorf, who recalls seeing CSN at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Wisconsin in 1982, says the tribute was in the works before Crosby’s passing. “This has been kicking around for a while,” he says, adding jokingly, “I’ve been bugging Graham Nash for five or six years to do it.”
Nash is currently slated to participate in the show. As for Stills and Young, Dorf says his team has reached out to the former and holds out some hope that the latter would consider joining in. “Bruce Springsteen and David Byrne played at their tributes, and R.E.M.’s last show in New York was at theirs, when they came out for the encore,” he says. “Neil doesn’t do these things very often and has his own charities. But we try to get the artists involved.”
