Graham Nash Shares Final Communication with David Crosby: “We Were Getting a Little Closer”

Graham Nash suspects that David Crosby knew he was at the end of his life and wanted to make amends with him before he died on Jan. 18, 2023, at the age of 81. The day before his death, Crosby left a message for his former Crosby, Stills & Nash bandmate to apologize but passed away before the two had a chance to talk.

“The fact is that we were getting a little closer at the end,” revealed Nash, 81, in a recent interview with AARP. “He had sent me a voicemail saying that he wanted to talk to apologize, and could we set up a time to talk. I emailed him back and said, ‘Okay, call me at 11 o’clock tomorrow your time, which is two o’clock on the east coast.’ He never called, and then he was gone.”

Reflecting on the pair’s rocky relationship since they disbanded in 2016, and their half-century of making music together, Nash said Crosby’s death was a painful way for it all to end. Instead, he wants to focus on the music they made together—along with Stephen Stills and Neil Young, who also joined the trio throughout the years—instead of the darker times.

“I think one of the only things that we can do, particularly me, is only try to remember the good times, try to remember the great music that we made,” shared Nash. “I’m only going to be interested in the good times because if I concentrate on the bad times, it gets too weird for me.”

Nash released his sixth solo album, This Path Tonight, in 2016, while Crosby released his eighth album, For Free, in 2021 along with his first-ever live album and concert DVD, David Crosby & the Lighthouse Band Live at the Capitol Theatre, in November of 2022.

Prior to Crosby’s death, Nash was also compiling a collection of songs featuring him and Crosby singing vocal harmonies with several of their musical contemporaries, including Carole King, James Taylor, and Jackson Browne, among others.

In addition to his long struggle with drug addiction, Crosby’s liver transplant in 1994 and the numerous stents he received after surviving three heart attacks, left his health in decline over the years, Nash shared.

“He had seven stents,” said Nash. “His body was really failing. But once again, I can only try to remember the good times, because we had many of them.”

Nash added, “His death is like an earthquake: You know that you’re in an earthquake, but subsequently, other smaller earthquakes happen afterward. His death has been like that. It was only two or three days after he passed that I realized that he was actually gone.”

Photo: Simone Cecchetti / Corbis Via Getty Images / Courtesy of Rogers & Cowan