Crosby, Nash & Young - Sheriff Hongisto Prisoners' Benefit, Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 3-26-1972

Here's an interesting acoustic concert from 1972. Instead of Crosby, Stills and Nash, or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY), it features the rather unusual combination of Crosby, Nash and Young. It was broadcast live on a local radio station (KSAN), so it's professionally recorded and sounds great.

In early 1972, the various members of CSNY were arguably at or near the peak of the critical and commercial success. All four of them had put out solo albums on top of group albums, and all of those had done very well. Crosby and Nash went on tour together in 1971, and recorded an album as a duo, "David Crosby and Graham Nash," that would be released only a week or two after this concert. Neil Young released "Harvest" in February 1972. It would be his biggest commercial success. The song "Heart of Gold" was released as a single, and was well on its way to hitting Number One in the US at the time of this concert.

CSNY as a group was broken up at the time of this concert, but that was mostly due to problems between Stephen Stills and the others. Stills had gone overboard with alcohol and cocaine abuse, leading to megalomania so bad that the others decided to kick him out of the group in July 1970. That was exacerbated by the fact that Stills had been dating singer Rita Coolidge, who then left him for Nash. So maybe that explains why Crosby, Nash and Young played together in this concert but Stills wasn't there. (I know of only two other CNY concerts. I plan on posting one of the other two eventually.) The four of them would reunite in 1973, though that would be rocky, very much an on again, off again thing.

Crosby and Nash only played two concerts as a duo in 1972, both of them in the month of March. This one was because of a benefit concert, and I'm guessing the other one was as well. The cause in this case was a seemingly odd one for political progressives like CSNY, at least at first glance. The concert was basically to support Richard Hongisto, the elected sheriff of San Francisco at the time. I was curious about this, so I did a little research. It turns out that Hongisto was about as progressive as a sheriff could be in the 1970s. He was a colorful character who made many bold moves as sheriff, for instance hiring an unprecedented number of minorities and openly gay and lesbian officers, and openly advocating for the legalization of marijuana. He also worked to reform prisons and support more prisoner rights. 

Here's an interesting article about his fascinating time as San Francisco's sheriff:

Sheriff Richard Hongisto, the Notable Exception | History of the San Francisco Sheriff's Department (sfsdhistory.com) 

This concert was specifically to raise money for the county jail inmate welfare fund. At the time, the jails were in a terrible condition due to years of neglect and lack of funding. Hongisto drew public attention to this by going to work as sheriff for several days in tattered and torn clothing, because those actually were the clothes the inmates were issued at the time. The shoes they were issued deliberately had big holes causing all the toes to stick out, so one size could (roughly) fit anyone's feet. In light of all that, one can see why CNY thought this was a worthy cause for a benefit concert. Between songs, you can hear them talk about Hongisto and the reason for this benefit a little bit.

Crosby and Nash started the concert by playing three songs just as a duo. Then Young joined them and they did two songs as a threesome. Then each one of them took turns playing two songs while alone on stage. After that, all three finished the concert with three more songs (oddly, all of those at the end written by Nash).

By the way, Young didn't tour at all in 1972, despite having a both Number One album and hit single early in the year. This was the only full concert he took part in that year. (He made three appearances at other artist's concerts, playing only a few songs each.)

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long.

01 Wooden Ships (Crosby, Nash & Young)
02 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
03 I Used to Be a King (Crosby, Nash & Young)
04 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
05 The Lee Shore (Crosby, Nash & Young)
06 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
07 Harvest (Crosby, Nash & Young)
08 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
09 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Crosby, Nash & Young)
10 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
11 Southbound Train (Crosby, Nash & Young)
12 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
13 Almost Cut My Hair (Crosby, Nash & Young)
14 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
15 Page 43 (Crosby, Nash & Young)
16 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
17 And So It Goes (Crosby, Nash & Young)
18 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
19 Immigration Man (Crosby, Nash & Young)
20 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
21 Heart of Gold (Crosby, Nash & Young)
22 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
23 The Needle and the Damage Done (Crosby, Nash & Young)
24 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
25 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Nash & Young)
26 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
27 Military Madness (Crosby, Nash & Young)
28 Chicago (Crosby, Nash & Young)
29 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15281781/CrosbNY_1972_ShriffHongistoPrisonrsBenefitWinterlndSnFranciscoCA__3-26-1972atse.zip.html

I found one photo of Crosby, Nash and Young on stage in March 1972. The credits give it a different date and location, but the very thorough Sugar Mountain Neil Young concert database only have Young joining Crosby and Nash on this date, so it must have been taken at this concert. Since it was a rather rough black and white photo, I tried to jazz it up by adding some color to it.

Also, while looking at the Sugar Mountain database just now, I found a poster for this concert, so I'm including it here for anyone who is interested.