Greg Reeves

PDF List viewGrid viewDetailed view
Greg Reeves Genre R & B
Record Company Array, Chess
Producer Crosby, Stills & Nash
Years active 1970-Present
WEB mailto:licensing@homegrownmusicpublishing.com
Tags rock and roll Rhythm and Blues Jazz..

Greg Reeves is an American bass guitarist. He is best known for playing bass on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's Déjà Vu (1970). He was born in Warren, Ohio, 1968.

Reeves recorded and toured with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young from August 1969 to January 1970 and is credited on the cover of their 1970 Déjà Vu album; he appears with the group in the concert documentary Celebration at Big Sur (filmed in September 1969) and in contemporaneous television appearances on This is Tom Jones and The Music Scene.[6][7][8]

While it was previously assumed that James referred the bassist to Young (who had previously backed James in The Mynah Birds) in the wake of the nascent band's desultory rehearsals with former Buffalo Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer, according to Reeves, "David [Crosby] and Graham [Nash] drove up to the apartment where we lived on Olive Drive at the time... from the pool I saw them knock on the door, and Rick yelled for me. They asked Rick James who I was and Rick came, got me and brought me out front to the limousine that Graham Nash and David Crosby were in and asked me in front of them, would I mind going with them to jam. I asked Rick James 'Aren’t you coming, too?' He said 'They want you to come alone.' I went back to the house, grabbed my Fender Precision Bass guitar and Gibson acoustic guitar, climbed into the limousine and never came back to Rick’s house again. They would not let me go. From the first time jamming with me, they would not let me leave... to this day I don’t how Graham and David knew where Rick and I lived."[2]

In consultation with other band members, Stephen Stills fired Reeves from the group in April 1970 "because [he] suddenly decided he was an Apache witch doctor."  He further opined that “[Reeves] freaked too much on the bass and no one could keep up because [he] did not play one rhythm the same… he could play bass imaginatively, but he has to be predictable as well," while "Greg also wanted to sing some of his songs on the CSN&Y show, which I thought was ludicrous, only because the songs weren't great. We'll sing any song if it's great, but not just because it happens to be written by our bass player." Dallas Taylor (who seldom fraternized with Reeves and was dismissed from the group a month later at the instigation of Neil Young) later noted that while the bassist and Stills did not get along, Reeves and Young were good friends; following Reeves' termination, Young defied his bandmates and continued to collaborate with Reeves. Reeves has alleged that the "bass hook" of one of his songs was reappropriated as the main riff of "Carry On," a composition credited to Stills; heeding the advice of James, he demurred from pursuing the issue after receiving one profit point on Déjà Vu

Post CSNY[edit]

Few details are known about Reeves' life and career following his dismissal from CSNY. He reportedly earned an associate's degree in Mandarin Chinese at Coastline Community Collegeduring the intervening decades, while his "I Got Your Number" has been covered by such artists as Tom JonesBoz Scaggs, and Johnny Bristol. Other unreleased songs allegedly recorded for David Geffen and Clive Davis (including "Working Man") have been championed by Graham Nash and Neil Young; a cache of recordings from the early 1970s features a band including Stevie Wonder on drums and Nils Lofgren and Duane Allman on guitar.

In the aftermath of his tenure with the group, Reeves nevertheless contributed in earnest to several projects, including most of Neil Young's After the Gold RushCrosby & Nash's eponymous debut("Immigration Man"; 1972), Dave Mason's It's Like You Never Left (1973), an unreleased version of "Tonight's the Night" recorded by Young in early 1974, and indeterminate recordings with George Clinton following the temporary dissolution of Parliament Funkadelic in the early 1980s.

Compilations (1)
Songs (8)
MP3 MP3