Biography

Raised actress Drew Barrymore after her release from rehab.

Thru his mother, he is a descendant of the Van Cortlandt family and thru his father of the Van Rensselaer family and from both of William Floyd, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence.

Had a liver transplant.

Briefly replaced Neil Young in Buffalo Springfield. In fact, he appears with the band on both The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) and at the Monterey Pop (1968) festival. This also help set in motion the formation of Crosby Stills & Nash and (later) Young in 1968.

In 1986 he turned himself in to the FBI and served eleven months in Texas jails, including four months in solitary confinement.

My songs emerge from my life, or wherever they do, unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own. I can't legislate a song into being, it just will not happen for me.

We don't take show business or the spotlight seriously.

[observation, 2016, about whether he considers his legacy] No. I should, I guess, and I expect most people do, but I don't. I don't think about the past, I don't think about awards, I don't rest on my laurels, I don't think about any of that stuff. I think about what I'm supposed to do today and what I need to do tomorrow and what I may be able to do next week and what I need to do this coming year. My focus is almost entirely 100-per-cent forward.

[on performing at Woodstock, 1969] Everybody was curious about us. We were the new kid on the block, it was our second public gig, nobody had ever seen us, everybody had heard the record, everybody wondered, 'What in the hell are they about?' So when it was rumored that we were about to go on, everybody came. Every band that played there, including all the ones that aren't in the movie, were all standing in an arc behind us, and that was intimidating, to say the least! I'm looking back at Hendrix and Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm and The Who and Janis and Sly and Grace and Paul, everybody that I knew and everybody I didn't know. We were so happy that it went down well that we could barely handle it.

[on reconnecting with his son] Now, I'd known that he existed for 30 years and tortured myself about it: Well, he probably died in a snowstorm or in a dumpster, every terrible scenario. Then, he winds up looking, and it's me. He gets a hold of me. These meet-ups usually go very badly. One person or the other drags in baggage. We weren't good enough for you? Me and mom? Is that it? Whatever baggage you bring in, it usually destroys the chance of contact. And James came in and gave me a clean slate and let me earn my way into his life from a fresh beginning. That is a gift, a kindness, that you don't often see in this life. And the result? He's my best writing partner. We write all the time. I have to treasure that.