Folk legends bring message to region

June 9, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Word on the Internet is that singer-guitarist Stephen Stills was smoking it up on stage at a recent Crosby, Stills and Nash show in San Luis Obispo, Calif., which the band will be releasing this summer as a DVD concert.

“I plead guilty. I was, in fact, smoking on stage,” said Stills, calling from his Southern California home. “Although nothing illegal. Despite a touch of carpal [tunnel], I’m able to really get ferocious. It’s been that way for a while, but it happened on that evening everything fit together. It’s just I’m real happy with my playing; plus now I’m down to 170 pounds. I can look at pictures of myself without wanting to hurl.”

When it’s pointed out to the svelte Stills that CSN’s DVD release is due out July 17, the very same day the new “Three Stooges” film is slated to be in stores, the fun-going artist can’t hold back.

“I find that incredibly apropos,” Stills said, laughing. “I think you can inter-cut the two very easily and say this is the backstage footage, and then here’s the band.”

Throughout his roughly 45-year musical career, the two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (Buffalo Springfield and CSN) played a key role in many of classic rock’s greatest moments. CSN’s self-titled 1969 debut is listed as one of Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

As for Stills’ songs, there are plenty. The list ranges from “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and “Southern Cross” to “Wooden Ships,” “Love the One You’re With” and “Teach Your Children.” However, it’s “For What It’s Worth,” which was recorded by Buffalo Springfield in 1967 as a comment on the Sunset Strip riots, that has resonated for decades and has become the definitive protest song of not only the ’60s but today.

Still activists, CSN once again finds itself touring during a time of political strife as the media is focused on both sides of the spectrum, with the Tea Party movement and Occupy Wall Street folks.

How does Stills view the current climate?

“I look upon it with some trepidation,” Stills said. “We’re just going to have buckets of [expletive] raining down on us all summer. I don’t like to use the paid concert as any place to run my mouth, but I will find the odd district or a good congressional race, take the day off and go do a backyard barbecue. I just do not like the tenor I’m hearing. I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve been around, and this makes the ’60s look like the ’50s. There’s just all of this hate. It’s like talking to a wall.”

Looking ahead for CSN, there’s the band’s tour, which includes a Sunday show at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica. After its summer-long jaunt across the states, the 67-year-old Stills is planning something else that hopefully will keep him active for decades to come.

“I’m having knee-replacement surgery,” Stills said. “The worst thing that ever happened to me was discovering snow. I’m from Florida, so what was I doing learning to ski in my 30s? I just wrecked them. It’s time for one [surgery] in November and one in February. Right now I can’t get my foot more than an inch off the ground, so I sort of halfway shuffle. I have to have leather shoes and a dance floor on stage while Graham [Nash] hops around on a rug barefoot.”

So when he’s healthy again, does that mean he’ll be heading back to the slopes?

Stills laughed, “Oh, hell no.”