Yahoo Autos Miles Davis Pointed to His Ferrari and Said, “Follow That Car.”
One winter day, David Crosby stood in front of the Village Gate, a nightclub on the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village, when he saw a diminutive figure with an etched face approach him. The guy said in a raspy voice, “You Crosby?”
This story originally appeared in Volume 15 of Road & Track.
“Yes, sir, I am,” said Crosby, who, at that time in 1970, was one of the most famous singer-songwriters in the world.
“I’m Miles,” said Miles Davis, arguably the most famous jazz player and bandleader alive.
“Yes, sir. I know. I know that’s who you are.”
History would record this moment as a meeting between musical geniuses. What is not talked about is how this moment was also an intersection between two car nuts.
“I cut one of your tunes,” Davis told Crosby.
Stunned, Crosby asked, “W-w-w-which tune?”
“ ‘Guinnevere,’ ” said Davis, referring to the song released on Crosby, Stills & Nash’s 1968 debut record. “You wanna hear it?”
“Oh, God, yes!”
Davis pointed to his Ferrari and said, “Follow that car.” Then he and a woman, whom Crosby has described numerous times as having “legs up to her neck,” headed for the Ferrari. Judging by the timing, it must have been Davis’s 1967 3.3-liter V-12 275 GTB/4—a masterpiece by any standard.
Off they went, driving uptown to Davis’s place in separate cars.
By 1970, Crosby had hits with the Byrds (notably, a cut of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”) and Buffalo Springfield. His new group, Crosby, Stills & Nash, won the Grammy for Best New Artist. Crosby’s love of cars would become more pronounced with time, as he owned Ferraris, BMWs, and ultimately a 1940 small-block Ford pickup that he found at an L.A. hot-rod show.
Davis was decades beyond the Birth of the Cool sessions, in and out of heroin addiction, past his triumphant Kind of Blue recordings, and into a new experimental electric-jazz sound. He would be remembered for his lime-green Lamborghini Miura and his succession of Ferraris, including the red 275 GTB/4, a bright-yellow 308 GTSi, and a silver Testarossa.
The coda to this story? Crosby got to Davis’s place and listened to his version of “Guinnevere” on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The song lasted more than 21 minutes. It ended up on the box set The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions. As Crosby listened, he grew increasingly irked. To him, nothing about the recording sounded anything like the “Guinnevere” he wrote. When he told Davis, the jazz master responded by throwing Crosby out of his home. Song over.
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