Greg Reeves

Gregory Allen Reeves (born ) In an interview, bandmate Dallas Taylor spoke of a rumor that Reeves was as young as 15 years old when he joined CSNY. While Reeves acknowledged having a fake ID and being "very young" while with CSNY, Rolling Stone stated his age as 19 in a December 1969 article.

Career Motown Reeves had been scouted as a session musician at the age of 12 by Motown Records and Chess Records, although his mother "would not hear of" him playing professionally at that age. By 1968, however, Reeves was employed as a session bassist at Motown. During the recording session for The Temptations' "Cloud Nine", Reeves was apprehensive about his bass playing and switched to tambourine at the behest of producer Norman Whitfield, his recruiter and main benefactor at Motown. During this period, Reeves was also mentored by other Motown musicians, including Rick James (who concurrently played alongside Reeves in Salt 'n' Pepa, a Los Angeles rock group formed from the remnants of Merryweather) and James Jamerson. Reeves stated that his most notable performance for the company was the bass part (overdubbed in Los Angeles) of "No Matter What Sign You Are", the final song recorded by Diana Ross with The Supremes.

Work with CSNY 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.

Reeves was living with mentor Rick James in Los Angeles when he was recruited for CSNY:

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. Stills 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 Reeves also wanted to sing some of his songs during CSN&Y shows, which Stills 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." Nils Lofgren said that during one of the sessions for After the Gold Rush, Reeves appeared covered head to toe in gold paint; Young explained the bassist was "doin' his Indian thing."

Reeves was briefly interviewed by author Jimmy McDonough for Shakey, a 2003 biography of Neil Young. Both Young and Lofgren continue to laud Reeves's playing style, noting his versatility and ability to move fluidly between simple and complex bass lines.