The time that I possibly heard the best music in my world, in terms of the entire gestalt of it, I had no recording gear! I was doing a reference recording of the Big Sur Folk Festival, and I'd been flirting with a pretty blonde woman in a wide wale corduroy skirt, green just above the knees, had lovely legs, and then we did soundcheck, and I realized that it was Joni Mitchell, and that was it! I couldn't do that. No more. It's hard to have that lightness. But when we went down to the clothing-optional baths afterwards, we got down into this tub, where there was a few feet of water, the sky's directly above you, and a few feet over it drops a hundred feet to the Pacific, the ocean's coming in, and the grotto kind of area where the tubs are is underneath a concrete ceiling, and the water actually comes out of the side of the hill. We realized that there were some people there and some candles, and then they started doing some singing, and we realized that it was basically Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young and Joni. One of the songs they did a cappella was the one ["Woodstock"] that goes "We are stardust, we are golden." And I'm looking straight up at the stars, with the ocean right here, and she is a pretty girl. She's a beautiful woman. And I just went, "Okay, I got into this because I like music, and it's never, ever going to be better than this moment. I can retire now!" Then, coming out from the baths, I ran into Joan Baez who asked me, "Which side has less people in it?" I said, "Well, I only know this side, and you've got these people here." She said, "Oh, well, I'll go to the other side." I went, right. There are personalities here. There are transcendent moments and personalities. Oh my.
