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A top-ranked keyboardman since the early '70s,
Craig Doerge has enjoyed decades of success as one of the most sought after session and backing musicians of his generation and also as a songwriter.
Doerge played on a few notable sessions during the late '60s, including the Permanent Damage album by the GTO's issued on the Bizarre label. By the start of the 1970s, he had moved up to working with
Lee Hazlewood as an arranger on
Cowboy in Sweden; he also sang backing vocals on
Russ Giguere's
Hexagram 16, played on
Cyrus Faryar's
Cyrus, and Alexander Harvey's self-titled 1971 album. He first emerged from the pack of West Coast musicians in the early '70s as a member of
Rosebud, a group that also included
Judy Henske and
Jerry Yester in its ranks, and lasted long enough to release two singles and a self-titled LP on the Reprise label before breaking up.
Doerge married
Henske a short while later, following the breakup of her marriage to
Yester.
In 1972,
Doerge turned up on the first of
Graham Nash and
David Crosby's duo albums,
Graham Nash/David Crosby, and soon after was heard on
Jackson Browne's debut LP on Asylum, and on records by
Barbara Keith and
Casey Kelly,
Donovan's Essence to Essence,
Shawn Phillips'
Bright White,
James Taylor's
One Man Dog, and
Linda Ronstadt's
Don't Cry Now. Equally important, he became a member of
the Section, a band that also included
Danny Kortchmar,
Leland Sklar, and
Russ Kunkel, that recorded two LPs for Warner Bros. and a third for Capitol. The Section never enjoyed much success on their own, but were regarded by other musicians as one of the best backing bands in the business;
Doerge appeared on seven
Jackson Browne albums during the 1970s and 1980s, but it was as part of the backing band for
Crosby & Nash, and later part of the core of
Crosby, Stills & Nash's backup group on the trio's later '70s reunions, that
the Section and its members were widely heard on record, over the radio, and in concert throughout the decade. By that time,
Doerge and
Henske had begun writing songs together and
Crosby & Nash and
Crosby, Stills & Nash used several of those compositions, in addition to
Crosby collaborating with
Doerge. By the mid-'70s,
Doerge -- both on his own and in tandem with his fellow
Section members -- was also playing on a vast range of artists' recordings, including
Carole Bayer Sager,
Libby Titus,
Jackson Browne,
Bette Midler, and
Phoebe Snow. In addition to participating in various reunion tours and albums involving
Crosby, Stills & Nash (and sometimes
Young), and solo projects involving several of them, he has worked with
Henske in performance and on record, including her 2000 album Loose in the World. ~ Bruce Eder