PRISONER OF WOODSTOCK

The unbilled drummer in the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tells an unsatisfying and not always credible story of drugs and sex (and a little rock 'n' roll). Taylor, a millionaire at age 21 who spiraled down and down, writes his chapters in flashback scenes from two different vantage points: a hospital, where he undergoes a liver-transplant operation (funded in part by a benefit concert given by his musician buddies) and addiction-treatment sessions. But neither the intensive-care unit nor group therapy justifies Taylor's extensive and bad re- creations of dialogue, like the speech about the '60s that he delivers while in the hospital: ``I swallowed the whole `dawn of a new day, it's a new world' bullshit hook, line and sinker.'' His story includes some luridly interesting tales: nearly having an orgy with Jimi Hendrix (Taylor turned tail and ran when Hendrix greeted him at the door in the nude); wife-swapping with the Rolling Stones' Bill Wyman; and drug excesses with his band mates, with teenagers he met at Woodstock, and with a hitchhiker while driving 140 mph. However, he skimps on describing his musical career and his current life. Taylor now works as a substance-abuse counselor in California and has reconstructed his life with a new wife who didn't shrink from ``an ex-junkie, a thrice-divorced, has- been musician with a police record, no high school diploma and one grandchild.'' Former band mate David Crosby, in an introduction, sees Taylor as someone caught by all the ``peripheral traps'' of the music business. A worthy cautionary tale, however, doesn't necessarily make a good book. (16 pages of b&w photos, not seen)