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, Rovi