Musician David Crosby dead at 81

David Crosby, whose harmonies with two different iconic bands made him a music star in the 1960s even as his notorious temper often damaged his relationships with his bandmates, has died at the age of 81, his family said.

A statement from Crosby’s wife released to Variety magazine confirmed the death of the musician “after a long illness” and said that he had died “love surrounded by his wife and soulmate Jan and son Django.”

In a career spanning six decades, Crosby first spent three years with Roger McGuinn-led Byrds, who scored number 1 hits in the mid-60s with. Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn, Turn, Turn.

Soon after he teamed up with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and, occasionally, Neil Young. Both configurations produce hits like Teach Your Child, Just A Song Before I Go and Wasting on the roadalso fee impassioned protest such as Wooden Ship, Almost Cut My Hair and Ohio.

Crosby also released eight solo albums, beginning with his acclaimed debut If I Could Only Remember My Name in 1971 and the end of 2021 It’s free.

Crosby, more often than not sporting a walrus mustache, built a reputation through his career as one of the most colorful rock characters, a hedonistic connector of artists who lived and amassed in the Laurel Canyon area of ​​Los Angeles in the late 1960s and early 1970s. .

“I couldn’t get the guy out of my mind,” Nash recalled of their initial meeting, at the home of Cass Elliott of Mamas and Papas, in a 2013 book. Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life. “He was such a free spirit, so irreverent … the energy he unleashed was incredible.”

Also, Nash notes, Crosby “has the best dope in Hollywood.”

Crosby proselytized to his famous friends about the young Canadian singer-songwriter he had seen, Joni Mitchell, and dated her for a time as his career was rising.

Success and friction

However, he can anger his peers by being undisciplined and opinionated. The Byrds were fired from the band and they burned bridges with their CSNY partners at the end of their lives.

“David has become impatient,” McGuinn said in a 2019 Cameron Crowe-directed documentary about Crosby’s life. Remember My Name. “He’s hard to hang out with.”

Crosby admits to having a volcanic temper and laments the bridges he burned in the same documentary.

“I still have friends, but all the people who make music with me won’t talk to me,” he said. “One of them hates my guts could be an accident. But McGuinn, Nash, Neil and Stephen all really do not like me, too.”

Crosby is also at a loss to explain how he didn’t become another victim of young rock and roll, whose indulgence threatened to overtake him in the 1970s and 1980s.

He was arrested several times for drug and weapons offenses and imprisoned, while in the 1990s the accumulated numbers in his health required a liver transplant.

Folk rock pioneers for the Woodstock stage

Crosby was born on August 14, 1941 in Los Angeles, to a mother who was described as doting and father – Oscar-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby – met far away. Not an academic, Crosby found expression on stage, experimenting with acting and music.

After some earlier, failed attempts to establish himself as a folksinger, Crosby met McGuinn and early Byrds songwriter Gene Clark, with Michael Clarke and Chris Hillman also joined.

The Byrds electrified the songs of Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger alongside original material, hailed in a growing career as pioneers of folk-rock and country-rock.

Crosby contributed a song girl, why and Morning Draft to the band’s catalog but was shown the door in 1967, shortly after angering his bandmates with an onstage rant about the assassination of John F. Kennedy at the 1967 Monterey Pop festival.

He further landed the following year by teaming up with Nash of Hollies fame and Stills of the now defunct Buffalo Springfield.

Crosby, Stills and Nash’s 1969 debut album is one of the most iconic albums of its era, with Crosby earning songwriting credits on Wooden Ship, No herbs for a long time and Guinevere to go along with the smashes Suite: Judy Blue Eyes and Marrakesh Express.

The trio performed for only the second time in front of hundreds of thousands at Woodstock in August 1969.

“We’re so scared,” Stills said from the stage with his intro.

‘Always a catalyst, always powerful’

To improve his stage acting, Young was invited and met his former bandmate Springfield Stills as a result.

Crosby wrote the title song for the quartet’s 1970 smash Déjà vuwhich includes hits Teach Your Child, Our House and There is no help. The recording was a sad affair for him, as his girlfriend, Christine Hinton, died in a car accident in September 1969.

Young recalled Crosby’s imprint on CSNY decades later in a 2012 book Doing Heavy Peace.

“Crosby has always been a catalyst, always strong, driving us further and further,” said Young. “Just looking at those eyes makes me want to send it from my heart.”

Crosby’s mournful tears color Young’s contribution, Ohioreleased as one just a week after four young people were killed at Kent State University in Ohio after national guardsmen fired indiscriminately when demonstrators showed against the involvement of the US military in Vietnam and Cambodia.

CSNY embarked on one of rock’s earliest stadium tours in 1974, and without Young recorded the well-received CSN album in 1977, featuring top 10 hits. Just A Song Before I Go.

But Crosby was soon in a downward spiral, with Timothy B. Schmit singing the part intended for him in the 1982 single Wasted on the Way.

“When he started taking dives it was terrible to see. There was nothing we could do to stop him,” Wrote Young in the 2012 book, going to describe the incident in the otherwise idyllic sailing excursion where Crosby felt the compulsion to. freebase cocaine.

Revelation, respect in the ’90s

Crosby, wan and severely overweight, was sentenced to five years in prison in 1983, the lawyer who unsuccessfully argued him in the illegal possession of a gun because of the murder of John Lennon three years earlier.

Crosby ended up serving seven months behind bars before moving to a halfway house, years later saying prison “saved my life,” along with his marriage to wife Jan in 1987 and subsequent drug rehab meetings. He would also form a professional bond and relationship as a musician with his adult son, James, who was unknown until the 1990s.

The Byrds were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, with Crosby, Stills and Nash receiving the same honor six years later.

“For a guy who died a few years ago, I’m pretty good,” Crosby said at his last rites.

Meanwhile, it was learned a few years later that Crosby had been a sperm donor for two children born in the 1990s to singer Melissa Etheridge and her partner Julie Cypher.

CSNY had released albums in 1986 and 1999 that received muted responses.

The group’s 2006 Freedom of Speech tour came at a time of heightened concern over US military operations in Iraq. While most fans welcomed them back, Nash later wrote in his book that it was also the first time the group “had people walk out of a CSNY concert” because of politics.

While Crosby collaborated in recent years with artists such as Jason Isbell, Jonathan Wilson and John Mayer, the old friends vowed to reunite.

Crosby was caught publicly disparaging Young’s wife, actor Daryl Hannah, who has ended up in turmoil for his relationship with Crosby’s friend, Jackson Browne. Nash commented shortly after in an interview that Crosby had “torn the heart out of CSN and CSNY” as a result.

He continues to benefit various environmental and charitable causes, and lends his name to marijuana business ventures.