David Crosby
David Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Crosby joined the Byrds in 1964. The band gave Bob Dylan his first number one hit in April 1965 with "Mr. Tambourine Man". Crosby appeared on the Byrds' first five albums, and produced the original lineup's 1973 reunion album. In 1967 he joined Buffalo Springfield on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival, which contributed to his dismissal from the Byrds. He subsequently formed Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1968 with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash of the Hollies. After the release of their debut album CSN won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist of 1969. Neil Young joined the group for live appearances, their second concert being Woodstock, before recording their second album Déjà Vu. Meant to be a group that could collaborate freely, Crosby and Nash recorded three gold albums in the 1970s, while the core trio of CSN remained active from 1976 until 2016. CSNY reunions took place in each decade from the 1970s through the 2000s.
Songs Crosby wrote or co-wrote include "Lady Friend", "Why", and "Eight Miles High" with the Byrds and "Guinnevere", "Wooden Ships", "Shadow Captain", and "In My Dreams" with Crosby, Stills & Nash. He wrote "Almost Cut My Hair" and the title track "Déjà Vu" for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's 1970 album. He is known for his use of alternate guitar tunings and jazz influences. He has released six solo albums, five of which have charted. Additionally he formed a jazz influenced trio with his son James Raymond and guitarist Jeff Pevar in CPR. Crosby's work with the Byrds and CSN has sold over 35 million albums.
Crosby has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: once for his work in the Byrds and again for his work with CSN. Five albums he contributed to are included in Rolling Stones The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, three with the Byrds and two with CSN. He is outspoken politically and has been depicted as emblematic of the 1960s' counterculture.
Crosby is the subject of the 2019 documentary , which was produced by Cameron Crowe.
Early years
David Van Cortlandt Crosby was born in Los Angeles, California. His parents were Aliph Van Cortlandt Whitehead and Floyd Crosby, an Academy Award–winning cinematographer and descendant of the Van Rensselaer family. He is also the younger brother of musician Ethan Crosby. Growing up in California, he attended several schools, including the University Elementary School in Los Angeles, the Crane Country Day School in Montecito, and Laguna Blanca School in Santa Barbara for the rest of his elementary school and junior high. At Crane, he starred in HMS Pinafore and other musicals but was asked not to return because of his lack of academic progress. He graduated from the Cate School in Carpinteria, completing his secondary studies by correspondence. In 1960, his parents divorced, and his father remarried Betty Andrews Crosby.Crosby briefly studied drama at Santa Barbara City College before dropping out to pursue a career in music. He performed with singer Terry Callier in Chicago and Greenwich Village, but the duo failed to obtain a recording contract. He also performed with Les Baxter's Balladeers around 1962. With the help of producer Jim Dickson, Crosby recorded his first solo session in 1963.
Musical career
1964–1967, 1972–1973: The Byrds
Crosby arrived back in Chicago from New York City to hang out with Terry Callier. On tour and in Chicago at that time was Miriam Makeba and her band, which included multi-instrumentalist Jim McGuinn. Callier introduced McGuinn to Crosby. Crosby joined Jim McGuinn and Gene Clark, who were then named the Jet Set. They were augmented by drummer Michael Clarke, at which point Crosby attempted, unsuccessfully, to play bass. Late in 1964, Chris Hillman joined as bassist, and Crosby relieved Gene Clark of rhythm guitar duties. Through connections that Jim Dickson had with Bob Dylan's publisher, the band obtained a demo acetate disc of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and recorded a version of the song, featuring McGuinn's 12-string guitar as well as McGuinn, Crosby, and Clark's vocal harmonizing. The song turned into a massive hit, reaching number one in the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom during 1965. While McGuinn originated the Byrds' trademark 12-string guitar sound, Crosby was responsible for the soaring harmonies and often unusual phrasing of their songs, but whilst he did not sing lead vocals on either of the first two albums, he sang lead on the bridge in their second single "All I Really Want to Do".In 1966, Gene Clark, who then was the band's primary songwriter, left the group because of stress and this placed all the group's songwriting responsibilities in the hands of McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman. Crosby took the opportunity to hone his craft and soon became a relatively prolific songwriter, collaborating with McGuinn on the uptempo "I See You" and penning the ruminative "What's Happening". His early Byrds efforts also included the 1966 hit "Eight Miles High", and its flip side "Why", co-written with McGuinn.
Because Crosby felt responsible for and was widely credited with popularizing the song "Hey Joe", he persuaded the other members of the Byrds to record it on Fifth Dimension. By Younger Than Yesterday, the Byrds' 1967 album, Crosby began to find his trademark style on songs such as "Renaissance Fair", "Mind Gardens" and "It Happens Each Day"; however, the latter song was omitted from the final album and ultimately restored as a bonus track on a 1996 remastered edition. The album also contained a rerecording of "Why" and "Everybody's Been Burned", a jazzy torch song from Crosby's pre-Byrds repertoire that was initially demoed in 1963.
Friction between Crosby and the other Byrds came to a head in mid-1967. Tensions were high after the Monterey Pop Festival in June, when Crosby's onstage political diatribes between songs elicited rancor from McGuinn and Hillman. He further annoyed his bandmates when, at the invitation of Stephen Stills, he substituted for an absent Neil Young during Buffalo Springfield's set the following night. The internal conflict boiled over during the initial recording sessions for The Notorious Byrd Brothers that summer, where differences over song selections led to intra-band arguments. In particular, Crosby was adamant that the band should record only original material despite the recent commercial failure of "Lady Friend", a Crosby-penned single that stalled at No. 82 on the American charts following its release in July. McGuinn and Hillman dismissed Crosby in October after he refused to countenance the recording of a cover of Goffin and King's "Goin' Back". While Crosby contributed to three compositions and five recordings on the final album, his controversial menage-a-trois ode "Triad" was omitted; Jefferson Airplane released a Grace Slick-sung cover on Crown of Creation ; three years later, Crosby released a solo acoustic version on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's double live album Four Way Street ; the Byrds' version appeared decades later on the 1988 Never Before release and later on the CD re-release of The Notorious Byrd Brothers.
In 1973, Crosby reunited with the original Byrds for the album Byrds, with Crosby acting as the album's producer. The album charted well but was generally not perceived to be a critical success. It marked the final artistic collaboration of the original band.
1968–1970, 1973, 1974, 1976-2016: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Around the time of Crosby's departure from the Byrds, he met a recently unemployed Stephen Stills at a party at the home of Cass Elliot in California in March 1968, and the two started meeting informally and jamming together. They were soon joined by Graham Nash, who would leave his commercially successful group the Hollies to play with Crosby and Stills. Their appearance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in August 1969 constituted their second live performance ever.Their first album, Crosby, Stills & Nash, was an immediate hit, spawning two Top 40 hit singles and receiving key airplay on the new FM radio format, in its early days populated by unfettered disc jockeys who then had the option of playing entire albums at once.
The songs Crosby wrote while in CSN include "Guinnevere", "Almost Cut My Hair", "Long Time Gone", and "Delta". He also co-wrote "Wooden Ships" with Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane and Stephen Stills.
In 1969, Neil Young joined the group, and with him they recorded the album Déjà Vu, which peaked at number 1 on the Billboard 200 and the ARIA Charts. On 30 September 1969, Crosby's longtime girlfriend Christine Hinton was killed in a car accident only days after Hinton, Crosby, and Debbie Donovan moved from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. Crosby was devastated, and he began abusing drugs more severely than he had before. Nevertheless, he still managed to contribute "Almost Cut My Hair" and the title track, "Déjà Vu". After the release of the double live album Four Way Street, the group went on a temporary hiatus to focus on their respective solo careers.
In December 1969, Crosby appeared with CSNY at the Altamont Free Concert, increasing his visibility after also having performed at Monterey Pop and Woodstock. At the beginning of 1970, he briefly joined with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart from Grateful Dead, billed as "David and the Dorks", and making a live recording at the Matrix on December 15, 1970.
CSNY reunited in the summer of 1973 for unsuccessful recording sessions in Maui and Los Angeles. Despite lingering acrimony, they reconvened at a Stills concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco in October. This served as a prelude to their highly successful stadium tour in the summer of 1974. Following the tour, the foursome attempted once again to record a new album, provisionally entitled Human Highway. The recording sessions, which took place at The Record Plant in Sausalito, were very unpleasant, marked by constant bickering. The bickering eventually became too much, and the album was canceled.
In rehearsals for the 1974 tour, CSNY recorded a then-unreleased Crosby song, "Little Blind Fish". A different version of the song would appear on the second CPR album more than two decades later. The 1974 tour was also affected by bickering, though they managed to finish it without interruption. A greatest hits compilation entitled So Far was released during 1974 to capitalize on the foursome's reunion tour.
In 1976, as separate duos, Crosby & Nash and Stills & Young were both working on respective albums and contemplated retooling their work to produce a CSNY album. This attempt ended bitterly as Stills and Young deleted Crosby and Nash's vocals from their album Long May You Run.
CSNY did not perform together again as a foursome until Live Aid in Philadelphia in 1985, and then performed only sporadically in the 1980s and 1990s. Without Young, however, Crosby, Stills & Nash has performed much more consistently since its reformation in 1977. The trio toured in support of their 1977 and 1982 albums CSN and Daylight Again and then, starting in the late 1980s, has toured regularly year after year. The group continued to perform live, and since 1982 released four albums of new material: American Dream, Live It Up, After The Storm, and Looking Forward. In addition, Crosby & Nash released the self-titled album Crosby & Nash in 2004.
Full-scale CSNY tours took place in 2000, 2002, and 2006.
Crosby, Stills, and Nash appeared together on a 2008 episode of The Colbert Report, and "Neil Young" joined them during the musical performance at the end of the episode. However, eventually, it became clear that it was only Stephen Colbert impersonating Young as the group sang "Teach Your Children".
Following a November 2015 interview in which he stated he still hoped the band had a future, Nash announced on March 6, 2016, that Crosby, Stills & Nash would never perform again because of his poor relations with Crosby.
1971–present: Solo career and Crosby & Nash
In 1971, Crosby released his first solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name, featuring contributions by Nash, Young, Joni Mitchell, and members of Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Santana. Panned on release by Rolling Stone, it has been reappraised amid the emergence of the freak folk and New Weird America movements and remains in print. In a 2010 list of the Best Albums published by the Vatican City newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, If I Could Only Remember My Name came in second to the Beatles', Revolver., Stanford University
As a duo, Crosby & Nash have released four studio albums and two live albums, including Another Stoney Evening, which features the duo in a 1971 acoustic performance with no supporting band. Crosby songs recorded by C&N in the 1970s include "Whole Cloth", "Where Will I Be?", "Page 43", "Games", "The Wall Song", "Carry Me", "Bittersweet", "Naked in the Rain", "Low Down Payment", "Homeward Through the Haze", "Time After Time", "Dancer", "Taken at All" and "Foolish Man". During the mid-1970s, Crosby and Nash enjoyed lucrative careers as session musicians, with both performers contributing harmonies and background vocals to albums by Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Dave Mason, Rick Roberts, James Taylor, Art Garfunkel, J.D. Souther, Carole King, Elton John, and Gary Wright.
Renewing his ties to the San Francisco milieu that had abetted so well on his solo album, Crosby sang backup vocals on several Paul Kantner and Grace Slick albums from 1971 through 1974 and the Hot Tuna album Burgers in 1972. He also participated in composer Ned Lagin's proto-ambient project Seastones along with members of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Starship.
Crosby worked with Phil Collins occasionally from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. He sang backup to Collins in "That's Just the Way It Is" and "Another Day in Paradise", and, on his own 1993 song, "Hero", from his album Thousand Roads, Collins sang backup. In 1992, Crosby sang backup on the album Rites of Passage with the Indigo Girls on tracks 2 and 12. In 1999, he appeared on ', singing a duet of the title track with Lucinda Williams.
In 2006, Crosby and Nash worked with David Gilmour as backing vocalists on the latter's third solo album, On an Island. The album was released in March 2006 and reached number 1 on the UK charts. They also performed live with Gilmour in his concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in May 2006 and toured together in the United States, as can be seen on Gilmour's 2007 DVD Remember That Night. They also sang backup on the title track of John Mayer's 2012 album Born And Raised.
In January 2014, Crosby released his first solo album in 20 years, Croz, recorded in close collaboration with his son James Raymond at the latter's home studio.
On July 14, 2016, Crosby announced a new solo album named Lighthouse released on 21 October 2016, and shared a new track from it titled "Things We Do For Love". The album is a collaboration with Michael League of the big band Snarky Puppy.
On August 26, 2016, Crosby announced a U.S. tour behind his upcoming fifth solo LP, an 18-date trek to launch on November 18, 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia and to conclude on December 16, 2016 in Ithaca, New York. He also spoke out against Donald Trump during his campaign.
In September 2017, Crosby announced a solo album entitled Sky Trails, again with Raymond, to be released on September 29, 2017 on BMG.
In April 2018, Crosby appeared on NPR's Live From Here, playing duets with host Chris Thile.
On October 26, 2018, Crosby released Here If You Listen on BMG, his fourth album in five years. The album features the Lighthouse Band, made up of Crosby, Michael League, Becca Stevens, and Michelle Willis. The band also toured for six weeks in December 2018 and January 2019. Crosby met League on Twitter.
Crosby was the subject of the documentary film ' which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Crosby mentioned that Cameron Crowe, who asked the interview questions for the film, knew "where the bones are buried."
As David Crosby & Friends, his band was set to tour from May to September 2019.
1996–2004: CPR
In 1996, Crosby formed CPR or Crosby, Pevar & Raymond with session guitarist Jeff Pevar, and pianist James Raymond, Crosby's son. The group released two studio albums and two live albums before disbanding in 2004.The first song that Crosby and Raymond co-wrote, "Morrison", was performed live for the first time in January 1997. The song recalled Crosby's feelings about the portrayal of Jim Morrison in the movie The Doors. The success of the 1997 tour spawned a record project, Live at Cuesta College, released in March 1998. There is a second CPR studio record, Just Like Gravity, and another live recording, Live at the Wiltern, recorded at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, which also features Phil Collins and Graham Nash.
After the group split, Raymond has continued to perform with Crosby as part of the touring bands for C&N and CSN, as well as on solo Crosby projects, including 2014's Croz and the subsequent tour, for which he served as musical director. Jeff Pevar has toured with many artists over his productive career, including CSN, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Marc Cohn, Phil Lesh & Friends, Jazz Is Dead, Rickie Lee Jones, Jefferson Starship and Bette Midler. Pevar has a solo record, From the Core, which was improvised and recorded in the Oregon Caves and features the vocalist from Yes, Jon Anderson.
Crosby reunited with the other two members of CPR in 2018 performing a series of shows in support of Crosby's new album Skytrails. The reunited band performed as David Crosby & Friends.
Personal life
Family
Crosby, then 45, married Jan Dance, then 35, in May 1987 at the Hollywood Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles. His bandmate Stephen Stills gave away the bride.Crosby had a biological son, James Raymond, in 1962, who was placed for adoption and reunited with Crosby as an adult. Since 1997, Raymond has performed with Crosby on stage and in the studio, as a member of CPR and as part of the touring bands for Crosby & Nash and Crosby, Stills & Nash. In addition, Crosby has three other children: a daughter, Erika, with Jackie Guthrie, a daughter, Donovan Crosby, with former girlfriend Debbie Donovan and a son, Django Crosby, who was conceived with wife Jan Dance after extensive fertility treatments while Crosby's liver was failing.
In January 2000, Melissa Etheridge announced that Crosby was the sperm donor of two children with her then partner Julie Cypher by means of artificial insemination. On May 13, 2020, Etheridge announced on her Twitter that her and Cypher's son Beckett had died of causes related to opioid addiction at the age of 21.
Crosby's brother Ethan, who taught him to play guitar and started his musical career with him, committed suicide in late 1997 or early 1998; the date is unknown because Ethan left a note not to search for his body but to let him return to the earth. His body was found months later in May 1998.
Cannabis brand
In 2019, Crosby and entrepreneur Steven Sponder announced plans to develop a cannabis brand called "Mighty Croz" with the intent of licensing Crosby's name and image to a cannabis company. They also intend to license Crosby's name and image to a CBD company. Crosby, a 50+ year cannabis connoisseur, suffers from chronic shoulder pain and credits cannabis and the anti-inflammatory effects of CBD with easing his pain. He also credits cannabis with being a contributor to his creative process of songwriting stating "All those songs, every one of them, I wrote on marijuana." Crosby recently developed an ultra-high THC cannabis strain called "Mighty Croz". He also serves as a celebrity judge for cannabis events. In 2018, Crosby was invited to join the NORML National Advisory Board national advisory board.Sailing
Following up on a transformative sailing experience when he was 11, Crosby purchased a 59-foot, John Alden–designed schooner named Mayan with his Byrds settlement. On Twitter in 2019, Crosby said that the late Peter Tork of the Monkees loaned him the money to buy the Mayan. In the decades before he sold the boat in 2014, Crosby sailed it thousands of miles in the Pacific and Caribbean. He has credited the Mayan as being a songwriting muse; he wrote some of his best-known songs aboard the boat, including "Wooden Ships," "The Lee Shore," "Page 43," and "Carry Me."Politics
Crosby has been politically active throughout his professional career. He publicly questioned the report of the Warren Commission covering the Assassination of John F. Kennedy onstage during the Byrds' appearance at the Monterey Festival in 1967. He identifies as a pacifist and was a well-known opponent over the US involvement in the Vietnam War, though he has also defended the right to own guns.Crosby has strongly criticized the presidency of Donald Trump, declaring him to be "a dangerous guy who’s got a big ego". For the 2020 presidential election, he said in an interview that Mayor Pete Buttigieg was his favorite candidate for president and that he is smarter than all the others combined; however, he eventually voted for Bernie Sanders.
Acting career
During the early 1990s, Crosby appeared as a guest star in several episodes of The John Larroquette Show, where he played the part of Larroquette's AA sponsor. He appeared on an episode of Roseanne as the singer–husband of one of Roseanne's co-workers, who was played by Bonnie Bramlett. He sang the Danny Sheridan composition "Roll On Down" on that episode. He was on an episode of Ellen called "Ellen Unplugged", in which he was helping out at the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. He also appeared as a pirate in the 1991 film Hook, as a 1970s hippie in the 1991 film Backdraft, and as a bartender in the 1992 feature film Thunderheart.Crosby has also voiced himself on two episodes of The Simpsons, "Marge in Chains" and "Homer's Barbershop Quartet".
Drug, alcohol, and legal issues
In 1985, after being convicted of several drugs and weapons offenses, Crosby spent nine months in a Texas state prison. The drug charges were related to possession of heroin and cocaine.Also in 1985, Crosby was arrested for drunken driving, a hit-and-run driving accident, and possession of a concealed pistol and drug paraphernalia. Crosby was arrested after driving into a fence in a Marin County suburb, where officers found a.45-caliber pistol and cocaine in his car.
On March 7, 2004, Crosby was charged with criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree, illegal possession of a hunting knife, illegal possession of ammunition, and illegal possession of about one ounce of marijuana. Crosby left said items behind in his hotel room. Authorities said a "hotel employee searched the suitcase for identification and found about an ounce of marijuana, rolling papers, two knives and a.45-caliber pistol. Mr. Crosby was arrested when he returned to the hotel to pick up his bag." After spending 12 hours in jail, he was released on $3,500 bail. On July 4, 2004, he pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of a weapon, was fined $5,000 and given no jail time. Prosecutors did not seek a more severe penalty on the weapons charge because the pistol was registered in California and was stowed safely in his luggage when it was found. A charge of unlawful possession of marijuana was dismissed. Crosby was discharged by the court on condition that he pay his fine and not get arrested again.
Health
Crosby was the recipient of a highly publicized liver transplant in 1994, which was paid for by Phil Collins. News of his transplant created some controversy because of his celebrity status and his past problems with drug and alcohol addiction. Crosby's liver problems stemmed from a long run with hepatitis C.Crosby suffers from type 2 diabetes and is being treated with insulin to manage the disease. At a concert in October 2008, Crosby, looking quite thinner than in recent years, announced to the audience that he had recently shed 55 pounds as a result of his struggles with the disease.
In February 2014, at the urging of his doctor, Crosby postponed the final dates of his solo tour in order to undergo a cardiac catheterization and angiogram, based on the results of a routine cardiac stress test.