David Crosby, rock legend and master of harmony, dead at age 81
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[January 20, 2023]
By Diane Bartz
(Reuters) - David Crosby, one of the most influential rock musicians of
the 1960s and '70s and who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of
Fame with two different groups, has died at the age of 81.
Crosby was a founding member of two revered rock bands: the country and
folk-influenced Byrds, for whom he cowrote the hit "Eight Miles High,"
and Crosby, Stills & Nash, later Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, who
defined the smooth side of the Woodstock generation's music.
"It is with a deep and profound sadness that I learned that my friend
David Crosby has passed," Graham Nash, his longtime collaborator and
sometime sparring partner, said in a statement.
"I know people tend to focus on how volatile our relationship has been
at times, but what has always mattered to David and me more than
anything was the pure joy of the music we created together ... and the
deep friendship we shared," Nash said.
Crosby's wife, Jan Dance, announced the death in a statement published
by Variety. It did not specify when he died, nor the cause. Crosby's
British-based representatives could not immediately be reached for
comment by Reuters.
Musically, Crosby stood out for his intricate vocal harmonies,
unorthodox open tunings on guitar and incisive songwriting. His work
with both the Byrds and CSN/CSNY blended rock and folk in new ways, and
their music became a part of the soundtrack for the hippie era.
"I don't know what to say other than I'm heartbroken to hear about David
Crosby. David was an unbelievable talent - such a great singer and
songwriter. And a wonderful person," Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson said
on Twitter.
Personally, Crosby was the embodiment of the credo "sex, drugs and rock
'n' roll," and a 2014 Rolling Stone magazine article tagged him "rock's
unlikeliest survivor."
In addition to drug addictions that ultimately led to a transplant to
replace a liver worn out by decades of excess, his tumultuous life
included a serious motorcycle accident, the death of a girlfriend, and
battles against hepatitis C and diabetes.
"I'm concerned that the time I've got here is so short, and I'm pissed
at myself, deeply, for the 10 years - at least - of time that I wasted
just getting smashed," Crosby told the Los Angeles Times in July 2019.
"I'm ashamed of that."
He fell "as low as a human being can go," Crosby told the Times.
He also managed to alienate many of his famous former bandmates, for
which he often expressed remorse in recent years.
His drug habits and often abrasive personality contributed to the demise
of CSNY and the members eventually quit speaking to each other. In the
2019 documentary "David Crosby: Remember My Name," he made clear he
hoped they could work together again, but conceded the others "really
dislike me, strongly."
Crosby fathered six children - two as a sperm donor to rocker Melissa
Etheridge's partner and another who was placed for adoption at birth and
did not meet Crosby until he was in his 30s. That son, James Raymond,
would eventually become his musical collaborator.
"Thank you @thedavidcrosby I will miss you my friend," Etheridge said on
Twitter alongside a photo of the two of them.
Looking back at the turbulent 1960s and his life, Crosby told Time
magazine in 2006: "We were right about civil rights; we were right about
human rights; we were right about peace being better than war ... But I
think we didn't know our butt from a hole in the ground about drugs and
that bit us pretty hard."
Crosby was born on Aug. 14, 1941, in Los Angeles. His father was a
cinematographer who won a Golden Globe for "High Noon" in 1952 and his
mother exposed him to the folk group the Weavers and to classical music.
MUSIC AND WOMEN
As a teenager, Crosby found that one of his passions aided him in the
pursuit of another. "It (playing music) was absolutely joyous to me," he
wrote. "I always loved it. I always will love it. And I did get laid."
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Neil Young, Graham Nash, David Crosby,
and Stephen Stills of the band Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young pose
at a press conference in New York, U.S. October 12, 1999.
REUTERS/Peter Morgan
After a stay in New York's Greenwich
Village music scene, Crosby was back in California in 1963 and
helped Roger McGuinn start the Byrds, whose first hit, a cover of
Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man," came in 1965, followed by "Turn!
Turn! Turn!"
Crosby was kicked out of the Byrds because the band
did not want to play his songs, with the flashpoint being "Triad,"
about a menage a trois, and disputes over on-stage political rants.
Crosby and Stephen Stills, whose band with Neil Young, Buffalo
Springfield, had fallen apart, then began playing together. Graham
Nash of the Hollies, who met Crosby in 1966 and went on to become
his closest collaborator and a closer friend, joined them. Their
first album, "Crosby, Stills and Nash," was a big seller in 1969.
Guitarist and singer/songwriter Young fell in with them that year
and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young came to be considered one of the
greatest amalgams of talent in rock history.
Their second performance together was the landmark Woodstock music
festival in 1969, and their 1970 album, "Deja Vu" contained hits
"Teach Your Children," "Woodstock," and one of Crosby's signature
songs, "Almost Cut My Hair."
GIRLFRIEND'S DEATH
As CSNY was taking off, Crosby was in a drug-fueled downward spiral
caused by the 1969 death of girlfriend Christine Hinton in a car
accident.
"Nothing in my life had prepared me for that," wrote Crosby, who had
added cocaine and heroin to his drug repertoire.
The next decade was a blur of drug arrests, album releases and
women. "I was not into being monogamous - I made that plain to
everybody concerned. I was a complete and utter pleasure-seeking
sybarite," he wrote in his autobiography.
Crosby had a daughter with a girlfriend but soon left her for Jan
Dance, who moved in with him in 1978. That relationship lasted and
they had a son, Django, in 1995.
Crosby introduced Dance to heroin and the free-basing method of
smoking cocaine. "We went down the tubes together but we did it with
our hearts intertwined," he wrote.
There were several failed attempts at rehab and Crosby developed a
reputation as a bloated, hapless addict. In 1985, Nash told Rolling
Stone: "I've tried everything - extreme anger, extreme compassion.
I've gotten 20 of his best friends in the same room with him. I've
tried hanging out with him. I've tried not hanging out with him."
Crosby beat a series of drug charges but lost in Texas after being
arrested with a drug pipe and gun at a club in Dallas and went to
prison in 1985. The prison system required him to shave his
trademark bushy mustache, but he found solace in playing in the
prison band during his year of incarceration.
After his release, Crosby told People magazine he had beaten his
addictions.
He was also arrested on gun and marijuana charges in New York in
2004.
In 2014 he released "Croz," his first solo album since 1993, but his
tour to promote the record was interrupted in February by heart
surgery.
He continued recording and was an active presence on Twitter, in
addition to writing an advice column for Rolling Stone.
In March 2021, the Guardian reported that Crosby sold the recorded
music and publishing rights to his entire music catalog to Irving
Azoff's Iconic Artists Group for an undisclosed sum.
(Writing and reporting by Diane Bartz; Additional reporting by
Ismail Shakil, Caitlin Webber and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill
Trott, Matthew Lewis and Bill Berkrot)
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