david crosby, The brash rock musician, who went from baby-faced harmony singer with the Byrds to mustachioed hippie superstar and constant troubadour in Crosby, Stills, Nash & (sometimes) Young, has died at the age of 81, several have reported media on Thursday.
The New York Times reported, based on a text message from Crosby’s sister-in-law, that the musician died Wednesday night. Several media outlets reported Crosby’s death, citing anonymous sources; The Associated Press was unable to reach Crosby’s representative and his widow.
Crosby underwent a liver transplant in 1994 after decades of drug use, surviving diabetes, hepatitis C and heart surgery in his 70s.
While writing only a handful of well-known songs, the witty and always opinionated Crosby was at the forefront of the Cultural Revolution of the ’60s and ’70s – whether triumphing with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young on stage at Woodstock testifying on behalf of a hairy generation in his anthem “Almost Cut My Hair” or mourning the assassination of Robert Kennedy in “Long Time Gone.”
He was the founder and focal point of the Los Angeles rock music community that would later spawn artists such as the Eagles and Jackson Browne. He was a tongue-in-cheek hippie patriarch, the inspiration for Dennis Hopper’s long-haired stoner in Easy Rider. He worked for peace but was an unrepentant loudmouth who practiced personal warfare and admitted that many of the musicians he worked with no longer spoke to him.
“Crosby was a colorful and unpredictable character, wore a Mandrake the Magician cloak, didn’t get along with too many people, and had a beautiful voice – an architect of harmony,” wrote Bob Dylan in his 2004 memoir Chronicles: Volume One. .”
Crosby’s drug use left him bloated, broke and alienated. He quit the addiction in 1985 and 1986 during a year in prison in Texas on drug and gun charges. The conviction was eventually overturned.
“I’ve always said that I picked up the guitar as a shortcut to sex, and after my first joint I was certain that if everyone smoked weed, the war would end,” Crosby said in his 1988 autobiography “Long Time Gone”, co-written with Carl Gottlieb. “I was right about the sex. I was wrong about drugs.”
Living years longer than he expected, he enjoyed a creative renaissance in his 70s, releasing several solo albums and collaborating with others including his son James Raymond, who became a popular songwriting partner.
“Most guys my age would have done a cover record or duets on old material,” he told Rolling Stone in 2013, just before Croz was released. “It won’t be a huge success. Nineteen copies will probably be sold. I don’t think kids will like it, but I’m not doing it for them. i do it for me I’ve got this stuff I need to get off my chest.”
2019 was Crosby Featured in the documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name Produced by Cameron Crowe.
As his solo career thrived, his seemingly lifelong bond with Nash dissolved. Crosby was upset about Nash’s 2013 memoir Wild Tales (whiny and dishonest, as he put it) and relations between the two led to an ugly public feud in which Nash and Crosby shared one thing: Crosby , Stills and Nash were finished. Donald Trump’s election as US President led Crosby to believe he was open to a protest tour by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, but his old bandmates declined to respond.
Crosby was formed in the mid-1960s with the seminal folk-rock group The Byrds, known for hits like ‘Turn! Turn! and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Clean cut and baby-faced by the time, he contributed harmonies that were a key element of the band’s innovative blend of The Beatles and Dylan. Crosby was among the first American stars close to the Beatles and helped introduce George Harrison to Eastern music.
Troubled relationships with bandmates pushed Crosby out of The Byrds and into a new group. The first meeting of Crosby, Stills and Nash is part of rock folklore: Stills and Crosby were at Joni Mitchell’s house in 1968 (Stills would argue they were with Mama Cass) working on the ballad You Don’t Have to Cry “. Nash suggested starting over. Nash’s high harmony added a magical layer to Stills’ rough bottom and Crosby’s soft middle and a supergroup was born.
Their eponymous debut album was an instant success that helped redefine commercial music. The songs were longer and more personal than each of their previous releases, while still being easily relatable to audiences that are also adopting a more open-minded lifestyle.
Her spirited harmonies and themes of peace and love became emblematic of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their version of the Mitchell song “Woodstock” was the subject of the documentary about the 1969 rock concert, which was only the second time the group performed live together. Crosby produced Mitchell’s debut album, Song to a Seagull, in 1968 and was her boyfriend for a time (as was Nash).
Now sporting the droopy, bushy mustache that would forever define him, Crosby provided harmony and rhythm guitar, and his songs reflected his own erratic personality. They ranged from the foggy romance of “Guinevere” to the spirituality of “Deja Vu” to the operatic paranoia of “Almost Cut My Hair.”
Some critics called the group soft-headed and complacent.
“If you like living room rock, fireplace harmonies and just a taste of good old-fashioned social awareness, this is the place for you,” reported Rolling Stone, who nevertheless rarely missed the opportunity to write about the band.
But CSN, as they would soon be known, won a Grammy for Best New Artist and remained a globally touring act and brand name for decades to come.
The first album was a simple, happy recording, but the mood darkened during the second album, Deja Vu. The band was recorded by Neil Young, who had feuded with Stills while both were at Buffalo Springfield and continued to do so.
Everyone in the band was concerned: Nash and Mitchell split, as did Stills and singer Judy Collins. Crosby, on the other hand, was so devastated by the death of his girlfriend Christine Hinton in a car accident that he lay on the studio floor and sobbed.
With a rawer, less consistent sound, the album was released in 1970 and was another commercial hit. But within two years, the quartet had disintegrated, destined to reunite and fragment again and again for the rest of their lives.
They worked in all possible combinations – as solo artists, as duos, trios and occasionally all four together. They played in stadiums and clubs. she appeared at the Berlin Wall in 1989 as the Cold War ended and surfaced for the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York in 2011.
Often touring in recent years, Crosby has answered questions openly and honestly on Twitter with a mixture of affection and desperation, whether it’s commenting on fellow rock stars or judging the quality of a fan’s marijuana joint. He loved sailing and his biggest regret, other than hard drugs, was selling his 74-foot boat due to money problems. Among the songs completed on the boat was the classic “Wooden Ships” co-written with Paul Kantner of Stills and Jefferson Airplane.
Crosby was born David Van Cortlandt Crosby on August 14, 1941 in Los Angeles. His father was Oscar-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby from High Noon. The family, including his mother Aliph and brother Floyd Jr., later moved to Santa Barbara.
Crosby was exposed to classical, folk and jazz music at an early age. In his autobiography, Crosby said that as a child he harmonized while his mother sang, his father played the mandolin and his brother played the guitar.
“I wasn’t there when rock ‘n’ roll came along and the Elvis era swept America around that time,” he recalls.
His brother taught him to play the guitar, and while still a teenager he began performing in Santa Barbara’s clubs. He moved to Los Angeles in 1960 to study acting but gave up the idea and became a folk singer, working across the country before joining The Byrds. Like so many folk artists, Crosby was dazzled by the 1964 Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night and determined to be a rock star.
crosby married longtime friend Jan Dance 1987. The couple had a son, Django, in 1995. Crosby also had a daughter, Donovan, with Debbie Donovan. Shortly after undergoing a liver transplant, Crosby was reunited with Raymond, who had been put up for adoption in 1961. Raymond, Crosby and Jeff Pevar later performed together in a group called CPR.
“I’ve regretted losing him many times,” Crosby told Raymond’s AP in 1998. “I was too immature to raise anyone and too irresponsible.”
In 2000, Melissa Etheridge revealed that Crosby was the father of two children she shared with then-partner Julie Cypher. Cypher carried the children Crosby fathered through artificial insemination, Etheridge told Rolling Stone. A son, Beckett, died in 2020.
Crosby didn’t help raise the kids, but said, “If in due course they’re remotely proud of who their genetic father is, that’s great.”
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AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed reporting from New York.
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