EDIT: Ninja’d by Askance.
Thanks for reporting it. I didn’t think to look in Cafe Society because I thought news of deaths went here. Sigh. Six years on the SDMP and I still haven’t got some of the basics down.
Eh, i think either place would be fine. Let me see if i can combine these…
Crosby wrote “Triad” about a Ménage à trois when he was with the Byrds. They recorded it, but didn’t release it, leading to the ill will that got Crosby fired from the Byrds. He then gave the song to Jefferson Airplane who put it on “Crown of Creation.”
Later, Crosby collaborated with Paul Kantner of the Airplane to write “Wooden Ships,” which was on CSN’s debut album, as well as the Airplane’s “Volunteers.”
According to Wikipedia, Jackson Browne later asked David Crosby, “What about the guys who can’t escape?” - referring to those who get left behind after the wooden ships have set sail. Crosby said, “Well, fuck 'em,” and Browne, taken aback by Crosby’s answer (which Crosby later regretted), wrote his 1973 song "For Everyman.”
All to say Crosby was a brilliant songwriter and singer, who was hard to deal with.
But what the hell? Jeff Beck was hard to deal with, too. And the two of them dying within a week of each other leaves a giant hole in my heart!
RIP!
Damn, I guess he’s been on borrowed time for 30 years. But damn.
I’ve seen him with CSN a dozen times and I saw him at the Stone Pony right at the stage.
He wrote several of my favorite songs. Wooden Ships especially.
He had some talented friends:
I loved his hair.
You know, he almost cut it. But then decided he wanted to let his freak flag fly!
This is worth a look, although it’s not just about Crosby. It made me sad, but these things always do.
RIP. I saw him at a live concert in NYC August 2019 and it was amazing, considering what he’d put his body through, that his voice was still strong:
You know, sometimes I get really sad about the deaths of celebrities who were the icons of my youth. But with David Crosby, given his drug abuse and the liver transplant that saved his life almost 30 years ago, 81 seems like a downright triumph. RIP.
I have an obsession with the 1960s LA music scene and have pretty much read everything that concerns it. There are a handful of people who were the connective tissue in that scene, but the one guy who seemed to have his fingers in everything was David Crosby. Crosby was that guy who wanted to work with everybody, something his band mates often saw as infidelity. If I pick up one of those books, there’s little doubt whose name has the most page numbers after it in the index.
CSN was the first concert I went to. The Daylight Again tour. Good seats too. Good start to my concert history.
I sort of saw him perform with CSN once, in Sept 1984. It was the tour when he was skipping bail to tour, and he was supposedly all messed up from drugs. The band walked on-stage, performed like 2 songs, then David walked off-stage. Most of the rest of the concert was Stills and Nash doing solo performances while the other tried to talk him back on-stage. He did eventually come back for a few songs.
This was my first concert. The Band opened for CSN. In retrospect, I kind of like that things went haywire with Crosby: Things are so much more interesting and memorable when things don’t go according to plan.
The second time I saw them it was with The Band opening. Probably that same tour. I just remember a good concert not a train wreck. I must have caught him on a good day.
Yeah, you probably saw the same tour. They still put on a ‘good concert’. It just wasn’t the concert they had planned. I had a great time, and I learned how kick-ass Stephen Stills is when performing live. Add to that the little story I have about my first concert, and I wouldn’t change a thing.
I sort of them saw them too, at Woodstock.
Thanks, David Crosby!
Crosby, Stills & Nash - Wooden Ships
Crosby, Stills & Nash - Guinnevere
The Byrds - Eight Miles High (cowritten)
This is a great album:
Featured on this album (aside from Crosby obviously) is a who’s who of the 60s California music scene. From Wikipedia:
“Many prominent musicians of that era appear on the record, including Nash, Young, Joni Mitchell, members of the Grateful Dead (most notably Jerry Garcia, who helped to arrange and produce the album)[citation needed], Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Santana.”