Media: rock legend David Crosby dies

LOS ANGELES – David Crosby, the brash rock musician who went from baby-faced harmony singer with the Byrds to mustachioed hippie superstar and regular troubadour in Crosby, Stills, Nash & (sometimes) Young, has died at age 81, multiple media reports reported 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 on Crosby’s death, citing anonymous sources; The Associated Press was unable to confirm Crosby’s death despite calls and messages to several representatives and Crosby’s widow.

Crosby underwent a liver transplant in 1994 after decades of drug use and survived diabetes, hepatitis C, and heart surgery into his 70s.

Though he wrote only a handful of widely acclaimed songs, the witty and always self-confident Crosby was at the forefront of the cultural revolution of the 60s and 70s – whether triumphant with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young on the Woodstock stage, testifying on behalf of the hairy generation in their hymn “Almost cut my hair” or mourning the assassination of Robert Kennedy in “Long Gone”.

He was the founder and center of the Los Angeles rock music community from which the Eagles and Jackson Browne would later emerge. He was the winking hippie patriarch, the prototype for the long-haired stoner Dennis Hopper in “Bespisty Rider.” He advocated for peace, but was an unrepentant screamer who fought a personal war and admitted that many of the musicians he worked with no longer spoke to him.

“Crosby was a colorful and unpredictable character, wore the cloak of the wizard Mandrake, didn’t get along with too many people, and had a great voice—the architect of harmony,” Bob Dylan wrote in his 2004 memoir, The Chronicle: Volume One. “.

Crosby’s drug use left him bloated, broken and aloof. He recovered from addiction in 1985 and 1986 during a year-long prison sentence in Texas on drug and weapons charges. In the end, the verdict was overturned.

“I always said I took the guitar as a shortcut to sex, and after the first joint I was sure that if everyone smoked marijuana, the war would end,” Crosby said in his 1988 autobiography, A Long Time. Gone”, co-authored with Carl Gottlieb. “I was right about the sex. I was wrong when it came to drugs.”

He lived years longer than he even expected and experienced a creative renaissance in his 70s, releasing several solo albums while collaborating with others, including his son James Raymond, who became a favorite songwriting partner.

“Most guys my age would do covers or duets of old stuff,” he told Rolling Stone in 2013, shortly before Croz was released. “It won’t be a huge hit. Probably nineteen copies will be sold. I don’t think kids will like it, but I don’t do it for them. I do it for myself. I have something I need to get rid of my breasts.”

In 2019, Crosby starred in the documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name, produced by Cameron Crowe.

While his solo career flourished, his seemingly lifelong association with Nash fell apart. Crosby was outraged by Nash’s 2013 memoir, Wild Tales (weepy and dishonest, as he called it), and the relationship between them degenerated into an ugly public feud when Nash and Crosby agreed on one thing: Crosby, Stills, and Nash are finished. The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States did prompt Crosby to suggest that he was open to the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young protest tour, but his old bandmates refused to respond.

Crosby rose to stardom in the mid-1960s with the original folk-rock band The Byrds, known for such hits as “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Clean and childish at the time, he contributed harmonies that were a key part of The Beatles’ and Dylan’s pioneering blend. Crosby was one of the first American stars to bond with The Beatles, and helped introduce George Harrison to Eastern music.

Difficult relationships with bandmates pushed Crosby out of The Byrds and into a new band. The first meeting between Crosby, Stills, and Nash is part of rock folklore: Stills and Crosby were at Joni Mitchell’s house in 1968 (Stills claimed they were at Mama Cass’s) while working on the ballad “You Don’t Have to Cry” when Nash suggested starting over. Nash’s high harmonies added a magical layer to Stills’ rough bottom and Crosby’s soft mids, and a supergroup was born.

Their self-titled debut album was an instant success that helped redefine commercial music. The songs were longer and more personal than their individual previous works, while still being easily accepted by an audience that also embraced a more open lifestyle.

Their energetic harmonies and themes of peace and love became symbols of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their version of Mitchell’s “Woodstock” was the subject of a documentary about a 1969 rock concert, during which the band played only their second live performance together. Crosby produced Mitchell’s first album “Song to a Seagull” in 1968 and was her boyfriend for a while (as was Nash).

Now with the drooping bushy mustache that would forever define his character, Crosby provided harmony and rhythm guitar, and his songs reflected his fickle nature. They ranged from the hazy romanticism of Guinevere to the spirituality of Deja Vu and the operatic paranoia of Almost Cut My Hair.

Some critics have criticized the band as being flippant and self-indulgent.

“If you like house rock, fireplace harmony and just a taste of the good old social conscience, this is your band,” reported Rolling Stone magazine, which, however, rarely missed an opportunity to write about the group.

But CSN, as they would soon be called, won a Grammy for Best New Artist and continued to tour the world decades later.

The first album was an easy, joyful record, but during the second album “Deja Vu” the mood deteriorated. The group was joined by Neil Young, who had feuded with Stills when both were in Buffalo Springfield and continued to do so.

Everyone in the group was worried: Nash and Mitchell had split up, as did Stills and singer Judy Collins. Meanwhile, Crosby was so devastated by the death of his girlfriend Kristin Hinton in a car accident that he lay on the studio floor sobbing.

An album with a rougher and less solid sound came out in 1970 and became another commercial success. However, within two years the quartet fell apart and was destined to constantly reunite and split for the rest of their lives.

They worked in all possible combinations – as solo performers, as duets, trios, and sometimes all four together. They played in stadiums and clubs. They appeared at the Berlin Wall in 1989 as the Cold War drew to a close, and appeared in 2011 at the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City.

In recent years, Crosby has often toured and candidly answered questions on Twitter with a mixture of affection and annoyance, whether it be comments about a rock star’s peers or an assessment of the quality of a fan’s marijuana joint. He loved sailing and his biggest regret, besides hard drugs, was that he sold his 74-foot boat due to money problems. Among the songs written on the boat was the classic “Wooden Ships”, co-written by Stills and Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane.

Crosby was born David Van Cortlandt Crosby on August 14, 1941 in Los Angeles. His father was Oscar-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, best known for High Noon. The family, including his mother Alif and brother Floyd Jr., later moved to Santa Barbara.

Crosby was exposed early to classical, folk, and jazz music. In his autobiography, Crosby said that he harmonized as a child with his mother singing, his father playing the mandolin, and his brother playing the guitar.

“When rock ‘n’ roll came in that era and the Elvis era took over America, I wasn’t interested in that,” he recalled.

His brother taught him how to play the guitar, and as a teenager he began performing in clubs in Santa Barbara. He moved to Los Angeles to study acting in 1960, but abandoned the idea and became a folk singer working around the country before joining The Byrds. Like many folk singers, Crosby was dazzled by the 1964 Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night and decided to become a rock star.

Crosby married longtime girlfriend Jen Dance in 1987. In 1995, the couple had a son, Django. Crosby also had a daughter, Donovan, with Debbie Donovan. Shortly after his liver transplant, Crosby was reunited with Raymond, who was given up for adoption in 1961. Raymond, Crosby, and Jeff Pevar later performed together in a band called CPR.

“I regretted losing him many times,” Crosby told AP of Raymond in 1998. “I was too immature to educate anyone, and too irresponsible.”

In 2000, Melissa Etheridge revealed that Crosby was the father of two children, whom she shared with then-partner Julie Cypher. Cypher carried children born to Crosby by artificial insemination, Etheridge told Rolling Stone magazine. One son, Beckett, died in 2020.

Crosby did not help raise the children, but said, “If, you know, in their time, at a distance, they’re proud of who their genetic dad is, that’s great.”

AP National journalist Hillel Itali provided a report from New York.