The Return of David Crosby

By ROB PATTERSON

Not all that long ago I’d basically written off David Crosby. His drug addictions, which landed him in jail, made him a poster boy for the dangers of 1960s hippie excess, man. He was a freaking mess.

Sometimes one shouldn’t jump to conclusions. And we should always keep an open mind. Because these days I happen to think that Crosby is the coolest.

That’s how it started out in my youth. From the moment I first heard “Mr. Tambourine Man” by The Byrds I was enraptured. Part of the charms was Crosby’s heavenly-high harmony singing. This former choirboy has been singing along with him at the top of my range ever since. The first Crosby, Stills & Nash album, which I initially heard the day after my first acid trip, still in a highly psychedelic state, remains one of the most lusciously beautiful recordings I have ever heard (and it’s not just due to the LSD). Again, Crosby’s soaring harmonies were like wings that helped lift the music to soaring heights.

Back in the love, peace and sweet human harmony hippie years, Crosby could be – ahem – difficult. The Byrds booted him from the band. At the same time as he maybe bought into the countercultural dreams and ideals just a bit too much – witness “Wooden Ships,” a song he co-wrote with Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane, albeit a song I enjoy – he could be acidic, acerbic, arrogant, self absorbed and indulgent, strident even when espousing political and philosophical opinions I totally agree with, to name some but hardly all of his issues.

By the mid-1980s he was strung out on cocaine and heroin, busted a few times over the next decade, and beset with health issues. It looked like he might well be down and out.

But then Crosby got sober, and I don’t just mean free of substance abuse (he still smokes marijuana and is an advocate for the salubrious effects of THC). His sobriety shows the honesty and integrity of someone who had genuinely “worked,” as they say it, his Fourth Step of the AA 12 Steps: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

This was clear when, in a recent music documentary I watched (I forget exactly which one), Crosby said of a situation that went awry, “Because I was an asshole.” Such blunt honesty speaks well for him.

What also makes the case for Crosby being better than ever is the music he’s been recording in recent years, as exemplified by his most recent release, For Free. The Joni Mitchell-penned title tune is a song he did before on the 1973 Byrds reunion album that was a high point on an admittedly disappointing long-player. The version on this new album, on which he sings with Sarah Jarosz, leaves the previous take in the dust – a luscious, stirring track, indeed. The rest of the disc finds Crosby in fine voice writing strong songs with sometimes inventive chord structures and grooves marked by jazz inflections, as he did decades ago with The Byrds. It’s produced by James Raymond, the son he gave up for adoption in 1962 and later reunited with, a musician and songwriter who has proven himself a gifted collaborator with his father.

Sadly, his former best friend and musical mate Graham Nash no longer speaks to Crosby, and it’s best to set aside any longing for a CS&N or CSNY reunion. Their loss more than ours. He’s doing superb musical work on his own and even writes a delightfully-sensible advice column for Rolling Stone magazine, “Ask Croz.” There’s few things more satisfying to a music lover like me than witnessing an artist and person I’d given up on rebound brilliantly. To borrow and adapt a phrase from a song by his former bandmate Neil Young: Long may he run.

Populist Picks

Music Album: “Downhill from Everywhere” by Jackson Browne – Crosby’s 1970s Southern California peer Browne largely returns to his fine form that made his early albums such compelling masterworks. This set may not be a stunner like Browne’s records were in his heyday, but it does feature what may be his best political song in the title tune and a set of of strong tunes that are a joy to listen to, rich with the poetry, melody and wisdom that are his trademarks, plus a few new Latin music accents he wields well.

TV Documentary: “The Sons of Sam: A Descent Into Darkness – I lived in New York City during the Son of Sam murder case, and there were matters after David Berkowitz confessed that did not sit right with me. This four-episode examination follows the trail of a journalist who believes Berkowitz did not act alone, and raises significant questions on the matter.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 1, 2021

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