January 19, 2023

David Crosby, a musician and character that I found fascinating, frustrating, confounding and brilliant, has died. Given his myriad health problems — much of them self-inflicted through years of heavy drug use — one wonders how he made it to 81. Regardless, I’m saddened that he’s gone.

I first became aware of Crosby in the Byrds, where he, along with Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark, created a unique and indelible vocal blend that helped define the band. Crosby went on to create even more vocal magic with Crosby, Stills & Nash (with and without Neil Young). His early oddball masterpiece, If I Could Only Remember My Name, was a gauzy but beautiful collection of songs written and performed with various member of the Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, CSNY and Joni Mitchell. If you were a big fan of that album — and I was — it bestowed on you a sort of secret handshake into a stoned community of like-minded music lovers. Back in the day, it seemed that I could personally relate to everyone who owned that album.

Crosby made every musician he worked with sound better with his gorgeous harmonies. He’s on more recorded music (often uncredited) than is commonly  known. Throughout his music career, he was a major presence and an appreciator of talent. In his later years he wrote, recorded and performed with younger musicians who were enamored of his illustrious past and grateful for the creative free rein he gave them. Crosby always let his freak flag fly.

Quick to judge, often temperamental, and naturally cantankerous, he could anger and irritate friends and detractors alike. But David Crosby’s lasting legacy will be the glorious music he made, and that legacy is secure.

RIP, Croz