Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash founding member David Crosby dies at 81
David Crosby co-founded two rock groups that blazed trails throughout the 1960s.
David Crosby, legendary musician and founding member of two of the most influential folk-rock bands of the ’60s, has passed away. he was 81 years old.
Variety was the first to report the death, citing a statement from Crosby’s wife, Jan Dance.
“It is with great sadness that we lost our beloved David (Croz) Crosby after a long illness. He was lovingly surrounded by his wife and soulmate Jean and son Django. Although he is no longer here, his humanity and kindness, his soul continues to guide and inspire us. His legacy lives on through his legendary music. Know David Peace, Love, and Harmony to all who are and to all those he has touched. We miss him with all our hearts. We ask for your privacy. Thank you for your love and prayers,” Dance wrote.
Crosby is best known for his involvement in the iconic bands Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash & Young.
His career spanned decades and his performance at Woodstock will forever be cemented in music history.
Both Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young blended country, folk and rock sounds with political awareness and harmonious vocals.
The Byrds’ version of “Turn 3/8 Turn 3/8 Turn 3/8” and Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” became standards featuring Crosby’s high-pitched harmonies. From their collaboration with Stills, Nash and Young produced ‘Teach Your Children’, ‘Woodstock’ and ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’.
In addition to his illustrious music career, Crosby was also known for his battle with addiction, and was jailed in 1983 on various drug and weapons charges.
But in the end, Crosby lives a clean, sober life. The story of Crosby’s addiction, arrest, imprisonment, and recovery are all told in the book Long Time He’s Gone, co-authored with Crosby’s friend, writer-director Carl Gottlieb.
During his lifetime, Crosby made headlines for having two children with singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge.
One of those children, Beckett Cypher, sadly passed away in 2020 after struggling with opioid addiction.
In 2019, Crosby starred in the Cameron Crowe-produced documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name.
His solo career was a success, but his seemingly lifelong bond with Nash dissolved. Crosby took offense at Nash’s 2013 memoir “Wild Tales” (which he called capricious and unfaithful), and that Nash and Crosby agreed on his one thing, and that the two of them had a relationship. The relationship devolved into an ugly public feud. With Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States, Crosby suggested he was open to protest tours by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, but his old bandmates refused to respond.
Crosby rose to stardom in the mid-1960s with seminal folk-rock group The Byrds, known for hits like “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “Mr. Tambourine Man”. Neat and baby-faced at the time, he contributed harmonies that were a key part of the innovative blend of The Beatles and Dylan. Crosby was one of the first American stars to become familiar with the Beatles and helped introduce George Harrison to Eastern music.
Due to a troubled relationship with his bandmates, Crosby was kicked out of The Byrds and joined a new group. Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s first meeting is part of The Rock’s Folklore. Nash suggested starting over. Nash’s high harmonies added a layer of magic to Stills’ rough bottoms and Crosby’s mellow middles, and a supergroup was born.
Their eponymous debut album was an immediate success and helped redefine commercial music. The songs were longer and more personal than their previous individual outputs, but they were easily relatable to audiences embracing a more open lifestyle.
Their spirited harmonies and themes of peace and love became iconic in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their version of Mitchell’s song “Woodstock” was the subject of a documentary about a 1969 rock concert in which the group made their second live appearance together. Crosby produced her first Mitchell album, Song to a Seagull, in 1968 and was her boyfriend for a while (as was Nash).
Crosby sported the droopy bushy mustache that would become his signature thereafter, provided harmony and rhythm guitar, and his singing reflected his own volatile personality. They ranged from the hazy romanticism of “Guinevere” to the spirituality of “Deja Vu” to the operatic paranoia of “Almost Cut My Hair.”
Some critics panned the group as soft-headed and complacent.
“If you’re into living room rock, fireplace harmonies, and a taste of good old-fashioned social consciousness, this is your group,” reported Rolling Stone, but still rarely misses an opportunity to write about the band. was.
However, CSN soon got a name, won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist, and maintained its global touring efforts and brand name decades later.
The first album was a carefree and happy recording, but the second album “Deja Vu” darkened the mood. The band was joined by Neil Young, who had feuded with Stills while in Buffalo Springfield and continued to do so.
Everyone in the band was in trouble: Nash and Mitchell were splitting up, as were Stills and singer Judy Collins. I lay down on the studio floor and sobbed.
Released in 1970, the album featured a rougher and disjointed sound and was another commercial hit. Within two years, however, the quartet disbanded, destined to continuously reunite and split up for the rest of their lives.
They worked in every combination possible — as solo artists, duos, trios, and sometimes all four together. They played in stadiums and clubs. They appeared at the Berlin Wall at the end of the Cold War in 1989 and at the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York in 2011.
In recent years, Crosby has toured frequently, commented on fellow rockstars and rated the quality of his fans’ marijuana joints, mixing affection and resentment with candid answers to questions on Twitter. loves sailing and his biggest regret, besides hard drag, was selling his 74 foot boat due to money issues. Among the songs completed on the boat was the classic “Wooden Ships,” co-written with Stills and his Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane.
Crosby was born David Van Cortlandt Crosby on August 14, 1941 in Los Angeles. His father is Oscar-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, best known for “High Noon.” The family, including his mother Arif and brother Floyd Jr., later moved to Santa Barbara.
Crosby had an early exposure to classical, folk and jazz music. In his autobiography, Crosby states that as a child he harmonized with his mother singing, his father playing the mandolin, and his brother playing the guitar.
“When rock and roll came along in that era and the Elvis era was ruling America, I had no interest in it,” he recalls.
His brother taught him to play the guitar, and while still a teenager he began performing in clubs in Santa Barbara. Like many folk performers, Crosby was fascinated by The Beatles’ 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night and became a rock star. decided to become
Crosby married his longtime girlfriend Jan Dance in 1987. The couple had a son, Django, in 1995. Crosby also had a daughter, Donovan, with Debbie Donovan. Shortly after she underwent a liver transplant, Crosby reunited with her adopted son, Raymond, in 1961. Raymond, Crosby and Jeff Her Pieber later performed together in a group she called CPR.
“I regretted losing him many times,” Crosby told Raymond’s Associated Press in 1998.
In 2000, Melissa Etheridge revealed that Crosby was the father of two children he shared with then-partner Julie Cypher. Etheridge told Rolling Stone magazine. In 2020 her one son, Beckett, passed away.
Crosby didn’t help raise the children, but said, “In due time, if they’re far away and proud of who their genetic father is, that’s great.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
