David Crosby facts for kids

Quick facts for kids David Crosby
Crosby in 2019
Born	David Van Cortlandt Crosby (1941-08-14)August 14, 1941 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Died	January 18, 2023(2023-01-18) (aged 81)
Occupation	Singer musician songwriter
Years active	1964–2023
Spouse(s)	Jan Dance ​ (m. 1987)​
Children	4
Musical career
Genres	Rock folk rock psychedelia
Instruments	Vocals guitar
Labels	Atlantic A&M Rhino

David Van Cortlandt Crosby (August 14, 1941 – January 18, 2023) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and producer. He first found fame as a member of The Byrds, with whom he helped pioneer the genres of folk rock and psychedelia in the mid-1960s, and later as part of the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash, who helped popularize the "California sound" of the 1970s. In addition to his music, Crosby was known for his outspoken personality, politics, and personal troubles; he was sometimes depicted as emblematic of the counterculture of the 1960s.

After performing in the folk music scene, Crosby co-founded the Byrds in 1964. They scored their first number-one hit in 1965 with a cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". Crosby appeared on the Byrds' first five albums and the original lineup's 1973 reunion album. In 1968, he formed Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. After the release of their debut album, CSN won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist of 1969. The group later occasionally included Neil Young. The core trio of CSN remained active from 1976 until 2016, and the duo of Crosby & Nash also recorded three gold albums in the 1970s. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) reunions were held in each decade from the 1970s through the 2000s.

Crosby released seven solo albums, albeit sporadically, over the course of his career. His solo debut was 1971's If I Could Only Remember My Name. The last four of his solo albums, beginning with Croz (2014), came in the last decade of his life. Additionally, he formed a jazz-influenced trio with his son James Raymond and guitarist Jeff Pevar in CPR. He also appeared frequently on recordings by other artists, including Joni Mitchell, Jefferson Airplane, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, and David Gilmour.

Crosby's combined work with the Byrds and CSNY has sold over 35 million albums. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: once for his work in the Byrds and again for his work with CSN. Five albums to which he contributed are included in Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", three with the Byrds and two with CSN(Y).

Early years

David Van Cortlandt Crosby was born in Los Angeles, California, second son of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, who formerly worked on Wall Street, and Aliph Van Cortlandt Whitehead, a salesperson at Macy's department store. His father was a relative of the Van Rensselaer family, and his mother—granddaughter of Bishop of Pittsburgh Cortlandt Whitehead—descended from the prominent Van Cortlandt family; they "regularly inhabited the New York society pages before their wedding".

Crosby is the younger brother of musician Ethan Crosby. Growing up in California, he attended several schools, including the University Elementary School in Los Angeles, the Crane Country Day School in Montecito, and Laguna Blanca School in Santa Barbara for the rest of his elementary school and junior high. At Crane, he starred in HMS Pinafore and other musicals but was asked not to return because of his lack of academic progress. Crosby did not graduate from the Cate School in Carpinteria. In 1960, his parents divorced, and his father married Betty Cormack Andrews.

Crosby briefly studied drama at Santa Barbara City College before dropping out to pursue a career in music. He performed with singer Terry Callier in Chicago and Greenwich Village, but the duo failed to obtain a recording contract. He also performed with Les Baxter's Balladeers around 1962. With the help of producer Jim Dickson, Crosby recorded his first solo session in 1963.

Musical career

The Byrds

Crosby arrived back in Chicago from New York City to hang out with Terry Callier. On tour and in Chicago at that time was Miriam Makeba and her band, who knew multi-instrumentalist Jim McGuinn. Callier introduced McGuinn to Crosby. Crosby joined Jim McGuinn (who later changed his name to Roger) and Gene Clark, who were then named the Jet Set. They were augmented by drummer Michael Clarke, at which point Crosby attempted, unsuccessfully, to play bass. Late in 1964, Chris Hillman joined as bassist, and Crosby relieved Gene Clark of rhythm guitar duties. Through connections that Jim Dickson (the Byrds' manager) had with Bob Dylan's publisher, the band obtained a demo acetate disc of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and recorded a version of the song, featuring McGuinn's 12-string guitar as well as McGuinn, Crosby, and Clark's vocal harmonizing. The song turned into a massive hit, reaching number one in the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom during 1965. While McGuinn originated the Byrds' trademark 12-string guitar sound, Crosby was responsible for the soaring harmonies and often unusual phrasing of their songs, but whilst he did not sing lead vocals on either of the first two albums, he sang lead on the bridge in their second single "All I Really Want to Do".

In 1966, Gene Clark, who then was the band's primary songwriter, left the group because of stress and this placed all the group's songwriting responsibilities in the hands of McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman. Crosby took the opportunity to hone his craft and soon became a relatively prolific songwriter, collaborating with McGuinn on the uptempo "I See You" (covered by Yes on their 1969 debut) and penning the ruminative "What's Happening". His early Byrds efforts also included the 1966 hit "Eight Miles High" (to which he contributed one line, while Clark and McGuinn wrote the rest), and its flip side "Why", co-written with McGuinn.

Because Crosby felt responsible for and was widely credited with popularizing the song "Hey Joe", he persuaded the other members of the Byrds to record it on Fifth Dimension. By Younger Than Yesterday, the Byrds' 1967 album, Crosby began to find his trademark style on songs such as "Renaissance Fair" (co-written with McGuinn), "Mind Gardens" and "It Happens Each Day"; however, the latter song was omitted from the final album and ultimately restored as a bonus track on the 1996 remastered edition. The album also contained a rerecording of "Why" and "Everybody's Been Burned", a jazzy torch song from Crosby's pre-Byrds repertoire that was initially demoed in 1963.

Friction between Crosby and the other Byrds came to a head in mid-1967. Tensions were high after the Monterey Pop Festival in June, when Crosby's onstage political diatribes and support of various John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories between songs elicited rancor from McGuinn and Hillman. He further annoyed his bandmates when, at the invitation of Stephen Stills, he substituted for an absent Neil Young during Buffalo Springfield's set the following night. The internal conflict boiled over during the initial recording sessions for The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968) that summer, where differences over song selections led to intra-band arguments. In particular, Crosby was adamant that the band should record only original material despite the recent commercial failure of "Lady Friend", a Crosby-penned single that stalled at No. 82 on the American charts following its release in July. McGuinn and Hillman dismissed Crosby in October after he refused to countenance the recording of a cover of Goffin and King's "Goin' Back". While Crosby contributed to three compositions and five recordings on the final album, his controversial menage-a-trois ode "Triad" was omitted; Jefferson Airplane released a Grace Slick-sung cover on Crown of Creation (1968); three years later, Crosby released a solo acoustic version on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's double live album 4 Way Street (1971); the Byrds' version appeared decades later on the 1988 Never Before release and later on the CD re-release of The Notorious Byrd Brothers.

In 1973, Crosby reunited with the original Byrds for the album Byrds, with Crosby acting as the album's producer. The album charted well (at number 20, their best album showing since their second album) but was generally not perceived to be a critical success. It marked the final artistic collaboration of the original band.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Around the time of Crosby's departure from the Byrds, he met a recently unemployed Stephen Stills at a party at the home of Cass Elliot (of the Mamas and the Papas) in California in March 1968, and the two started meeting informally and jamming together. They were soon joined by Graham Nash, who would leave his commercially successful group the Hollies to play with Crosby and Stills. Their appearance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in August 1969 constituted only their second live performance.

Their first album, Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969), was an immediate hit, spawning two Top 40 hit singles and receiving key airplay on the new FM radio format, in its early days populated by unfettered disc jockeys who then had the option of playing entire albums at once.

The songs Crosby wrote while in CSN include "Guinnevere", "Almost Cut My Hair", "Long Time Gone", and "Delta". He also co-wrote "Wooden Ships" with Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane and Stephen Stills.

In 1969 Neil Young joined the group, and with him, they recorded the album Déjà Vu, which peaked at number 1 on the Billboard 200 and the ARIA Charts. On September 30, 1969, Crosby's longtime girlfriend Christine Hinton was killed in a car accident only days after Hinton, Crosby, and Debbie Donovan moved from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. Crosby was devastated. Nevertheless, he still managed to contribute "Almost Cut My Hair" and the title track, "Déjà Vu". After the release of the double live album 4 Way Street, the group went on a temporary hiatus to focus on their respective solo careers.

In December 1969, Crosby appeared with CSNY at the Altamont Free Concert, increasing his visibility after also having performed at Monterey Pop and Woodstock. At the beginning of 1970, he briefly joined with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart from Grateful Dead, billed as "David and the Dorks", and making a live recording at the Matrix on December 15, 1970.

Crosby in August 1974 with CSN

CSNY reunited in the summer of 1973 for unsuccessful recording sessions in Maui and Los Angeles. Despite lingering acrimony, they reconvened at a Stills concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco in October. This served as a prelude to their highly successful stadium tour in the summer of 1974. Following the tour, the foursome attempted once again to record a new album, provisionally entitled Human Highway. The recording sessions, which took place at The Record Plant in Sausalito, were very unpleasant, marked by constant bickering. The bickering eventually became too much, and the album was canceled.

In rehearsals for the 1974 tour, CSNY recorded a then-unreleased Crosby song, "Little Blind Fish". A different version of the song would appear on the second CPR album more than two decades later. The 1974 tour was also affected by bickering, though they managed to finish it without interruption. A greatest hits compilation entitled So Far was released in 1974 to capitalize on the foursome's reunion tour.

In 1976, as separate duos, Crosby & Nash and Stills & Young were both working on respective albums and contemplated retooling their work to produce a CSNY album. This attempt ended bitterly as Stills and Young deleted Crosby and Nash's vocals from their album Long May You Run.

CSNY did not perform together again as a foursome until Live Aid in Philadelphia in 1985, and then performed only sporadically in the 1980s and 1990s (mainly at the annual Bridge School Benefit organized by Young's wife Pegi). Without Young, however, Crosby, Stills & Nash has performed much more consistently since its reformation in 1977. The trio toured in support of their 1977 and 1982 albums CSN and Daylight Again and then, starting in the late 1980s, has toured regularly year after year. The group continued to perform live, and since 1982 released four albums of new material: American Dream (1988, with Young), Live It Up (1990), After The Storm (1994), and Looking Forward (1999, with Young). In addition, Crosby & Nash released the self-titled album Crosby & Nash in 2004.

Full-scale CSNY tours took place in 2000, 2002, and 2006.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash appeared together on a 2008 episode of The Colbert Report, and "Neil Young" joined them during the musical performance at the end of the episode. However, eventually, it became clear that it was only Stephen Colbert impersonating Young as the group sang "Teach Your Children".

Following a November 2015 interview in which he stated he still hoped the band had a future, Nash announced on March 6, 2016, that Crosby, Stills & Nash would never perform again because of his poor relations with Crosby.

1971–present: Solo career and Crosby & Nash

In 1971, Crosby released his first solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name, featuring contributions by Nash, Young, Joni Mitchell, and members of Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Santana. Panned on release by Rolling Stone, it has been reappraised amid the emergence of the freak folk and New Weird America movements and remains in print. In a 2010 list of the Best Albums published by the Vatican City newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, If I Could Only Remember My Name came in second to the Beatles', Revolver.

Crosby on stage during a 1976 Crosby & Nash show at the Frost Amphitheater, Stanford University

As a duo, Crosby & Nash (C&N) have released four studio albums and two live albums, including Another Stoney Evening, which features the duo in a 1971 acoustic performance with no supporting band. Crosby songs recorded by C&N in the 1970s include "Whole Cloth", "Where Will I Be?", "Page 43", "Games", "The Wall Song", "Carry Me", "Bittersweet", "Naked in the Rain" (co-written with Nash), "Low Down Payment", "Homeward Through the Haze", "Time After Time", "Dancer", "Taken at All" (also co-written with Nash) and "Foolish Man". During the mid-1970s, Crosby and Nash enjoyed lucrative careers as session musicians, with both performers (as a duo and individually) contributing harmonies and background vocals to albums by Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne (whom Crosby had initially championed as an emerging songwriter), Dave Mason, Rick Roberts, James Taylor (most notably "Lighthouse" and "Mexico"), Art Garfunkel, J.D. Souther, Carole King, Elton John, and Gary Wright.

Renewing his ties to the San Francisco milieu that had abetted so well on his solo album, Crosby sang backup vocals on several Paul Kantner and Grace Slick albums from 1971 through 1974 and the Hot Tuna album Burgers in 1972. He also participated in composer Ned Lagin's proto-ambient project Seastones along with members of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Starship.

Crosby worked with Phil Collins occasionally from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. He sang backup to Collins in "That's Just the Way It Is" and "Another Day in Paradise", and, on his own 1993 song, "Hero", from his album Thousand Roads, Collins sang backup. In 1992, Crosby sang backup on the album Rites of Passage with the Indigo Girls on tracks 2 and 12. In 1999, he appeared on Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons, singing a duet of the title track with Lucinda Williams.

In 2006, Crosby and Nash worked with David Gilmour as backing vocalists on the latter's third solo album, On an Island. The album was released in March 2006 and reached number 1 on the UK charts. They also performed live with Gilmour in his concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in May 2006 and toured together in the United States, as can be seen on Gilmour's 2007 DVD Remember That Night. They also sang backup on the title track of John Mayer's 2012 album Born And Raised.

In January 2014, Crosby released his first solo album in 20 years, Croz, recorded in close collaboration with his son James Raymond (of CPR) at the latter's home studio.

On July 14, 2016, Crosby announced a new solo album named Lighthouse,which was released on October 21, 2016, and shared a new track from it titled "Things We Do For Love". The album was produced by Michael League of the big band Snarky Puppy, who he met on Twitter, and also featured contributions by future collaborators Becca Stevens and Michelle Willis. On August 26, 2016, Crosby announced a U.S. tour, an 18-date trek to launch on November 18, 2016, in Atlanta, Georgia and to conclude on December 16, 2016, in Ithaca, New York. He also spoke out against Donald Trump during his campaign.

Crosby and The Sky Trails band, 2018

In September 2017, Crosby announced a solo album (his third one of original material in four years and his sixth in total) entitled Sky Trails, again with Raymond, to be released on September 29, 2017, on BMG.

In April 2018, Crosby appeared on NPR's Live from Here, playing duets with host Chris Thile.

On October 26, 2018, Crosby released Here If You Listen on BMG, his first collaborative album with Michael League, Becca Stevens, and Michelle Willis, all members of the Lighthouse Band. The band also toured for from November to December that same year.

Crosby was the subject of the documentary film David Crosby: Remember My Name which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Crosby mentioned that Cameron Crowe, who asked the interview questions for the film, knew "where the bones are buried." Following the premiere of the film, Crosby toured as David Crosby & Friends toured from May to September 2019.

In July of 2021 Crosby released For Free, his first solo album since Sky Trails. This was followed by the release of the 50th anniversary expanded version of If I Could Only Remember My Name on October 15. It contains remastered songs as well as demos from the original recording sessions. During promotion for the rerelease Crosby confirmed that his second collaborative album with League, Stevens, & Willis is in the works.

1996–2004: CPR

In 1996, Crosby formed CPR or Crosby, Pevar & Raymond with session guitarist Jeff Pevar, and pianist James Raymond, Crosby's son. The group released two studio albums and two live albums before disbanding in 2004.

The first song that Crosby and Raymond co-wrote, "Morrison", was performed live for the first time in January 1997. The song recalled Crosby's feelings about the portrayal of Jim Morrison in the movie The Doors. The success of the 1997 tour spawned a record project, Live at Cuesta College, released in March 1998. There is a second CPR studio record, Just Like Gravity, and another live recording, Live at the Wiltern, recorded at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, which also features Phil Collins and Graham Nash.

After the group split, Raymond has continued to perform with Crosby as part of the touring bands for C&N and CSN, as well as on solo Crosby projects, including 2014's Croz and the subsequent tour, for which he served as musical director. Jeff Pevar has toured with many artists over his productive career, including CSN, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Marc Cohn, Phil Lesh & Friends, Jazz Is Dead, Rickie Lee Jones, Jefferson Starship and Bette Midler. Pevar has a solo record, From the Core, which was improvised and recorded in the Oregon Caves and features the vocalist from Yes, Jon Anderson.

Crosby reunited with the other two members of CPR in 2018 as David Crosby & Friends, performing a series of shows in support of Crosby's new album Skytrails. During the global pandemic, Crosby also hosted a podcast for the Osiris music network.

Personal life

Family

Crosby had a son with Celia Crawford Ferguson, James Raymond, in 1962, who was placed for adoption and reunited with Crosby as an adult. Since 1997, Raymond has performed with Crosby on stage and in the studio, as a member of CPR and as part of the touring bands for Crosby & Nash and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Crosby has three other children: a daughter, Erika, with Jackie Guthrie, a daughter, Donovan Crosby, with former girlfriend Debbie Donovan, and a son, Django Crosby, with wife Jan Dance.

Crosby, then 45, married Jan Dance, then 35, in May 1987 at the Hollywood Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles. His bandmate Stephen Stills gave away the bride.

Sailing

Following up on a transformative sailing experience when he was 11, Crosby purchased a 59-foot, John Alden–designed schooner named Mayan with his Byrds settlement. On Twitter in 2019, Crosby said that the late Peter Tork of the Monkees loaned him the money to buy the Mayan. In the decades before he sold the boat in 2014, Crosby sailed it thousands of miles in the Pacific and Caribbean. He has credited the Mayan as being a songwriting muse; he wrote some of his best-known songs aboard the boat, including "Wooden Ships," "The Lee Shore," "Page 43," and "Carry Me."

Politics

Crosby has been politically active throughout his professional career. He publicly questioned the report of the Warren Commission covering the Assassination of John F. Kennedy onstage during the Byrds' appearance at the Monterey Festival in 1967. He identifies as a pacifist and was a well-known opponent over the US involvement in the Vietnam War, though he has also defended the right to own guns.

Crosby has strongly criticized the presidency of Donald Trump, declaring him to be "a dangerous guy who's got a big ego". For the 2020 presidential election, he said in an interview that Mayor Pete Buttigieg was his favorite candidate for president and that he is smarter than all the others combined; however, he eventually voted for Bernie Sanders.

Although Crosby was against Joe Biden's candidacy during the 2020 presidential primaries, he voiced a more positive assessment following Biden's general election victory in November. Describing him as a "decent guy," Crosby noted that the personal tragedies Biden experienced with the tragic deaths of his first wife and daughter in 1972 and his oldest son, Beau, in 2015, made him a better human being. "He has humanity and he has compassion for other human beings because he's seen a lot of rough stuff himself. I don't generally trust most politicians but I trust [Biden] to be who he is and I think he's going to do a good job." In May 2022, Crosby wrote in response to a pro-union tweet from Joe Biden that "most Unions are useless and totally dishonest."

Acting career

During the early 1990s, Crosby appeared as a guest star in several episodes of The John Larroquette Show, where he played the part of Larroquette's AA sponsor. He appeared on an episode of Roseanne as the singer–husband of one of Roseanne's co-workers, who was played by Bonnie Bramlett. He sang the Danny Sheridan composition "Roll On Down" on that episode. He was on an episode of Ellen called "Ellen Unplugged", in which he was helping out at the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. He also appeared as a pirate in the 1991 film Hook, as a 1970s hippie in the 1991 film Backdraft, and as a bartender in the 1992 feature film Thunderheart.

Crosby has also voiced himself on two episodes of The Simpsons, "Marge in Chains" and "Homer's Barbershop Quartet".

Health and death

Crosby was the recipient of a highly publicized liver transplant, paid for by Phil Collins, in 1994. Crosby's liver problems stemmed from a long run with hepatitis C.

Crosby suffered from type 2 diabetes. During an October 2008 concert, Crosby, looking much thinner than in previous years, announced to the audience that he had recently shed 55 pounds (25 kilograms) as a result of his struggles with the disease.

In February 2014, at the urging of his doctor, Crosby postponed the final dates of his solo tour to undergo a cardiac catheterization and angiogram, based on the results of a routine cardiac stress test.

Crosby died on January 18, 2023, at the age of 81. A statement from his family said that he died "after a long illness". However, friends and colleagues described his death as "sudden", saying that Crosby had remained active until the day of his death, working on plans for a tour and a new album. On Tuesday 24th January 2023, Véronique Sanson, Stephen Still's ex-wife, appeared on French television and confirmed that David Crosby died in his sleep due to complications from Covid-19. "He was on his fifth day, went to take a nap, and never woke up". Sanson's son, Christopher Stills, was due to undertake a tour with Crosby in February.

Discography

See also discographies for Crosby Stills Nash & Young, the Byrds, Crosby & Nash, and CPR.

Studio albums

Other solo albums

Singles

Other appearances

See also

In Spanish: David Crosby para niños