The odds are overwhelmingly against anyone making it big in the music business. David Crosby did it three times.
David had a rare gift for harmony. He was a guitar genius, inventing chords and tunings to create the sounds he imagined.
The Byrds in 1965
He was a founding member of The Byrds. They flew high from 1964, pioneers of folk rock and psychedelia. Crosby, Gene Clark, Michael Clarke, Chris Hillman, and Roger McGuinn, combined to create a sound that was Beatles meets Dylan, pop meets poetry. They were the dawn of roots and Americana. The Byrds made the soundtrack of 60s counter-culture.
“The idea of cooperative effort to make something bigger than any one person could ever do was stuck in my head,” wrote Crosby in his 1988 autobiography, Long Time Gone. “That’s why I love being a harmony singer, why I love being in a group.”
David was not good at staying in the groups he loved. The Byrds sacked him after four years, but he soon found his second great success. In 1968, he joined up with Stephen Stills, of Buffalo Springfield, and Graham Nash, of the Hollies, to form the super-group Crosby, Stills, & Nash. The new group’s first album is as close to a masterpiece as it’s possible to get. They won a Grammy, and sold millions of records.
CSN was a rare and magical combination of musical talents and ideas, their songs, their harmonies, defining the final years of the 1960s. And then, the super-group got bigger.
Crosby Stills Nash & Young
And then, the super-group got bigger. They brought Neil Young into the band in 1970. Their first album, Déjà Vu, sold millions. David Crosby was, once again, at the centre of a hugely successful act. But staying there wasn’t easy. Tension and disharmony saw CSNY split and reform several times over the years, with Crosby estranged from all of them in recent times.
David Crosby was a giant of a musician. He died in January, at age 81, still working on a new record and preparing for a tour.
Listen to some of his songs and hear David reflect on his life in music.
