David Crosby

S. inger-songwriter David Crosby has passed away aged 81, his heartbroken wife has said. Crosby, one of the most influential rock singers of the 1960s and '70s, ...

It’s what you do with the time that you do have. “And here’s what I’ve come to [think] about it: It’s not how much time you got, because we really don’t know. Upon leaving The Byrds in 1967, he formed the super-group Crosby, Stills & Nash with fellow songwriters Graham Nash and Stephen Stills.

David Crosby, the legendary singer-songwriter who logged time in The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, has died at the age of 81.

Along with his time in The Byrds and CSNY, Crosby also produced Joni Mitchell’s 1968 debut album, Song to a Seagull, and performed with members of the Grateful Dead in the short-lived side project David and the Dorks (occasionally known as Jerry and the Jerks). The sessions came as Crosby was still recovering from the death of his partner, Christine Hinton, in a tragic car accident in 1969. In 1985, as his life took a downward turn, Crosby was arrested on two different drug-related charges. Toward the end of his stint with The Byrds, Crosby substituted for Neil Young when Buffalo Springfield played the Monterey Pop Festival. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Crosby was at the forefront of the California singer-songwriter movement. Crosby remained with the group through 1967, when he was

David Crosby, a co-founding member of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash has died at the age of 81.

The structure to this song was so typically his and the words are as good as any I ever knew. this is from the first time we met. david crosby was one of my favourite people to have on the show. He could be cantankerous, he could be a pussycat. And a wonderful person. David was an unbelievable talent – such a great singer and songwriter. [Donald Trump](https://www.nme.com/tag/donald-trump) during the latter’s presidency. In 2019, the musician became the focus of his own documentary, David Crosby: Remember My Name. Crosby also had an illustrious solo career, kickstarted by his Top 20 debut solo album ‘If I Could Only Remember My Name’ in 1971. When the full band wasn’t working together, Crosby would often still collaborate with Nash. He also appeared on their fifth record, ‘The Notorious Byrd Brothers’, due to recording being midway through when he was fired from the band. Crosby co-founded the folk-rock band The Byrds alongside his bandmates Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke in 1964, after performing on the acoustic coffeehouse circuit and in other bands, including Les Baxter’s Balladeers.

Croz was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. By Jon Dolan ...

In 2004, he pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a weapon when police found a gun and a small quantity of marijuana in his hotel room the night after a concert in New York. He received a liver transplant in 1994, and recorded another album with CSN, the commercially unsuccessful After the Storm. In 1995, he reunited with his son Raymond, who he’d given up for adoption in the Sixties, and they recorded three albums together as CPR. “Stephen always felt that Nash and I were resentful or trying to obstruct him,” Crosby wrote in Long Time Gone. “Roger and Chris [Hillman] drove up in a pair of Porsches and said that I was crazy, impossible to work with, an egomaniac,” Crosby told Rolling Stone in 1970. “Nash and I always felt that Stephen was overbearing. “It is with a deep and profound sadness that I learned that my friend David Crosby has passed,” Crosby’s former bandmate Nash wrote in a statement. “It was a result of losing him, of losing John Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Woodstock was a time where there was a prevailing feeling of harmony.” The trio — which became a quartet in 1969 when Neil Young joined their ranks — played a major role in the development of folk rock, country rock, and the emergent “California sound” that dominated rock radio throughout the mid-Seventies. Croz wrote many of their most beloved tunes, including “Almost Cut My Hair,” “Long Time Gone,” and “Déjà Vu.” Crosby was a founding member of the Byrds, playing guitar and contributing harmony vocals to their most enduring songs, including “Eight Miles High,” “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” and “Turn!

The Byrds were an important part of the changing cultural shift that occurred in the 1960s. As the world stepped into a more liberal horizon, the band were ...

In the 2018 Netflix documentary Echo of the Canyon, Crosby addressed this claim bluntly and hilariously gave his brutally honest reason on why he was no longer deemed needed in the group: “Ladies and gentleman, that’s not why they threw me out of The Byrds,” he said, addressing the camera. This dispute came after the band opted to snub Crosby’s ‘Triad’ in favour of a cover of Carole King’s ‘Going Back’ as they sought to repeat the commercial success they received two years prior and, shortly after his departure, founding members Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman informed Crosby that he was no longer a Byrd. That said, The Byrds aren’t quite given the credit they deserve in the history books.

Crosby was a prominent figure of the free-spirited 1970s Laurel Canyon scene who helped bring folk-rock mainstream with both The Byrds and Crosby, ...

Years of well-documented substance abuse led to tumultuous relationships in and out of music, multiple arrests and a nine-month stint in a Texas prison in the '80s. His songwriting contributions also pushed the band in new directions — in particular, the rhythmic cadences of "Déjà Vu" and the loose arrangements and boho instrumental tone of "Wooden Ships." But in later years, it made him a natural for the concise and quippy nature of Twitter. Its self-titled 1969 debut led to an performance at Woodstock and a Grammy for best new artist, while 1970's Déjà Vu — by which point Neil Young had joined, adding another letter to the band's name — touched on both the comforts of tradition and the seismic generational shifts that were underway. His older brother, Ethan, introduced him to jazz, a genre he would touch on throughout his career, including with his late '90s / early '00s band CPR and on a ruminative 2017 solo album, Sky Trails. and [Bob Dylan](https://www.npr.org/artists/15193203/bob-dylan)'s "Mr. At loose ends, he immersed himself in sailing, one of his childhood passions, buying a schooner for $25,000 with money borrowed from The Monkees' Peter Tork. He added five solo albums to his catalog between 2014 and 2021, and toured frequently with two sets of collaborators, the Lighthouse Band (which featured "The idea of cooperative effort to make something bigger than any one person could ever do was stuck in my head," he wrote in his 1988 autobiography, Long Time Gone. [Pete Seeger](https://www.npr.org/artists/15869924/pete-seeger)'s "Turn! His publicist confirmed the artist's death to NPR; no cause of death was given at the time of this report. Crosby had long dealt with serious health problems, including multiple heart attacks, diabetes and hepatitis C, for which he had a liver transplant in 1994.

The singer became an influential figure in rock music and co-founded two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bands.

“Peace, love, and harmony to all who knew David and those he touched. “Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us. He collaborated on chart-topping hits including a cover of Bob Dylan’s Mr Tambourine Man which leapt to number one in the US singles chart and Turn!

The singer-songwriter rose to fame in LA-based folk-rock group The Byrds, who he joined in 1964 alongside Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman and Michael ...

“Peace, love, and harmony to all who knew David and those he touched. “Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us. In a statement to US outlet Variety, his wife Jan wrote: “It is with great sadness after a long illness, that our beloved David (Croz) Crosby has passed away. David was fearless in life and in music. He collaborated on chart-topping hits including a cover of Bob Dylan’s Mr Tambourine Man, which leapt to number one in the US singles chart, and Turn! “David and I butted heads a lot over time, but they were mostly glancing blows, yet still left us numb skulls.

Crosby, who co-founded both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash, had been ill for some time.

There followed periods of ill health, and a liver transplant in 1994. A six-decade career culminated in his final album, For Free, released in 2021. He was renowned for his guitar-playing and vocal harmonies. Following the musician's death, Graham Nash wrote on social media that his late collaborator was "fearless in life and in music" and left behind a "tremendous void". Crosby later expressed regret over his addictions and altercations with co-stars, telling the Los Angeles Times in 2019 he was "ashamed" of some of his past behaviours. His substance abuse had reportedly intensified after the death of a girlfriend in a car crash when he was a young man.

American rock legend David Crosby has died aged 81 following a long illness, his wife Jan Dance announced on Friday. Crosby, one of the most influential ...

Crosby, one of the most influential rock singers of the 1960s and ’70s, was a founding member of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash (later becoming Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young). American rock legend David Crosby has died aged 81 following a long illness, his wife Jan Dance announced on Friday. US rock legend David Crosby passes away at 81

The trio formed the influential rock group Crosby, Stills and Nash – a US supergroup that would later feature Neil Young.

“Peace, love, and harmony to all who knew David and those he touched. “Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us. In a statement to US outlet Variety, his wife Jan wrote: “It is with great sadness after a long illness, that our beloved David (Croz) Crosby has passed away. David was fearless in life and in music. He collaborated on chart-topping hits including a cover of Bob Dylan’s Mr Tambourine Man, which leapt to number one in the US singles chart, and Turn! “David and I butted heads a lot over time, but they were mostly glancing blows, yet still left us numb skulls.

Wife of US rock legend David Crosby, Jan Dance announces he died after 'a long illness' as tributes flood in for the co-founder of The Byrds and Crosby, ...

He spoke his mind, his heart, and his passion through his beautiful music and leaves an incredible legacy. He leaves behind a tremendous void as far as sheer personality and talent in this world. Crosby wrote several hits during his time in the band including ‘Almost Cut My Hair’ and ‘Deja Vu’. Soon after, Crosby, Stills, and Nash created a supergroup and performed at the iconic Woodstock concert in 1969. However, the group was plagued by infighting and disbanded after a few years, though it has occasionally regrouped for concerts afterwards. He also had a brief relationship with singer Joni Mitchell, which led to his dismissal from the group three years later.

The singer became an influential figure in rock music and co-founded two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bands.

“Peace, love, and harmony to all who knew David and those he touched. “Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us. He collaborated on chart-topping hits including a cover of Bob Dylan’s Mr Tambourine Man which leapt to number one in the US singles chart and Turn!

BMG has paid tribute to David Crosby, who has died aged 81. The music legend was a recording artist and publishing client of BMG, as well as being a BMG ...

[David Crosby: Remember My Name](https://www.musicweek.com/labels/read/fred-casimir-on-bmg-s-david-bowie-documentary-and-the-music-company-s-growing-film-division/086450), produced by Cameron Crowe and directed by AJ Eaton. Crosby attended the premiere along with BMG execs including [CEO Hartwig Masuch](https://www.musicweek.com/media/read/david-bowie-film-moonage-daydream-is-2022-s-biggest-documentary-at-the-box-office/087142). He would go on to form the Grammy-winning supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) in 1968, before Neil Young joined the band adding his name (CSN&Y). One of the all-time greats, we remember David through his incredible music, poignant words, and electric performances. [Rock & Roll Hall of Fame](https://www.musicweek.com/talent/read/lyor-cohen-on-the-future-of-the-rock-roll-hall-of-fame/084521) for his work with both The Byrds and CSN, Crosby released his first solo album If I Could Only Remember My Name in 1971. The company posted on social media that Crosby was “one of the all-time greats, we remember David through his incredible music, poignant words, and electric performances”.

Wife of US rock legend David Crosby, Jan Dance announces he died after 'a long illness' as tributes flood in for the co-founder of The Byrds and Crosby, ...

My heart is truly with his wife, Jan, his son, Django, and all of the people he has touched in this world.” He spoke his mind, his heart, and his passion through his beautiful music and leaves an incredible legacy. He leaves behind a tremendous void as far as sheer personality and talent in this world. Crosby wrote several hits during his time in the band including ‘Almost Cut My Hair’ and ‘Deja Vu’. Soon after, Crosby, Stills, and Nash created a supergroup and performed at the iconic Woodstock concert in 1969. He also had a brief relationship with singer Joni Mitchell, which led to his dismissal from the group three years later.

Following the death of David Crosby, fans have been sharing footage of his last live performance - check it out here.

We’ve done good work but don’t expect to see it again.” Last year, [Crosby said he was “too old to tour” anymore](https://www.nme.com/news/music/david-crosby-thinks-hes-too-old-to-tour-anymore-3282425). He spoke his mind, his heart, and his passion through his beautiful music and leaves an incredible legacy. I live in the same world with Joni [Mitchell] and Aretha [Franklin] and she’s in that league. “David Crosby flew in to Toronto and performed as a guest at the live concert with my OG bandmates in a renovated buddhist temple. In 2019 Crosby joined Michelle Willis, a solo artist who regularly performed alongside Crosby, at a recording of her live EP ‘Just One Voice’. His legacy will continue to live on through his legendary music,” said a statement confirming the news.

Singer and songwriter whose work with the Byrds, and Crosby, Stills and Nash helped define folk-rock.

An accomplished musician and composer, Raymond played in the jazz-rock band CPR with his father and Jeff Pevar (they released four albums between 1998 and 2001), was music director for Crosby’s solo live shows and also became a member of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s touring band from 2009. He released the solo album Thousand Roads (1993), which gave him a minor hit single with Hero, then picked up the pace dramatically in the new century with Croz (2014), Lighthouse (2016), Sky Trails (2017) and Here If You Listen (2018). One of his regular musical collaborators was James Raymond, his child with Celia Crawford Ferguson, whom Crosby had left pregnant in California in the early 60s, and who had given her baby up for adoption. Born in Los Angeles, he was the second son of the cinematographer Floyd Crosby and his first wife, Aliph Van Cortlandt Whitehead, a scion of the influential Van Cortlandt dynasty. In 1973 Crosby reunited with his previous band for the album Byrds, and in 1977 Crosby, Stills and Nash released CSN, which reached No 2 on the US album chart and outsold the trio’s debut. [Peter Tork](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/feb/21/peter-tork-obituary) of the Monkees, Crosby bought a 74ft schooner called Mayan, where he would write some of his best-known songs including Crosby, Stills and Nash’s Wooden Ships. He would make six further solo discs, in addition to Crosby & Nash (2004), two albums with Stills and Nash (Live It Up in 1990 and After the Storm, 1994) and American Dream and Looking Forward with CSNY (1988 and 1999). The hanging chords and mysterious time changes of his title track made it one of his most mesmerising compositions, while Almost Cut My Hair was his battle cry for the counterculture. He marked his return with the enthralling autobiography Long Time Gone (1988) and the solo album Oh Yes I Can (1989). The members then embarked on solo ventures and their reunions grew increasingly rare, though they reformed for a stadium tour in 1974, a lavishly wasteful affair that Crosby nicknamed “the Doom tour”. Their debut album, Crosby Stills & Nash (1969), was an immediate smash, and proved hugely influential on a rising generation of west coast artists. This was defined by their shimmering recording of Bob Dylan’s Mr Tambourine Man, its distinctive harmonies and chiming 12-string guitar carrying it to the top of the charts in Britain and the US in 1965.

Crosby could be overbearing and convinced of his own brilliance – but despite the ups and downs of his time with the Byrds and CSNY, he was always proven ...

He also became an enthusiastic user of Twitter – he was still tweeting the day before he died – on which he was variously funny, provocative, infuriating, generous, wilfully argumentative, clearly obsessed with music, and never above reminding the world of his own talent. Soulless and stilted, American Dream was a largely awful album – Compass, which Crosby had written in prison, was a rare highlight among a dearth of decent material – and, if anything, the subsequent CSNY album Live It Up was even worse, a hopeless attempt to marry their harmonies to the booming drums and glossy synth production that was still mainstream US rock’s default setting. It was a problem that also afflicted his post-prison solo albums Oh Yes I Can and Thousand Roads, although anyone prepared to dig deep would find a scattering of songs suggesting his skills were undiminished – the reflective and rueful Tracks in the Dust, the wordless Flying Man on the former, the Mitchell co-write Yvette in English on the latter. After Crosby emerged from a nine-month stretch in prison on drugs and weapons charges – a sentence that almost undoubtedly saved his life – Young proved true to his word. Just how intent he was is laid out in his 1988 autobiography Long Time Gone, a book that spares few details in documenting his descent: the open sores that covered his face and body, the squalid conditions in which he and partner, Jan Dance, lived, the crowd of dealers and fellow addicts he surrounded himself with – so sinister that even the musicians still willing to work with him dubbed them “the Manson Family” – the endless string of drug and firearms busts. A man who had battled the Byrds to get as many of his songs as possible on their albums managed only three compositions on 1977’s CSN, an album that sold 6m copies: if the sense of exploratory magic that sparkled throughout Crosby Stills and Nash’s debut had been replaced by solid professionalism, its sound fitted neatly with that year’s vogue for smooth, Californian rock (tellingly, it was at No 2 in the US charts when Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was at No 1). Nash began publicly expressing the view that Crosby was going to die; Young responded to his plight with the scathing Hippie Dream, a song that depicted Crosby in his ruin, “capsized in excess”. The album’s poppier material was Nash’s work, while Crosby came up with more expansive and exploratory exercises in mood and atmosphere of which Games was a particularly great example. It was a huge hit, establishing CSN as the premier example of that most late 60s of concepts, the supergroup. Yet the Byrds had initially demurred from recording his material: it was hard to find room in among the souped-up folk songs and Dylan covers and the work of the band’s frontman McGuinn and chief songwriter Gene Clark. He forced his fellow Byrds to listen to a collection of Ravi Shankar ragas and John Coltrane’s Africa/Brass over and over again while touring the UK: the two albums inspired the groundbreaking Eight Miles High, widely considered to be the first psychedelic single ever released. He successfully lobbied for his song Lady Friend to be released as a single: it was both a flop and a superb song, richly melodic, boasting an intricate brass arrangement and complex vocal harmonies.

The singer and guitarist of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash has died, aged 81, but his contribution to folk rock and the sound of the West Coast will ...

To The Independent in 2021 for one of his final interviews, he railed against US interventionism in Iraq and Afghanistan, the corporate war machine and greed-driven climate change. Though he only contributed one line to “Eight Miles High” and none of the biggest hit songs to CSNY (“Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, “Ohio”, “Just a Song Before I Go”, “Wasted on the Way”), he was far more than just a pretty voice. Fitting closure on an amazing journey; if any of us were to live half the life, create a fraction of the beauty and make a sliver of the change that Croz did, we could rest assured we’d relished our season. The Hendrix-like “Almost Cut My Hair” was his 1970 statement of counterculture rebellion, his luscious locks a “freak flag” flying in the face of an oppressive establishment. His five-album stretch with The Byrds ended in 1967, according to his bandmates, because of Crosby’s supposed superiority complex (an impression that Croz put down to jealousy of his voice) and “insufferable” onstage political rants. And several tracks that Crosby wrote or co-wrote cut to the heart of CSNY’s emotive, beatific activism. [Speaking to The Independent in 2021 for one of his final interviews](https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Farts-entertainment%2Fmusic%2Ffeatures%2Fdavid-crosby-interview-afghanistan-america-b1911814.html&data=05%7C01%7CPatrick.Smith%40independent.co.uk%7Cd3e871f8a5cd4ddbb35e08dafb00a8df%7C0f3a4c644dc54a768d4152d85ca158a5%7C0%7C0%7C638098277499257954%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=FdMbJvurnsdDyzV18eMOB38rDIR18d8hpT0%2FBqiscVs%3D&reserved=0), he said, “It was a simple visual clue that we were different, and we liked that. Hooking up with Buffalo Springfield’s Stephen Stills and The Hollies’ Graham Nash to form Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1968 (the supergroup would later sporadically add Neil Young to the line-up), Crosby embarked on almost 50 years of tours and shifting collaboration among the four, during which the sublime folk rock harmony delivered onstage was counterbalanced by intense bickering, discord and ego clashes behind the scenes. His drug issues would contribute to three heart attacks, a liver transplant and a nine-month spell in Texas state prison in 1986, having skipped bail two years earlier on charges of possessing cocaine and a .45-caliber handgun he carried following John Lennon’s assassination. With his woollen hats, handlebar moustache and copious sideburn he could easily be mistaken, in later years, for a woodsman or trawler worker singing beautiful folk songs in an end-of-shift bar. The writer of the vulnerable yet cynical “Everybody’s Been Burned”, master of crystalline guitar lines that hinted at jazz, and owner of a velvet voice that would become synonymous with late-Sixties counterculture. Turn!” and their third album Fifth Dimension’s psychedelic mainstay “Eight Miles High”.