The Cros at Seventy

If you had told me back in the early eighties that David Crosby would live to see his seventieth birthday, I never would have believed you.

Of all the rock stars of the sixties and seventies who were expected to destroy themselves, Crosby was the most likely to do so. He was driven by an insatiable appetite for just about anything that gave him pleasure, most notably drugs. His legendary cocaine freebasing got more headlines than his music, and he was also known for the kind of sexual selfishness that would make heavy metal stars blush. But through the love of a good woman (his wife Jan, whom he met around 1977) and the long arm of the law (he was wanted for cocaine possession and failing to show up for a court hearing in Texas, and he spent nine months in a Texas prison), he cleaned up his act and realized that his music was suffering. As the Cros himself put it, he knew he couldn't go down that path to self-destruction anymore . . . because there was no path.

Crosby's past personal life has made him the object of ridicule from his detractors in the rock press, but when you hear his music, be it from the Byrds, his solo work, and his many variations on his partnership with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young, you can understand why I come today to praise, not bury, him - and express my gratitude that we haven't buried him. He's a masterful singer, equally adept at lead and backing vocals - his harmonies are exquisite, and he's always been an adventurous instrumentalist. Crosby is known for his complex tunings and his sharp note enunciation, producing a guitar sound as clear and peerless as his voice.

As a composer, Crosby is admittedly less consistent than his former bandmates in the Byrds and his occasional buddies Stills, Nash and Young. Hey, why fib? The Cros has never been able to come up with enough interesting material to fill out an entire solo album, and he's always functioned better in a larger group. However, when he does function best, he functions very well indeed. His haunting ballad "Guinnevere," from the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album, is a masterpiece in understatement, and "Almost Cut My Hair" from the Crosby, Stills Nash and Young LP Deja Vu has a raw power to it that is countered by its self-winking, self-referencing lyrics. Listen to Wind On the Water, the second Crosby/Nash duo album, from 1975 - not a weak Crosby song on it! You don't want to be without the heavy blues of "Homeward Through the Haze," a Crosby tune many songwriters likely wish they could have written. Later songs, like the enigmatic "Shadow Captain," written with keyboardist Craig Doerge providing the music (from the 1977 CSN album) and "Delta" (from 1982's Crosby, Stills and Nash album Daylight Again) are also standouts.

In spite of his ability to impress musically when you least expect it (even his solo albums have the occasional gems, like "Laughing" from his first solo LP), Crosby will always be more notorious for his drug busts and personal quirks than for his music. When it turned out that he donated sperm to allow Melissa Etheridge and her then-partner Julie Cypher to sire a child, other people were aghast. Me, I was laughing my head off. Nothing Crosby does phases me anymore. The point of his life and career is that he's always been more of an outlaw than anyone else in the Los Angeles pop-rock scene than his peers. He was speaking out about the threat to alternative media at the same time Gil Scott-Heron was, and his penchant for motorcycles sort of contradict the gentle folk harmonies of his records. He's done some nasty things in his life, and he's even proven to be despicable at times, but that's all right.

Because if he weren't like that, he wouldn't be David Crosby. :-D

Happy birthday, Cros - let your freak flag fly!

(I plan to pick a Crosby-related Music Video Of the Week this Friday; my choice of a Billy Preston song for this Friday was to play belated tribute to a Concert For Bangla Desh participant.)