David Crosby has died. 81 years old.

Spiritual_Chaos

David Crosby Dead: The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash Founder Was 81 - Variety

Edved82

Oh man. Terrible news. A fantastic singer and songwriter.

brianlux

As are all Croz fans, I am having a hard time with this.  David's music has been a part of my life for so, so long.  We knew this was coming put still, oh man...

R.I.P. David Crosby.  Thank you for so much great music.

Loujoe

 Not so easy watching all these people pass. Know we all have to go, but damn.

static111

What the hell!  At least he made it far longer than he or any of us ever expected.  Sad day for rock!

brianlux

static111 said:

What the hell!  At least he made it far longer than he or any of us ever expected.  Sad day for rock!

It really is. 

We've lost a lot of great musicians over the recent years and those loses always hits hard, but losing Croz- man, even though we all knew it was not far off because of his age and health issues and, like you said, he lived longer than expected- this one really has me down. His music has been a part of my life for so long. It's a heavy loss.

My wife saw me moping around the kitchen earlier and she said, "All those musicians- they're like your friends in a way, aren't they?"
Yeah, they are, even the ones you never meet. You listen to their music, you see them live and share the energy. You're connected. And then they're gone and you've lost a friend of sorts.
It's damn hard.

Edved82

https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/1/article?id=David-Crosby-page1

Nice tribute from Neil.

darthvedder

If you have not seen the David Crosby: Remember My Name documentary, I highly recommend it.

BIGDaddyWil

darthvedder said:

If you have not seen the David Crosby: Remember My Name documentary, I highly recommend it.

Thank you!

3days

Edved82 said:

https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/1/article?id=David-Crosby-page1

Nice tribute from Neil.

Neil is class. He kept it positive.

Edved82

3days said:

Edved82 said:

https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/1/article?id=David-Crosby-page1

Nice tribute from Neil.

Neil is class. He kept it positive.

All those guys went through a hell of a lot together. It's a shame they were estranged for the past ten years but that's life.

goldrush

Steve Postell, who was going to be playing Crosby’s guitar parts on their tour next month, posted this:

Once again, despite its real & well documented ills, social media has offered a forum for some comfort during a difficult few days. Thank you to all my friends who have been reaching out.

I briefly met David Crosby over 30 years ago when my friend Jeff Pevar began playing with David and Graham Nash, I believe it was backstage at Carnegie Hall.  A few years later, David enlisted Jeff and his newly discovered, uber-talented son, keyboardist James Raymond,  to create the band CPR. In 1998, I was able to facilitate a show at The Wheeler Opera House in Aspen Colorado with my band Little Blue opening for CPR and then joining them for some rousing encores, thus my first time onstage with one of my heroes. 

Over the years, as I continued to collaborate with Jeff and James on different projects, David and I became more and more friendly. Eventually this led to some co-writing, playing on some of his records, and a few memorable shows. We always had a special rapport. Aside from a natural musical connection, David enjoyed teasing me, and I think he was equally pleased that I could give it right back to him. He had many nicknames for me; most recently he referred to me as “Pudding Head”. I once asked him if I had to be as big an asshole as he was in order to play on his record, he told me that was something I could never achieve. 

About a year and a half ago I was visiting with him when he told me he was going to retire from performing, which he did indeed announce to the world. He said his hands were too fucked up to play adequately anymore, and a surgery to try to fix it had been unsuccessful. In kind of a throwaway comment, I told him that if he ever decided he just wanted to sing, I could play his parts. I joked that if I could play Bach … I could certainly play Crosby. I thought nothing of it, but 6 months later, I guess he started feeling antsy, and he called to ask me if I would like to learn the parts, some of which he had been playing for 50 years, and see how it felt. I went up to his house, wrote down all the tunings, and filmed his hands as he did his best to play through the repertoire. Then I dug in, between my iPhone videos and many years documented on YouTube, I studied this music as carefully as when I actually did play Bach in my conservatory days. 

About 4 weeks later I met with David and James, we played through 6 or 7 songs, and he said “yep, I thought you could do it, let’s put a band together”. With James on keyboards and musical directing the project as he had brilliantly for years with David, me being David’s hands and singing the Nash parts, we added longtime Crosby, CPR and CSN drummer Stevie Distanislao, Hutch Hutchinson on bass (with Leland Sklar on call when Hutch is out with Bonnie), James Harrah alternating with Dean Parks on electric guitar, and in a brilliant move, Chris Stills singing and playing his dad Stephen Stills’ parts. As luck would have it, I had been speaking to David Asbell, who runs the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara, about helping him create an event to celebrate the theaters 150th anniversary on February 22nd. Now we had a band … and a gig!  

On Wednesday, Jan 18th, after talking to Croz about, among other things, recording the show, I spent the day as I planned to spend almost every day in the next month, surrounded by guitars, playing and singing through the show. David had the idea of instead of ending the last encore with a raucous rocker, we should bring it down and play his intimate and beautiful ballad, “Anything At All”. After playing through it once, I texted David to tell him I thought it was the perfect, poignant way to end the night. The last 2 lines are:

I’ve got time for one more question here

Before I fall, fall

Is there anything at all

11 minutes later, as I was playing through the song again, I got a text from James that the great Croz was gone. The photograph I’ve posted is what I was looking at when I found out. 

I have lost family members, parents and friends. There is something particularly cutting and heartbreaking about losing Croz 4 weeks before we were going to share this new project with the world, a prospect that brought everyone a lot of joy, most notably Crosby himself, who seemed practically giddy with all of it, from having the opportunity to play music again, to figuring our what kind of bus to rent. 

This music is indelibly etched in my hands, heart and mind, and through that I will carry the memory of one of the most magnificent, flawed and beautiful human beings I have ever known. 

My heart goes out to Jan, Django and James, the rest of his family, as well as all who loved his massive contribution to the fabric of our world. 

RIP Croz, I will love you always

Pudding Head

SET LIST - Lobero theater - Feb 22, 2023

1) Naked In The Rain

2) Long Time Gone

3) Homeward Through The Haze

4) Carry Me

5) Wooden Ships

6) Delta

7) Guinevere

8] Deja Vu

9) Carry On / Questions

—————————-

Encores:

Woodstock

Almost Cut My hair

Ohio

Anything At All

Loujoe

Man. Sweet and nice to think this was in his head before he left.
Thx for posting

brianlux

Yeah, Goldrush, same here.  Thanks so much.  That was sweet. 

static111

Wow that is just incredible.  Lucky to have seen him twice with CSNY on the early 2000's reunion tours!.  Time to tune to EBDGAD and learn to play Deja Vu the right way.  What a loss for humanity.

Edved82

I've been listening to Croz's most recent album "For Free" the past few days, it's really good. Some lovely songs on there and his voice was really solid even in recent years. Well worth checking out for anyone that's interested.

Spiritual_Chaos

I liked the recent album with the lighthouse on. Will take a trip through his discography. 

Hi!

Jason Isbell had mentioned David Crosby at last nights show. He talked about the work that they had done on the Reunions album together and he paid tribute to what an inspiration he was for the type of music they make. 

Article from 2020 that talks a little more about Crosby, Isbell and the Reunions album ect.

https://ew.com/music/jason-isbell-reunions-interview/

toolie

I saw David Crosby at the Wilma in Missoula in 2019 and he was fantastic. His voice was still strong and he seemed to be having a blast. Sounds like the February show was gonna be pretty epic (Thanks for posting @goldrush ), hopefully someone thought to record a rehearsal or two so we get a taste of what it would have been like.