He wasn’t the best guitar player in the band, nor the best singer, but added into the mix, he was a part of the Byrds that made them. The band gave Pete Seeger a stroke, turned Joanie Baez gay, and gave Dylan the courage to pick up a Fender Strat and plug into a twin reverb amplifier. The world of folkie music would never be the same.
Crosby was too outspoken, prideful, and an asshole rich kid who pissed off everyone he interacted with. Canadian Mockingbird Joni Mitchell wanted to kill him with her delicate hands for ruining her first album. But, despite his misgivings, the man was one hell of a part of the sixties music movement.
David Crosby has gone to the great Woodstock in the sky. When Bob Dylan rang a doorbell today, Crosby got a pair of angel wings. They were tarnished and likely secondhand, but he can now fly around the clouds flipping off everyone on earth. Joni is sick and too old to do nothing more than guide her electric wheelchair around these days, but she would still kick his smug ass if she could muster the strength. He damn near ruined her career before it started. All he wanted was to marry her, but she was already hitched to her Martin guitar with those quirky tunings. Crosby could barely tune his Gretsch.
I saw them back in 1999 at an outdoor venue in Dallas Fair Park. Crosby, Stills, and Nash, the once young gods of Woodstock. David soooo endeared himself to the audience by saying, “Dallas, the fucking city that killed Kennedy.” He was spot on, but he didn’t need to say it. The man had no control over his mouth or life and couldn’t separate reality from a good high. What was that lesbo singer Ethridge thinking about having him as a sperm donor for her kids? Drug addiction and craziness are inherited via the genes, and I don’t mean bell-bottom Levis, or did she bother to read up on it?
I loved the Byrds in 1965 and forward. I loved CSN even more, and coke loved David more than anyone in the biz. He was a powder hound deluxe, made for drug abuse and bat-shit crazy behavior. Stills tried to put out a Mafia hit on him, and Nash attempted to poison his Oatmeal after he completely destroyed CS&N. He was loved by many but hated by many more. Why are the tortured souls the ones to drip with talent? Maybe Morrison can fill him in on it this evening if the two are in the same place. The poor man was a train wreck and a screw-up, but tomorrow, I will listen to my two CS&N albums and The Byrd’s greatest hits and remember one of the shining talents from when I was a 60s teenager banging on an electric guitar and wishing I was him. RIP, you old hippie dude.
Notes From The Cactus Patch 