David Crosby: the voice of a choirboy

January 22, 2023, 10:42 pm , by Richard Lutz

Richard Lutz says farewell to a troubled but creative troubadour

W ith that leonine hair drifting from a balding head, from that droopy moustache and that voice….that high tenor voice…the late David Crosby delivered a lot.

The boy could sing.

And even in his later years, still resembling a slightly faded Cowardly Lion from Wizard of Oz, he could command an audience to silence and fill a room, a stadium, an arena with singular sound.

He died aged 81. I saw him last about a decade ago in a symphonic hall along with old pal Graham Nash. Crosby, shall we say at that moment, was a larger than life troubadour who obviously enjoyed the dinner table, roly poly and gently smiling through the frame of his walrus moustache, letting Nash do the political schtick in between songs. But when the set resumed, Crosby’s voice and the harmonies simply took over- from early Byrds stuff to Crosby Stills and Nash golden period pieces tinged with marijuana and patchouli oil…songs that were so good they seemed to have been around forever: Wooden Ships, Longtime Gone, Guinnevere, Marrakesh Express, Eight Miles High, Deja Vu.

To watch this late era Crosby, a twinkly glint in his eye, was to witness a man who was pitch perfect and blessed with the voice of a pensioner choirboy. He lifted the roof. We witnessed a masterpiece of singing.

Unfortunately, Crosby did hit bad times: heavy drugs, jail for carrying weapons, bankruptcy, a liver transplant, changing tastes. His books and albums reflect his bumpy ride: an autobiography entitled ‘How I Survived Everything and Lived To Tell About it’; another book ‘Longtime Gone’; a solo album called ‘Holding on To Nothing’, a work entitled ‘If Only I Could Remember My Name’.

But with his death comes, once again, a reckoning of just how long ago was his most fruitful period. It was a time of Vietnam, a US violently divided, blatant racism and Nixon. Today the States has the Ukraine, violent division, racism and Trump. Has it all changed that much?

“ His death was another door closing on an unrealistic view of tomorrow ”

But maybe Crosby meant more than warbling.

He and his pals may have magicked things up in their hippiecentric Laurel Canyon moments. But they all, with their big contracts, big lifestyles and big ideas, did hope for a better, though innocent and utterly ingenuous, future.

All these ideals and dreams never really held weight. They dispersed like ashes in a wind.

So, perhaps David Crosby’s death this week was one more door closing on that vaguely altruistic, well intentioned but unrealistic view of tomorrow. But still, his work with the help of Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, Steve Stills and Chris Hillman, created songs that opened ears to tunes tinged with country, back porch Appalachia, old timey folk reels, post war bop, protest songs and undiluted hippie nonsense.

He was an innovator, a musical shapechanger, and he was a musician who helped write a new chapter, melodically, lyrically and with soaring tenor voice, in the evolution of Americana.