The witty and ever opinionated Crosby was on the front lines of the cultural revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s
David Crosby, the brash rock musician who evolved from a baby-faced harmony singer with the Byrds to a mustachioed hippie superstar and an ongoing troubadour in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, has died at 81.
He was a founder and focus of the Los Angeles rock music community from which such performers as the Eagles and Jackson Browne later emerged. He was a twinkly-eyed hippie patriarch, the inspiration for Dennis Hopper’s long-haired stoner in “Easy Rider.” He advocated for peace, but was an unrepentant loudmouth who practised personal warfare and acknowledged that many of the musicians he worked with no longer spoke to him.
He lived years longer than even he expected and in his 70s enjoyed a creative renaissance, issuing several solo albums while collaborating with others including his son James Raymond, who became a favourite songwriting partner. Crosby became a star in the mid-1960s with the seminal folk-rock group The Byrds, known for such hits as “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Clean-cut and baby-faced at the time, he contributed harmonies that were a key part of the band’s innovative blend of The Beatles and Dylan. Crosby was among the first American stars to become close to The Beatles, and helped introduce George Harrison to Eastern music.
Now wearing the drooping, bushy mustache that would define him ever after, Crosby provided harmony and rhythm guitar, and his songs reflected his own volatile personality. They ranged from the misty-eyed romanticism of “Guinevere,” to the spirituality of “Deja Vu,” to the operatic paranoia of “Almost Cut My Hair.
Featuring a rougher, less unified sound, the album released in 1970 and was another commercial smash. Yet within two years, the quartet had broken up, destined to continuously reunite and splinter for the rest of their lives. Crosby was exposed early to classical, folk and jazz music. In his autobiography, Crosby said that as a child he used to harmonize as his mother sang, his father played mandolin and his brother played guitar.
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