Thinking of a long, rich life in terms of bookends, David Crosby’s discography in solo mode kicked off with his masterful 1971 debut If I Could Only Remember My Name with “Music Is Love,” on which an all-star guest list joins in on the hypnotic refrain “Everybody’s saying that music is love / Everybody’s saying it’s love.” The sentiment is looped into a mantra worth building a life around.
Fast-forward 50 years, and Crosby’s final album, 2021’s For Free (with a light-spirited cover portrait by his pal Joan Baez) closes, prophetically, with the poignant “I Won’t Stay for Long.”
Between those two songs came a fast, furious, sensitive, and fraught life in music. The saga weaves in and out of Crosby, Stills & Nash, work with Nash, reunions with members of The Byrds and with his gifted musician son James Raymond, and a return to his hometown of Santa Barbara for the last few decades (Santa Ynez, to be precise), with his wife, Jan, and son Django in tow.
His passing last week at 81 came as a semi-surprise, partly given the assumption that his illicitly medicated and mischievous early life would lead to an earlier demise, but also because he attained a mystical status. It seemed there would always be a David Crosby in the world. Now, there just remains the legacy, the archives and the deep influences he imparted on other musicians.
He was a guy we kept running into via cameos on local stages. He was also a guy around town, often seen at his cherished eatery La Super-Rica, like the time I saw him run into old friend and La Super-Rica acolyte, Montecitan jazz legend Charles Lloyd. Croz: “What are you up to, Charles?” “Oh man, just working on my tone. Working on my tone.”