David Crosby: Here's to a highflying Byrd -- and more

Jan. 29—When I first heard David Crosby as a member of the Byrds, I didn't know any of the five band members' names — but I soon learned them.

Lead singers on most of the album's hits were either Jim McGuinn — who later changed his first name to Roger — or Gene Clark.

While David Crosby also sang lead vocals on some key deep tracks tracks by the Byrds — such as "Lady Friend" and "Everybody's Been Burned" to cite a couple of examples — the high harmony parts were the ones he most often covered on those early Byrds tracks. Rounding out the band were bass player Chris Hillman, who could also nail those high harmonies thanks to his bluegrass background, and drummer Michael Clarke.

I've been listening to Crosby for years, not only his work with the Byrds, but also with Crosby, Stills & Nash, CSN & Young, his duo work with Graham Nash: CPR his band with his son, James Raymond, and Jeff Pevar, and, of course, his more recent solo albums, which included collaborations with Snarky Puppy, the Lighthouse Band and others.

That's one reason news of his passing away on Jan. 18, 2023 took me and many others by surprise.

Although Crosby announced his retirement from touring last year, he had reconsidered and decided not only to tour again, but also to put together a new band and record an album of new songs. He's already started working with musicians on the project, including his son, Raymond, and Steve Postell, who was going to play Crosby's guitar parts so he could concentrate on singing.

An announcement from a publicist that Crosby died "after a long illness," proved puzzling to the musicians who'd been working him on the new project, saying he was full of enthusiasm and didn't seem ill at all.

They included singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz, who'd collaborated with Crosby on a resplendent version of Joni Mitchell's song "For Free" on Crosby's 2021 album of the same name. The two were already working on a collaboration for Crosby's planned new album.

Crosby had a fantastic run over the past few years, releasing an amazing six albums beginning in 2014, including collaborations with other musicians and his first live album with the Lighthouse Band.

Amazingly, Crosby's voice sounded as magnificent and supple as it had in his younger days. If anyone suspected that sound may have been achieved by speeding up the recording in the studio, those doubts could be put aside simply by watching fan-shot video of Crosby singing live onstage at various venues around the country.

Even Crosby couldn't explain it — but he sounded thrilled with the results.

When I first heard "Mr. Tambourine Man" by the Byrds, one of the things that most stood out to me were those soaring three-part vocal harmonies — with Crosby most often taking the high harmony part.

The Byrds' harmonies were only one of the band's distinctive traits on those early Byrds' hits, with others including those distinctive lyrics by writers such as Bob Dylan on "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn! Turn! Turn!" by Pete Seeger — not that the band's members didn't produce outstanding on their own, such as the Clark-penned "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better."

McGuinn brought an additional distinctive trait to the Byrds' sound with his distinctive jingle-jangle 12-string Rickenbacker electric guitar playing, soon absorbed into the pantheon of rock guitar motiffs.

After an initial flurry of hits, the band broke new ground with the song "Eight Miles High" with Clark penning his initial draft of the lyrics while the Byrds flew on a trans Atlantic flight from the United States to England. With the music added, the song is officially credit to McGuinn, Clark and Crosby.

Since then there's been some discussion about whether Crosby should have been included as one of the song's writers, but to me, there's no doubt, with his influence seen during the jazzy chords played during the song's instrumental break. Although the lead guitar is played by McGuinn, Crosby's influence is all over the recording. Crosby, a fan of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane and sitarist Ravi Shankar, brought that influence to the rest of the Byrds.

Crosby didn't have much time left as a Byrd. Admittedly opinionated, Crosby spoke out from the stage while the Byrds were performing during the first of the big rock festivals during the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival regarding his conspiracy theories about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

He then further infuriated his bandmates by performing at Monterey with another band, Buffalo Springfield, when a member of that band, Stephen Stills, invited him to stand in for the departed Neil Young.

Soon thereafter, McGuinn and Hillman drove over to Crosby's house in Laurel Canyon and fired him from the Byrds.

Crosby didn't fly alone for long, though. He began jamming around town, often with Stills, his friend from the now broken-up Buffalo Springfield. One day they were jamming at either Mama Cass Elliott's house or Joni Mitchell's home, depending on who is telling the story. Regardless of whose home it was, another musician, Graham Nash, showed up. He famously asked them to twice repeat the song they were playing, then when he asked them to play it a third time, he seamlessly joined in and added the third harmony part.

The rest, as they say, is musical history, with Nash leaving the Hollies and joining with the other two to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. Their debut album seemed to everywhere upon its release. It included two hit singles: "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" written by Stills for folk singer Judy Collins and "Marrakesh Express" by Nash — a song he later said had earlier been rejected by the Hollies before he left that British band to join his two American musical comrades in arms

But even if Crosby didn't have a hand in writing the album's two singles, like with the Byrds, his harmonies were all over the place — in a good way. Not only that, but the Crosby-penned songs were also an integral part of the album's success. They included his rocking ode to the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, "Long Time Gone," along with his timeless ballad "Guinnevere," on which Crosby used a special guitar tuning. He also collaborated with Stills and Paul Kanter of Jefferson Airplane on the apocalyptic song, "Wooden Ships."

When Neil Young joined Crosby, Stills and Nash for their next album, Crosby wrote the title track, "Déjà Vu" along with the track "Almost Cut My Hair." While Crosby turned in a soulful vocal, the song's highlights include a blistering electric guitar duel between Young and Stills.

CSN&Y performed on and off again in various configurations as each also continued with their solo careers. Crosby's first solo effort, "If I Could Only Remember My Name," is still held in high regard today, with a remastered edition with bonus tracks issued in 2021.

Just over a decade earlier, in 2010, the Vatican City newspaper L'Osservatore Romano listed "If I Could Only Remember My Name" as #2 in its list of the "Top Ten Pop Albums of All Time." It came in at #2, right behind the #1 pick, "Revolver" by The Beatles.

CSN&Y last performed together in 2013 at a benefit for Young's Bridge School and CS&N did their last tour together in 2015. Crosby began his recent run of six solo albums, including those with the Lighthouse Band and a live album, when he released "Croz" in 2014. Other remarkable solo albums include "Lighthouse," 2016; "Sky Trails," 2017; "Here If You Listen," 2018 and "For Free," 2021. In November, 2022, he and the Lighthouse Band released "Live at the Capitol Theatre."

Meanwhile, it sounds as if enough work may have already been done for the album on which Crosby had recently been working to be completed and released, with production work and perhaps some dubs by the band playing along with Crosby's demos. If so, it would provide a fitting coda to Crosby's long and fitting career.

We can hope.