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DAVID CROSBY

 

So the weekend television is notoriously rubbish here in the UK and found myself drawn to the new (to Freeview) channel of Sky Arts which featured a couple of music programmes I found absorbing if ultimately hugely depressing. The profile on David Crosby 'Remember My Name' by Cameron Crowe I found fascinating but with a heart breaking end in that it finishes with the acrimony from all of CSNY indicating that some fallings out are insurmountable. 

There's even a funny encounter with photographer Henry Diltz when they try to recreate the classic flag- gun-joint photo and David teases Diltz for his still new age thinking about what chinese sign animal they both are!

Now I loved David Crosby and number his solo album amongst my favourites of the era and I adored CSN&Y as well as making the distinction of CS&N as seperate and quite distinct bands [as does Crosby himself here]. The frank and revealing story is fascinating for a while and the journey from The Byrds to Woodstock to a Supergroup and at the heart of the 'counterculture' makes for a fabulous story and I don't think I recall the loss of his girlfriend at 21 in a car crash as such a seminal earth shattering as it would have been but the love and support from his colleagues is palpable here. Nash I think more than any saved Crosby's life . . . . .and yet he kinda didn't . . . . . Crosby's descent into heroin and cocaine use had the inevitable end I have witnessed time after time and too often and his spell in prison (8 months in Texas Pen!) seems to have been some kind of strange turning point not fully understood somehow. 

Crosby after handing himself in to the authorities

The finality of the reforming of CSN&Y is full of reports and, to his credit here, mostly by Crosby himself of his unforgivable, toxic and temperamental behaviour, has ruined it would seem his deep relationship with both Neil Young and his fellow vocal partner Graham Nash both of whom are on record saying they will not play with DC again. Crosby is magnanimous here and surprisingly honest maybe but that he has overstepped some boundary that is beyond forgiveness is difficult to take. 

That Crosby should have taken up with a younger pick-up band and started to release albums again is great but CSN&Y it ain't. Stephen Stills is notable by his absence here in Crowe's documentary and we wonder about this. It is an essentially sad film about superstardom, drug use and addiction, holding friendship too lightly, vanity and ego.

further reading . . . . . Classics du Jour

Laughing/What Are Their Names - Crosby [If Only I Could Remember My Name]

Happier Trails, David