At 58 this month, David Crosby has been there and back and then some - many times over. Twice he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, based on membership in two distinctly different bands honored for their critical influence on the evolution of the industry and its artists. And he has triumphed, as well, over enough personal traumas to fill several people's lifetimes, only to emerge into yet another cycle of success.
A native Californian, Crosby grew up in Santa Barbara, then migrated south to Los Angeles, where he caught the beginnings of the folk music scene that marked the early sixties. When folk meshed with rock to produce an exciting new scene in American music, Crosby was there as an original band member of the Byrds. This band had barely been born when it went number one it's first time out on the Columbia Records label by rocking Bob Dylan's "Mr Tamborine Man" in 1965.
The Byrds also helped to pioneer - unintentionally, perhaps - that strange musical hybrid known as "acid rock" with their original song, "Eight Miles High." It even achieved the dubious distinction of becoming one of the first records widely banned from radio airplay because of it's alleged drug-use references, although to this day, former band members insist it was merely a lyrical recap of an airplane trip to London.
In 1967, personality clashes and artistic differences led Crosby out of the Byrds. and into the formation of another history-making band - Crosby, Stills, & Nash (and sometimes Young). Considered one of the first of the rock "supergroups," CSNY combined the talents of musicians who had already gained the top of rock recognition. It featured Stephen Stills from Buffalo Springfield, Graham Nash of the Hollies, and, of course, Neil Young, man of many musical identities.
CSN's lush, often soaring harmonies - heard in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," and "Wooden Ships," - their intrinsically intricate musicianship and culturally in-tune lyrics illuminated the lives and loves of an entire generation. The music often highlighted their political concerns, as well. Appropriately, CSNY's second gig was at Woodstock, the festival whose name came to define that same generation.
Experiments in musical harmony and social relevance notwithstanding, it was experiments in other areas of the counterculture, that resulted in a vast array of trials and tribulations for David Crosby. Financial and artistic success brought him many of the finer things in life, including his beloved sixty-foot schooner, "The Mayan," But they also tempted him into, and supported a lifestyle that nearly took his life a number of ways.
Seemingly, the lowest point came in 1985, when a drug-related arrest on weapons possession charges in Dallas, a few years earlier resulted in his serving a year in the Dallas County Jail and the Texas Department of Corrections state prison in Huntsville.
Serving time was put to good use, however, as Crosby emerged wholly drug-and-alcohol free, to begin a new life with his new wife, long-time love, Jan Dance. He went back on the road, touring solo, and with Stills and Nash. Neither a devastatingly serious motorcycle accident, a million-dollar tax liability left over from the bad old days of personal abuse, nor the loss-by-earthquake of his lovingly restored Los Angeles home could not hold him down.
And then came the next greatest challenge: a desperate threat to his life endangered by terminal liver failure, brought on, in part, by years of accumulated damage and an undiagnosed case of Hepatitis C. Miraculously, Crosby was accepted for and succeeded as a candidate for a liver transplant in 1995. Equally miraculously, after fourteen years of trying, he and his wife welcomed the birth of a son at that time.
Almost simultaneously, as if there wasn't enough to be thankful in his life, Crosby was contacted by Los Angeles singer-songwriter James Raymond, who proved to be his biological son from a brief relationship in the Sixties. He had subsequently been adopted, and only recently had discovered his birth father David Crosby. Together they happily discovered they enjoyed producing and playing the same kind of music, and have gone on, with guitarist Jeff Pevar, to create the newest chapter in Crosby's triumphant personal legend, touring as the well-received group, CPR.
CPR's special blend of solo and ensemble talent is the basis for the band's success. Of course, there is David Crosby's vast experience as a folk artist. And James Raymond, who was the musical director for an award winning television series (Nickelodeon's "Roundhouse") by the age of thirty, has played with such diverse groups as Oleta Adams, Ronnie Laws, Chaka Khan, Tom Scott and Savoy.
Jeff Pevar has played every type of music from bluegrass to R&B, jazz, rock, and country, having performed in bands led by Ray Charles, James Taylor, Rickie Lee Jones, Joe Cocker, Shawn Colvin, Carly Simon, and many others.
