David Crosby on love, music and rancour: ‘Neil Young is probably the most selfish person I know’
David Crosby has just turned 80. Congratulations, I say. “Thank you, man!” says the great singer-songwriter, trailblazer and trouble-maker. How did he celebrate? “Eighty years old is something you mourn, not celebrate,” he says.
But that, it turns out, is not quite true. Crosby admits he did celebrate. “We had a great time, man! My son and my wife made me a cake, then my son barbecued some steaks. We baked potatoes, made salads and feasted.”
I bet your birthday celebrations were different half a century ago, I say. “Oh yep. Those would have involved sex.” Well, if he’d had the energy. Back then, and for many years afterwards, Crosby was addicted to alcohol, cocaine and heroin. As he has often pointed out, it’s a miracle that he’s alive. “I expected to be dead when I was about 30. Hehehehe!” His high-pitched giggle is surprising – as is so much about him.
Crosby’s life story would make an incredible, if possibly unbelievable, movie. He grew up in Los Angeles, the privileged son of the Oscar-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby. His mother doted on him, his father was as cold as he was brilliant. He flunked school, briefly studied drama then pursued a career in music. Crosby had huge success with two seminal bands. The Byrds pretty much invented folk rock in the 1960s with their jingly-jangly pop (covers of Bob Dylan’s Mr Tambourine Man and Pete Seeger’s Turn! Turn! Turn! were No 1 hits). After Crosby was sacked from the Byrds, he joined forces with Graham Nash from the Hollies and Stephen Stills from Buffalo Springfield to form Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN), one of the first supergroups.
With Neil Young, they became a super-supergroup. All
