There’s something terribly somber and sobering in the idea of the David Crosby dynamo being silent and still, above and beyond the fact of a life having run its course and come to a natural end. I don’t like finality as a rule. I prefer the idea of fluidity, of a beating pulse and the constant search for action and opportunity. I don’t like it when a store closes and is all emptied out and boarded up with “for lease” signs pasted on the windows. Keep it going, sweep the floors, stock the shelves, pay the bills. All things must pass, of course, but not now…later.
Incidentally: On 1.19.23 NPR’s David Westervelt posted a Crosby tribute piece, and in the fifth paragraph he wrote the following: “Crosby, Stills & Nash at times would soar with electric jams. But their foundation was a unique California sound built on harmonies, acoustic guitars and a dose of self-awareness often missing in rock lyrics. Exactly where in LA’s Laurel Canyon Crosby, Stills & Nash first sang together is still debated, lost in a smoky haze.”
Actually, it’s not debated. In A.J. Eaton and Cameron Crowe‘s David Crosby: Remember My Name (’19), Crosby says the very first time they sang together and knew they really had something was in Joni Mitchell‘s kitchen, inside her modest-sized home at 8217 Lookout Mountain. Crosby says this to the camera while standing in front of Michell’s former pad. Who has ever claimed otherwise?
