The Byrds Crosby briefly studied drama at
Santa Barbara City College before dropping out to pursue a career in music. He also performed with
Les Baxter's Balladeers in 1964. With the help of producer Jim Dickson, Crosby recorded his first solo session in 1963, and Crosby relieved Gene Clark of rhythm guitar duties. Through connections that Jim Dickson (The Byrds' manager) had with
Bob Dylan's
music publisher, the band obtained a demo
acetate disc of Dylan's "
Mr. Tambourine Man" and recorded a version of the song, featuring McGuinn's
twelve-string guitar as well as McGuinn, Crosby, and Clark's vocal harmonies. The song was a massive hit, reaching No. 1 in the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom during 1965. Crosby took the opportunity to hone his craft and soon became a relatively prolific songwriter, collaborating with McGuinn on the up-tempo "I See You" (covered by
Yes on their
1969 debut) and penning the ruminative "What's Happening". His early Byrds efforts also included the 1966 hit "
Eight Miles High" (to which he contributed one line, according to Clark, while Clark and McGuinn wrote the rest), and its flip side "
Why," co-written with McGuinn. Because Crosby felt responsible for and was widely credited with popularizing the song "
Hey Joe", The album also contained a rerecording of "Why" and "Everybody's Been Burned", a jazzy
torch song from Crosby's pre-Byrds repertoire that was initially demoed in 1963. He further annoyed his bandmates when, at the invitation of Stephen Stills, he sat in with
Buffalo Springfield's set the following night, after Young had quit the band and was replaced by guitarist Doug Hastings. The internal conflict boiled over during the initial recording sessions for
The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968) that summer, where differences over song selections led to intra-band arguments. In particular, Crosby was adamant that the band should record only original material despite the recent commercial failure of "
Lady Friend", a Crosby-penned single that stalled at No.82 on the American charts following its release. McGuinn and Hillman dismissed Crosby in October after he refused to countenance the recording of a cover of
Goffin and
King's "
Goin' Back". While Crosby contributed to three compositions and five recordings on the final album, "
Triad," his controversial
ménage à trois ode, was omitted.
Jefferson Airplane released a
Grace Slick-sung cover on
Crown of Creation (1968), and three years later, Crosby released a solo acoustic version on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's double live album
4 Way Street (1971). The Byrds' version appeared decades later on the 1987
Never Before release and later on the 1997 re-release of
The Notorious Byrd Brothers. In 1973, Crosby reunited with the original Byrds for the album
Byrds, with Crosby acting as the album's producer. The album charted well (at No. 20, their best album showing since their second album) but was generally not perceived to be a critical success. It marked the final artistic collaboration of the original band.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Around the time of Crosby's departure from the Byrds in 1968, he met Stephen Stills at Laurel Canyon in California through
Cass Elliot (of
the Mamas & the Papas), and the two started meeting informally and jamming together. They were soon joined by
Graham Nash, who would leave his commercially successful group
the Hollies to play with Crosby and Stills. Their appearance at the
Woodstock Music and Art Fair in August 1969 constituted only their second live performance. Their first album,
Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969), was an immediate hit, spawning two
Top 40 hit singles and receiving key airplay on the new
FM radio format, in its early days populated by unfettered disc jockeys who then had the option of playing entire albums at once. The songs Crosby wrote while in CSN include "
Guinnevere", "Almost Cut My Hair", "Long Time Gone", and "Delta". He also co-wrote "
Wooden Ships" with
Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane and Stills. In 1969, Neil Young joined the group, and with him, they recorded the album
Déjà Vu, which peaked at No.1 on the
Billboard 200 and the
ARIA Charts. On September 30, 1969, Crosby's longtime girlfriend Christine Hinton was killed in a car accident only days after Hinton, Crosby, and Debbie Donovan had moved from Los Angeles to the
San Francisco Bay Area. Crosby was devastated, and he began abusing drugs more severely than he had before. Nevertheless, he still managed to contribute "
Almost Cut My Hair" and the album's title track. After the release of the double live album
4 Way Street, the group went on a four-year hiatus to focus on their respective solo careers. In December 1969, Crosby appeared with CSNY at the
Altamont Free Concert, increasing his visibility after also having performed at the
Monterey International Pop Festival and
Woodstock. At the beginning of 1970, he briefly joined with
Jerry Garcia,
Phil Lesh, and
Mickey Hart from
Grateful Dead, billed as "David and the Dorks", and making a live recording at
The Matrix on December 15, 1970. CSNY reunited in the summer of 1973 for unsuccessful recording sessions in
Maui and Los Angeles. Despite lingering acrimony, they reconvened at a Stills concert at the
Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco in October. This served as a prelude to their highly successful stadium tour in the summer of 1974. Following the tour, the foursome attempted once again to record a new album, provisionally entitled
Human Highway. The recording sessions, which took place at the
Record Plant in
Sausalito, were very unpleasant, marked by constant bickering. The acrimonious atmosphere was too much for Neil Young, who deserted the sessions and the album was never completed. In rehearsals for the 1974 tour, CSNY recorded a then-unreleased Crosby song, "Little Blind Fish". A different version of the song would appear on
the first CPR album more than two decades later. The 1974 tour was also affected by bickering, though they managed to finish it without interruption. A greatest hits compilation entitled
So Far was released in 1974 to capitalize on the foursome's reunion tour. In 1976, as separate duos,
Crosby & Nash and Stills & Young were both working on respective albums and contemplated retooling their work to produce a CSNY album. This attempt ended bitterly as Stills and Young deleted Crosby and Nash's vocals from their album
Long May You Run. CSNY did not perform together again as a foursome until
Live Aid in Philadelphia in 1985, and then performed only sporadically in the 1980s and 1990s (mainly at the annual
Bridge School Benefit organized by Young's wife Pegi). Without Young, however, Crosby, Stills & Nash performed much more consistently after its reformation in 1977. The trio toured in support of their 1977 and 1982 albums
CSN and
Daylight Again and then, starting in the late 1980s, toured regularly year after year. The group continued to perform live, and since 1982 released four albums of new material:
American Dream (1988, with Young),
Live It Up (1990),
After the Storm (1994), and
Looking Forward (1999, with Young). In addition, Crosby & Nash released the self-titled album
Crosby & Nash in 2004. Full-scale CSNY tours took place in 2000, 2002, and 2006. Crosby, Stills, and Nash appeared together on a 2008 episode of
The Colbert Report, with Colbert filling in for Young in the fourth harmony part on "
Teach Your Children". Following a November 2015 interview in which he stated he still hoped the band had a future, Nash announced on March 6, 2016, that Crosby, Stills & Nash would never perform again because of his poor relationship with Crosby. In an interview in 2025, Nash remembered Crosby as "charming, caring and a brilliant musician ... he was my best friend for 50 years".
1971–2022: Solo career and Crosby & Nash In 1971, Crosby released his first solo album,
If I Could Only Remember My Name, featuring contributions by Nash, Young,
Joni Mitchell, and members of Jefferson Airplane, the
Grateful Dead, and
Santana. Panned on release by
Rolling Stone magazine, it has been reappraised amid the emergence of the
freak folk and
New Weird America movements and remains in print. In a 2010 list of the Best Albums published by the
Vatican City newspaper, ''
L'Osservatore Romano, If I Could Only Remember My Name'' came in second to the Beatles'
Revolver. , Stanford University As a duo, Crosby & Nash (C&N) released four studio albums and two live albums, including
Another Stoney Evening, which features the duo in a 1971 acoustic performance with no supporting band. Crosby songs recorded by C&N in the 1970s include "Whole Cloth", "Where Will I Be?", "Page 43", "Games", "The Wall Song", "Carry Me", "Bittersweet", "Naked in the Rain" (co-written with Nash), "Low Down Payment", "Homeward Through the Haze", "Time After Time", "Dancer", "Taken at All" (also co-written with Nash), and "Foolish Man". During the mid-1970s, Crosby and Nash enjoyed careers as session musicians, contributing harmonies and background vocals to albums by Joni Mitchell,
Jackson Browne (whom Crosby had initially championed as an emerging songwriter),
Dave Mason,
Rick Roberts,
James Taylor (most notably "Lighthouse" and "
Mexico"),
Art Garfunkel,
Carole King,
Elton John,
JD Souther, and
Gary Wright. Renewing his ties to the San Francisco milieu that had abetted so well on his solo album, Crosby sang backup vocals on several
Paul Kantner and
Grace Slick albums from 1971 through 1974 and the
Hot Tuna album
Burgers in 1972. He also participated in composer
Ned Lagin's proto-
ambient project
Seastones along with members of the Grateful Dead and of Jefferson Starship. Crosby worked with
Phil Collins occasionally from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. He sang backup to Collins in "
That's Just the Way It Is" and "
Another Day in Paradise", and, on his own 1993 song, "
Hero", from his album
Thousand Roads, Collins sang backup. In 1992, Crosby sang backup on the album
Rites of Passage with the
Indigo Girls on the tracks
Galileo and
Let it Be Me. In 1999, he appeared on
Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons, singing a duet of the title track with
Lucinda Williams. In 2006, Crosby and Nash worked with
David Gilmour as backing vocalists on the latter's third solo album,
On an Island. The album was released in March 2006 and reached No. 1 on the UK charts. They also performed live with Gilmour in his concert at the
Royal Albert Hall in London in May 2006 and toured together in the United States, as can be seen on Gilmour's 2007 DVD
Remember That Night. They also sang backup on the title track of
John Mayer's 2012 album
Born and Raised. In January 2014, Crosby released his first solo album in 20 years,
Croz, recorded in close collaboration with his son James Raymond (of the CPR band) at the latter's home studio. On July 14, 2016, Crosby announced a new solo album named
Lighthouse, which was released on October 21, 2016, and shared a new track from it titled "Things We Do for Love". The album was produced by
Michael League of the
big band Snarky Puppy, whom he met on Twitter, and also featured contributions by future collaborators
Becca Stevens and
Michelle Willis. On August 26, 2016, Crosby announced a U.S. tour, an 18-date trek to launch on November 18, 2016, in
Atlanta, Georgia, and to conclude on December 16, 2016, in
Ithaca, New York. He also spoke out against
Donald Trump during the latter's presidential campaign. In September 2017, Crosby announced a solo album (his third one of original material in four years and his sixth in total) entitled
Sky Trails, again with Raymond, to be released on September 29, 2017, on
BMG. In April 2018, Crosby appeared on
NPR's
Live from Here, playing duets with host
Chris Thile. On October 26, 2018, Crosby released
Here If You Listen on BMG, his first collaborative album with League, Stevens, and Willis, all members of the
Lighthouse band. The band also toured from November to December of that same year. Crosby was the subject of the documentary film
David Crosby: Remember My Name which premiered at the
2019 Sundance Film Festival. Crosby mentioned that
Cameron Crowe, who asked the interview questions for the film, knew "where the bones are buried." Following the premiere of the film, Crosby toured as David Crosby & Friends from May to September 2019. In July 2021, Crosby released what would become his final studio album,
For Free. This was followed by the release of the 50th-anniversary expanded version of
If I Could Only Remember My Name on October 15. It contains remastered songs as well as demos from the original recording sessions. During promotion for the rerelease, Crosby said that his second collaborative album with League, Stevens, and Willis was in the works. The result, Crosby's final release, was a live album recorded during the band's tour,
Live at the Capitol Theatre, released October 4, 2022.
1996–2004: CPR In 1996, Crosby formed
CPR or
Crosby, Pevar & Raymond with session guitarist
Jeff Pevar, and pianist James Raymond, Crosby's son. The group released two studio albums and two live albums before disbanding in 2004. The first song that Crosby and Raymond co-wrote, "Morrison", was performed live for the first time in January 1997. The song recalled Crosby's feelings about the portrayal of
Jim Morrison in the movie
The Doors. The success of the 1997 tour spawned a record project,
Live at Cuesta College, released in March 1998. There is a second CPR studio record,
Just Like Gravity, and another live recording,
Live at the Wiltern, recorded at the
Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, which also features
Phil Collins and Graham Nash. In 2012, David Crosby worked in
Italy with saxophonist
Enzo Avitabile After the group split, Raymond continued to perform with Crosby as part of the touring bands for C&N and CSN, as well as on solo Crosby projects, including 2014's
Croz and the subsequent tour. Pevar has toured with many artists over his productive career, including CSN, Ray Charles, Rickie Lee Jones, and Marc Cohn. Pevar has a solo record,
From the Core, which was improvised and recorded in the
Oregon Caves and features the vocalist from
Yes,
Jon Anderson. Crosby reunited with the other two members of CPR in 2018 as David Crosby & Friends, performing a series of shows in support of Crosby's new album
Skytrails. During the global pandemic, Crosby also hosted a podcast for the Osiris music network with his friend, journalist
Steve Silberman. == Personal life and death ==