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| David Crosby and friend image by Anna Webber |
Well
into his sixth decade as a recording and touring artist, David Crosby shows no signs of
flagging; to the contrary, he has never been busier, and as he will tell you,
he has never been happier. This August, the legendary singer-songwriter
celebrated his 76th birthday. The two-time Rock and Roll Hall of
Famer (as co-founder of both The Byrds
and Crosby, Stills, and Nash)
has just released his third solo album in four years, and is touring this fall
in support of the new record. Fans and critics alike are marveling at the
septuagenarian’s creative rebirth.
Sky Trails, released on September 29th, was produced by Crosby’s son, James Raymond, a fiercely talented songwriter and musician in his own right. The album is a jazz-inspired masterpiece, a stylistic departure from the shimmering, acoustic-based Lighthouse album of 2016, or its predecessor, the more electrified Croz from 2014. Musical guests adorn the album, from Michael McDonald and Jacob Collier to Becca Stevens and Michelle Willis. Early reviews have been laudatory, and the tour is off to a triumphant start, with both band and audience expressing unabashed glee resulting from an evening of shared sonic delight.
For
those not deeply familiar with the wonderfully individualistic streak embedded
in Crosby’s extraordinary body of work, consider these words from the Croz himself,
spoken back in 1991 before unveiling a brand-new song to a live audience. “It’s
another one of those ‘Crosby, what the
hell is going on in my mind?!?’ songs.” As the audience breaks into
laughter, he adds: “You gotta understand; if you have lived my life, you would
have a lot of these songs!”
“If
you had lived my life,” indeed! From a logical standpoint, David Crosby should have
departed for the spiritual realm a long, long time ago … but miracles can and
do happen. Through a journey that spanned the soaring heights of groundbreaking
musical innovation in the ‘60s and ‘70s to the blackest depths of addiction and
despair in the ‘80s, from the long convalescence following a 1995 liver
transplant to a warm, loving family life, Crosby has emerged
fully intact, fully present; fully aware of and in charge of his creative
faculties to an extent perhaps previously imagined, but never before achieved
until the past few years. While he credits his many newfound collaborators with
raising the bar and inspiring him to reach higher, at the end of the day it is
Crosby, the golden-voiced balladeer, the patriotic town crier, the
ever-questing mind and soul of the man himself responsible for a late-stage
creative renaissance unparalleled in recent times.
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| image by Anna Webber |
Having
maintained a professional dialogue for more than 25 years, the chance to spend
some time with a lifelong musical inspiration is always a special event. In
late September, I had the opportunity to once again speak with David. Once
again, there was so much to discuss: a brand-new album and pending tour, new
musical collaborators, an ongoing track record of discovering and promoting new
musical talent, the state of the music business and the extent to which the
streaming services have impacted the lives of artists, the state of our
country, the future of our world, and yes … CSNY.
As
always, I am deeply indebted to David Crosby for his time spent speaking with
me, and for a lifetime of musical and philosophical inspiration.
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| Roy & Yvonne Abrams with David Crosby May 18, 2017, The Space at Westbury image courtesy of Roy Abrams |
Roy Abrams: So, here we are, speaking for the third time in less than a year! This is amazing, sir!
David Crosby: [Laughs] I
thought I recognized the name!
RA: I read on Facebook
that Becca (Stevens) was coming over
today to write?
DC: Yeah! She’s here right
now.
RA: You have described the past few years as like jumping off a cliff, then growing wings while you were halfway down. On the basis of what’s been created in that time, I daresay you’re flying higher than ever before, musically speaking. How’s the view from that altitude?
DC: You know, I feel wonderful. I think I’m doing the right
thing, and I’m having a blast doing
it.
RA: It sounds it! Sky Trails, to me, exudes vitality,
innovation, intelligence, the degree of loving care with which the album was
recorded and executed, and most importantly, the insane amount of fun that was
had by you and everybody else (on the record).
DC: You could tell, huh?
[Chuckles]
RA: Can we talk about the
time frame of the writing and recording sessions of the new album, relative to Lighthouse?
DC: As we finished the Lighthouse record, I just stayed in the
studio and started the Sky Trails
record. I had the songs, we were already writing the songs; we already had
songs to cut; we just started right and in started working. I’m just lucky. I
feel really lucky.
RA: Audiences first got to
hear some of these new tracks performed live earlier this year. Were the same
personnel on the spring/summer tour also featured on the album? (The touring
band—then and now—is comprised of James Raymond, keyboards/vocals; Michelle
Willis, keyboards/vocals; Mai Agan, bass; Jeff
Pevar, guitar/vocals; and Steve
DiStanislao, drums/vocals.)
DC: Yeah. There are other
people on the record that are not in the touring band. Greg
Leisz played steel (guitar) all over the record; he’s a wonderful player. Steve
Tavaglione played horn all over the record; he’s not on the road with us.
Everybody else is pretty much there.
RA: I know that Michael McDonald co-wrote “Before Tomorrow Falls on
Love”, you co-wrote the title track with Becca Stevens, and reading the
liner notes from the 2017 Tour Limited Edition CD I purchased at the gig back
in May, I see that Mai Agan also wrote with
you. What did she contribute?
DC: That song, “Here It’s Almost Sunset”
… I had that set of words and she said, “Oh, please, I really like that set of
words. Let me take a shot at it.” And she wrote the music. That’s our first
song together. I guarantee we’re going to write some more!
RA: What you’re doing with
Becca is also off the charts—between “By the Light of Common Day”
from Lighthouse and “Sky Trails,”—evidences
an umbilical collaborative relationship. Are you planning on doing an entire
record with her at some point?
DC: I’m going to do
another record with that band, the Lighthouse Band, with Becca, Michelle (Willis), myself, and Michael League.
We’re going to do another record with the four of us. What I did was … I was so
thrilled with that record that I asked them to do another record with me, and
this time (to) not have it be a David Crosby record with them on it but a “four
of us” record with all four of us writing and singing.
RA: I hear our mutual
friend Jacob Collier singing on
the opening track, “She’s Got to Be Somewhere.” How did you meet Jacob?
DC: (Through) Snarky Puppy, the same way that I met Becca
and Michelle.
RA: I’ve seen him five
times within the past twelve months and spoke
with him back in January.
DC: Isn’t he just beyond-belief good?
RA: He’s an enormous fan
of yours.
DC: So much talent. He’s
probably the most talented kid I’ve run into. He’s just unbelievably good.
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| David in the studio with Jacob Collier |
RA: I’m thinking about his
harmonic sensibilities,
yours, and then James (Raymond)’s …. If you were to assign those harmonic
sensibilities a weight, with that opening song, you could probably tip the
earth a bit on its axis.
DC: [Hearty laugh] Ah,
thank you, man. I loved it! I want very badly to write with Jacob. We’ve been
trying to get together in the same place at the same time. We think that we
could write together as well.
RA: Manna from heaven … which is, actually, how your longtime fans are viewing what’s happened with your creative output during the past few years. By your own admission, in decades past, you had said that you only wrote three or four songs a year, and there was a time when the muse wasn’t visiting … but now, apparently, it’s with you all the time.
DC: Yeah! I’ll tell you what happened, man. I
kind of had a head of steam built up from being in Crosby, Stills, and Nash and
it being not good. It certainly wasn’t a place I could bring a song to and hope
to get it on a record. We just didn’t like each other and we were sort of down
to, you know, “turn-on-the-smoke-machine-and-play-your-hits” kind of level. So
I think this burst of stuff was just wanting to happen. I think a big part of
it is these people that I’m writing with; I think I’ve been very, very lucky
with that.
RA: About the physical
recording of Sky Trails, I know that
James was involved with that; was that done using analog, digital or hybrid
technology?
DC: Hybrid. We were using
digital—I forget if we were using Logic
or ProTools—but there are stages
where we do some trick stuff with tape as well.
RA: Your love of jazz is
more in full flower on the new record than probably at any point in the past, although you’ve always spoken about it, specifically regarding the work of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. You’ve also noted the
influence of McCoy Tyner on your
chording and voicing sensibilities on the guitar. What is more personally
alluring to you, jazz’s improvisational nature or its complexity?
DC: Both. Yeah, I wouldn’t
try to separate one from the other. The improvisational nature inspires me; I’m
not good enough to improvise very much except vocally, a little, but the
improvisational and the complexity both appeal to me greatly.
RA: In Dave
Zimmer’s book, you described the acquisition of alternate guitar
tunings as “like having a rocket ship in my pocket.”
DC: Ah!
RA: Does playing in
standard tuning seem mundane or limiting in comparison?
DC: Well, no, because I
get weird in standard tuning, too! [Extended laughing]
RA: Point taken!
DC: [Still laughing] I
can’t help it!
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| image by Anna Webber |
RA: Moving back to the
album, you had released “Capitol”
almost as soon as it was finished, months before the record had an actual
release date. To my ears, I don’t think a more incisive indictment of our
country’s current political dysfunction exists. It’s very much in keeping with
your prior acknowledgement of the “town crier” element of the
singer-songwriter-troubadour. I was reminded of the 2006
CSNY tour, and how you guys became the collective voice of outrage over the
political cesspool of those times. I also know that you recently spoke about
the urge to resurrect that four-piece as a voice for today’s protest movement.
First, I was blown away by that because of how busy you already are in moving
forward with all things new, but also because you’re headlining
a show at Carnegie Hall in January, billed as “an evening of protest music, with special
guests,” Might this be an opportunity for some kind of event like that to
occur?
DC: No. It’ll be good;
there’ll be some recognizable
music and I think it’s going to be a very fascinating thing. But no, I
think that if CSNY gets together, it’ll be because Neil (Young) wants to do it. He’s the
deciding factor, always has been. If he decides he wants to do it then God
bless him, we will do it!
RA: Your followers
on Twitter know that you are an outspoken, outraged critic of the streaming
services, and how the practice has essentially killed record sales for both
established artists and those just starting out. On one of those threads,
someone suggested adding a virtual Tip Jar to the services so listeners can
contribute.
DC: I think that anything
that would help us is a great idea, because as it stands now, man, I made these
three records out of the grocery money, and the help of a friend. A close
friend of mine bought me a month of studio
time that I couldn’t afford. Why couldn’t I afford it? Because they’re stealing my music and not paying me for it.
That’s how this winds up. Young people just don’t stand a chance. It’s
incredibly difficult, because there’s no payoff. They take the music and they
sell it, and they make billions of dollars, and they don’t pay us; it’s that
simple.
RA: Are there any thoughts
circulating in the industry, or among your musician friends, on how artists—or
the public—can effect that kind of change to revamp the system?
DC: There’s many people
trying to come up with an answer to it, man. Some of them are trying some way
to encrypt or watermark a digital file so that it can’t be copied; I think
that’s not gonna work, because there’s always some guy in Russia someplace
figuring out a way to find their way in. I think—I don’t know—maybe some kind
of new technology. Just because I don’t have an answer how to fix it doesn’t
mean that it’s okay what they’re doing. What they’re doing is theft.
RA: I could not possibly
agree more. What’s the percentage for artists?
Point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero ad
infinitum? That’s criminal! The last time we spoke, you talked about how
live performances have become a necessary means of survival.
DC: Live performance is
the only way we make any money. At all.
RA: I know how much you
have always loved performing and connecting with your fans. I’m wondering if
your feelings toward the streaming services that make this kind of frequent
touring a necessity ever impact how you feel about the touring schedule?
DC: No, the touring
schedule is just tough. It’s always been tough. For me, it’s particularly hard,
because I’m not a kid any more. I’m an old guy and I don’t have the kind of
stamina I used to have. It’s very hard on me. But I love singing, I love
singing, I really do. And when I do it, I feel overjoyed. I think it couldn’t
be a better thing for me. The other 21
hours a day are very rough. We don’t get
more than three or four hours of sleep in a row; we never get home cooking,
we’re always eating in bad restaurants, bad food … the road beats the crap out
of you, man. It’s hard. It’s not an easy thing at all, but it’s the only way I
can make a living.
RA: You’ve always been so
encouraging toward other musicians. What’s been blowing my mind as of late is
your willingness to listen to aspiring artists online and offer them your
feedback. I don’t know of any other artist on your level who would do such a
thing. What motivates you to be so generous with your time?
DC: Well, they’re at the
stage that I remember very, very well … like driving 200 miles to go play to
another 35 people, making just enough money to put gas in the rented van and
maybe buy one meal. It’s insanely difficult for young people now. So, yeah, I
think it’s a righteous thing to try and help them get attention and try to help
them get known, if they’re talented enough. I do look for really talented
people. I mean, I discovered Joni Mitchell
and Jackson Browne, so I’m not
batting too badly.
RA: And it almost feels
like you’re reading from my notes! [Laughs] That was my next point. You’ve
always shown this sheer joy at making those introductions. As you said, Joni
and Jackson, and you continued with Michael
Hedges—and I will be eternally grateful to you for that introduction.
DC: A great cat, man.
Shit, was he good!
RA: Most recently, it
continues with Becca and Michelle. You know, I can’t get over the simpatico
between you and Becca especially. In a similar vein in which you, Stephen, and Graham locked voices in the past, you’re
locking muses with Becca, and the results are mind-blowing!
DC: We do write well
together. She’s here today, and she’s gonna be here for the next couple of
days, we’re trying to start on the next song, because we love writing together.
RA: As far as James is
concerned, I know that you guys have written together for years. Love the CPR material! What were the
co-writes with him on Sky Trails?
DC: James wrote the first song by himself,
James and I wrote “Home
Free” together. Michael McDonald and I wrote “Before Tomorrow Falls on
Love” together, James and I wrote “Capitol,” “Sell Me a Diamond” and “Curved Air” together. I
wrote “Somebody Home”
by myself. And there’s the Joni Mitchell one (“Amelia”).
RA: What made you choose
that one of hers in particular?
DC: Man, I’ve always loved
that song! It’s a brilliant song. It’s a daunting prospect, trying to sing a
song that Joni’s already
sung, but I just couldn’t resist it because the song is so good.
RA: Another artist I want to ask you about is Kenny White. He opened for Stephen Stills and Judy Collins back in August—
DC: —Isn’t he good??
RA: Let me tell you—I
don’t think anybody else in that room had ever heard of him. The man got a
standing ovation at the end of his set. So, after the concert, I did some research
at home, and there you are, singing harmony with him on “A Road Less Traveled.”
What or who was your introduction to him?
DC: He is very close
friends with a neighbor of mine, whom I am very, very tight friends with; his
name is Dan Gerber. Dan turned me on him and once I heard him … I love him.
He’s a wonderful songwriter, a wonderful musician. He’s a really great cat.
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| image by Anna Webber |
RA: I’m sure everyone and
their grandparents have been asking you your thoughts on the current political
environment. Where do you see this going? Do you see us collectively waking up?
DC: I don’t know, man.
It’s pretty tough—a pretty tough situation that we could wind up with this
asshole getting elected in the first place. Isn’t it terrible that we could be
so asleep that the Russians could get away with what they got away with? That
our system is so broken that our Congress does nothing but fight like babies in a schoolyard? The ways to fix it
don’t look even possible. You’d have to publicly finance elections so that the
corporations couldn’t buy the elections and thereby own the Congress, which is
where the situation is right now. And of course, you’d never get that through
Congress!
RA: As a teacher of high
school students, I see so many of them taking the time to independently
research, and when they’re done researching, they research some more …
DC: They’re grown up being
able to. They’ve grown up with Google.
RA: And by doing the
research, they’re also able to make very well-educated decisions. That actually
gives me a lot of hope for the future—
DC: —If they become active
and they vote!
RA: Absolutely!
DC: A whole lot of people didn’t vote in this last
election. If they had, we wouldn’t have this asshole running the country.
RA: So, David Crosby and
Friends will be coming to the Concert Hall at the NY Society for Ethical
Culture in New York City on November
25th. How extensive is your touring schedule this time around?
DC: About a month and a
half, starting right at the end of October.
RA: I still listen to Lighthouse every day, and now Sky Trails joins it in constant replay.
I have two wonderful new musicians who you’ve introduced me to, Becca and
Michelle. My playlist is full of material that is directly related or
attributable to you. Thank you so much.
DC: Thank you, man.
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| image by Anna Webber |
© Roy Abrams 2017
