David Crosby: 1941-2023

"When I started writing things like Guinnevere, I began to hit my stride"

- By Rob Hughes

David Crosby lost count of the number of second chances he was given. Hard drugs and alcohol addiction nearly killed him during the 80s; he did time in a Texan prison, suffered multiple heart attacks, went bankrupt, underwent a lifesaving liver transplant and, later on, became diabetic. Yet none of this seemed to crush his spirit. For many, Crosby was the quintessential rock'n'roll survivor, a shatterproof force as durable as the extraordinary body of music that now serves as his legacy.

As befits such a life of high drama, Crosby approached everything at full tilt. The son of Hollywood cinematographer Floyd Crosby, he quit college to follow his musical ambitions, charging between Los Angeles, Chicago and Greenwich Village as an aspiring folkie in the early 60s. His path into The Byrds was self-directed. He simply gatecrashed a rehearsal between Jim McGuinn and Gene Clark one night at L.A.'s Troubadour by laying a harmony over the top. Having met the headstrong Crosby a few years earlier on the circuit, McGuinn was wary. But there was no doubting his harmonising brilliance, likened by mentor and producer Jim Dickson to "a low note on a flute". Soon expanding into a five-piece, with Crosby on rhythm guitar, The Byrds were airborne.

His ascent to stardom was steep. The band hit big immediately with a cover of Dylan's Mr Tambourine Man, which topped the singles charts here and in the States during the summer of 1965, introducing West Coast folk-rock to the mainstream. The honeymoon lasted a couple of years, before Crosby's ongoing demand for a greater share of the creative spoils reached tipping point during the recording of The Notorious Byrd Brothers. By October '67 he'd been booted out.