David Crosby and related artists > Backstage > Rolling Stone Magazine

It would be difficult to find any musician who experienced such exhilarating highs and such soul crushing lows as did David Crosby on his journey through the 1960s and beyond. Crosby would first gain recognition as a key ingredient to the initial suc...more

It would be difficult to find any musician who experienced such exhilarating highs and such soul crushing lows as did David Crosby on his journey through the 1960s and beyond. Crosby would first gain recognition as a key ingredient to the initial success of The Byrds, a monumentally influential band. His next major project, Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young, would literally define the Woodstock generation at the start of the 1970s, with all the promise and challenges that came with such notoriety. Crosby's first solo album, If Only I Could Remember My Name, featuring a virtual who's who of the San Francisco musical elite, remains one of the most enduringly compelling and sonically beautiful recordings of all time. However, along with these major accomplishments and creative highs, there have been equally astonishing personal challenges and disasters. Drugs and alcohol were an ever-present part of the music scene, and Crosby was a legendary connoisseur of mind-altering substances. As the 1970s progressed, Crosby began to demonstrate increasingly erratic behavior, eventually alienating himself from friends and musicians in the process. As the 1980s began he was deep in the grips of a serious drug abuse problem and his feet were firmly planted on a path of self-destruction. His downward spiral finally bottomed out in 1985, when a drug-related arrest in Dallas resulted in a prison term that forced Crosby to endure the painful steps toward recovery that would eventually save his life....less