on the festival’s final night, they played for about an hour. 18, 1969, when he performed at Woodstock with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and the fledgling group’s recent addition, Neil Young.Īt 3 a.m. He wrote or co-wrote songs with evocative lyrics and unusual tunings, and many of them - “Eight Miles High,” “Guinnevere,” “Wooden Ships,” “Long Time Gone” - continue stirring the hearts of fans who had long since traded their mescaline for Medicare.įor some, Crosby took his place in rock history on Aug. He was addicted to alcohol, heroin and cocaine, and got clean only after spending 11 months behind bars in Texas for drug and weapon offenses.Ĭosby had been bedeviled by drug and alcohol addictions early in life and then corresponding medical problems as he grew old.Ī guitarist who sang in a crystal-clear middle tenor, Crosby had a voice sometimes described as angelic. When hepatitis C destroyed his liver in 1994, doctors saved his life with a transplant. He suffered from diabetes and arterial disease, was implanted with eight cardiac stents, and survived heart attacks, blackouts, seizures and a motorcycle wreck.

The bigger surprise, though, was that he had any later years at all. He piloted his own plane, lived on a ranch in the wine country north of Santa Barbara, and in his later years experienced a surprising burst of creativity that produced four albums along with concert dates across the country. He was twice inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame - once for his years with the groundbreaking folk rock group the Byrds and then for his on-and-off decades with Crosby, Stills & Nash, a group described by the Hall of Fame as “America’s longest-running experiment in vocal harmony and social relevance.”Ĭrosby sailed the world in a 59-foot Honduran mahogany schooner called the Mayan. He and his band mates sold 35 million records. Over the years, David Crosby achieved more than many an old hippie musician could even hallucinate.

Said No One Ever by Gregory Crosby