David Crosby has died at 81 after struggling with a long illness. Crosby spent time growing up (and by his account, getting kicked out of schools) in Santa Barbara before returning to live in Santa Ynez Valley with his wife, Jan, and son Django. He performed many times in venues ranging from the seminal 1960s folk club Noctambulist (next to the Lobero) to the Arlington and the Santa Barbara Bowl with the on-again-off-again group Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN).
Crosby’s long musical path passed through numerous significant bands and eras over the past 50-plus years. Whether with The Byrds, CSN, in partnership with Graham Nash, and as a solo artist, Crosby’s influence was wide-reaching, as an artist who could roam freely between his folk roots, rock, and pop, with shades of jazz and modal musicality in the mix. In the last few years, Crosby had collaborated with the young-ish, popular jazz-pop group Snarky Puppy, live and on record, and released the Crosby solo album Lighthouse on the Snarky record label GroundUP.
He was also known to sometimes be frictional with bandmates and others in his path, causing a final dissolution of CSN in 2016, just as his stint as a founding member of the prototypical folk-rock band The Byrds ended on a sour note. Especially in his reflective later years, Crosby atoned for his abusive nature through his career, appearing in two documentaries screened at the 2019 Santa Barbara International Film Festival (David Crosby: Remember My Name and Echo in the Canyon) in which he referred to his old self as “an asshole.”