Original subtitles

[Music]

let's get this unbelievable voice High

tenor

[Music]

I see always had the best Coke he always

had the best looking women they were

always naked and Crosby was King of the

castle he was like a little boy that

needed to be spanked often

still sings Like An Angel just like an

angel that's been to Hell it's a great

story it's a great Triumph and it

teaches me and everyone else not to

write anybody off I mean I would have

liked to have kept it as no one's

business but it's America and we're

famous and everybody wants to know

everything it was just great for me to

find out what a rich

life he he's LED in his leading

nothing to lose

I need you to where you are today

I'm still trying to figure that out

foreign

in the 1940s the film business was

flourishing attracting all kinds of

talent before and behind the camera

David Van Cortland Crosby was born

August 14 1941 in Los Angeles to A

Gifted cinematographer Floyd Crosby and

a classical music-loving mother aliff

my parents played music in our house

constantly when I was a little kid and

because my dad made movies we thought TV

was a bad thing

I guess they hadn't figured out that

they could play movies on TV yet

so we used to sing we had we were

actually did these things where we would

sit around as a family and sing and they

tell me that I started singing Harmony

When I was about six

but I've always loved music it just rang

my bell big time

David's older brother played the guitar

and their father played the mandolin

while David and his mother sang

Floyd Crosby had won one of the first

Academy Awards for his photography on

the silent film taboo

and would win a Golden Globe for high

noon

but his real passion was not at home in

Hollywood it was in shooting

documentaries and traveling the world he

was an absentee father

which I think was difficult for his boys

because he took

pictures that went out of the country as

a result the marriage was strained

in 1950 the family moved to a suburb of

Santa Barbara and by the time David

began high school at the exclusive

Kate's boarding school his parents had

separated and would divorce bitterly

[Music]

teenage David Crosby did not fit in

easily with the other prep school boys

at Kate I think it's safe to say that

David and I to a certain extent were the

odd men out and we were just not an

awful lot like the other kids we were

different we were short we were picked

on we were teased a lot made fun of

David and I weren't particularly good

athletes and um

but we were smart David read insatiably

he loved history and science fiction but

his grades were terrible David didn't

believe in doing homework but there was

nothing wrong with his mind the guy was

incredibly intelligent but fun for us it

was the idea why don't we sit down and

write a book and he and I started

writing a World War II novel

on the invasion of anzio you know I

didn't know anything about this but

David knew all about it so we started

writing this novel together I mean I

mean Dave was brilliant brilliant kid

David shined in non-academic activities

if he was interested he loved the

Sailing Club and the Glee Club and the

boys at school would discover David's

natural talents when he sang the lead in

a School Musical cotton Capers

[Music]

[Music]

I think in that

performance

demonstrated his talent and shocked the

boys in the school who had no idea

who he was had never given him the time

of day and suddenly

he's singing and my God he's good and it

blew them away and when you hear the

Applause at the end of his

solo his first solo it's just it just

raised the roof and you went right into

an encore I mean it was incredible just

incredible

girls weren't chasing David yet but he

had already developed his own

fascination with them he had this

incredibly fertile imagination

um

David had this uncanny ability to tell

stories

now you take

five six seven eight pubescent teenage

boys and you put them in a circle and

then you put David Crosby in with the

mix and let him start telling them

stories and pretty soon you have six

seven eight of the horniest little

teenage boys you ever want to know and

David could spin the yarn right off the

top of his head

and all these little boys just going

crazy

incredible incredible ability

but because those abilities never went

into classwork David was asked not to

return to that school the next year

it was a tough time his father had

remarried and his mother was angry and

unhappy and unable to discipline David

he finally finished high school by

correspondence but only took a few

classes at Santa Barbara Community

College before dropping out

make music

David's older brother Ethan taught him

to play the guitar and mainly as a means

to meeting girls he started singing and

playing folk songs in beatnik coffee

houses

David did meet girls and there were

consequences he got one girlfriend

pregnant but unwilling to become a

father at age 20 he left town

traveling and singing with his brother

in the folk clubs popping up everywhere

in the early 60s David and Ethan would

sing with anyone who paid them and

signed on with a commercial folk group

Les Baxter and the balladeers I mean the

music was good but the little red

Bellboy jackets

at that point we would have played in a

dress in order to get uh you know money

to eat we were a little starving folkies

and we did whatever we had to do then

came the British Invasion not only did

the music upend the folk scene but

everyone in it suddenly wanted to look

sink and be a beater including David

Crosby

cut his hair in a bowl cut and started

performing solo at amateur nights at the

legendary Troubadour Club in Los Angeles

I remember David would come in late and

you'd get in you'd come in and you'd get

on a list you know you'd sign up to be

called on stage and David would March in

there back then we knew there was

trouble Brewing he would March in and be

demand to be put on immediately so

that's my first encounter with him

in 1964 the cocky young David Crosby met

Roger McGuinn Chris Hillman Gene Clark

and Michael Clark at the Troubadour he

was looking for others to sing harmony

with and to play the new electric sound

five former folk singers bought new

instruments and named themselves the

birds I got an electric guitar that had

a strap on it I didn't know how to play

standing up didn't know what that was

about you know I'd always been sitting

down on a stool or something play

and if you had seen me the first time I

had an electric guitar going

around trying to figure out how where to

wear it and how to look

but there was nothing awkward about the

harmony the birds could produce when

David Crosby added his voice to the

blend he brought this beautiful voice he

had this unbelievable

voice High tenor I think David is kind

of a Harmony junkie you know he I mean

he loves Harmony you know and and and he

very often will sing that part you know

that's the sort of the Zinger part you

know it's not the melody and it's not

the the harmony just above the melody

but it's it's kind of the low part the

one that's you know that really makes it

work the group electrified the crowds on

Sunset Strip with their unique blend of

folk harmonies and Amplified Rock the

birds became so popular so fast with

their new California sound that they

soon had a record contract their first

single was an electric cover of Bob

Dylan's Mr Tambourine Man transformed by

David's haunting Harmony

[Music]

we were driving along had the radio

cranked up and krla played Tambourine

Man twice in a row

they played it and then they played it

again and we

we just freaked out we couldn't believe

it we uh

we stopped the car we got out of the car

you know we were like jumping around

like fools it was good

and radio stations kept on playing Mr

Tambourine Man pushing it to the top of

the charts in 1965. no American rock

group had hit this big so fast at just

the right moment at age 24 David Crosby

was an authentic rock star in just his

first famous band

by 1965 24 year old David Crosby and the

birds were all over rock and roll radio

with Mr Tambourine Man and their unique

folk rock sound

[Music]

riding on more hits like Eight Miles

High and turn turn turn which was the

Bird's biggest selling single ever the

bird's harmonies were transforming rock

and roll introducing the chords of jazz

and elevating pop to art

the new style was reflected in the

bird's appearance their Beatles outfits

were stolen from their truck and they

never replaced them

David Crosby was now sporting Italian

hats and a flamboyant leather Cape he'd

come flying down Laurel Canyon Boulevard

and we used to call him Lawrence of

Laurel Canyon because that Cape would be

going and it was like Lawrence of Arabia

just come out on the screen was great

David's fast approach to life was

gaining him a reputation as the bad bird

and he openly extolled the virtues of

LSD and marijuana when he'd be wearing

his borsolino hat you know and this was

during the birds times and I remember

this one time he came in with a whole

box of bamboo rolling papers you know

144 of them are gross you know and he

walked through the club sort of like a

young prince you know handing out these

bamboo rolling papers to people and he

always had the best drugs and he always

had you know the most beautiful girls in

his company and then he was always you

know I mean he would Breeze through a

room wearing some ridiculous you know

Green suede Cape you know and leave with

not one beautiful girl but two or three

beautiful girls and sort of sweep them

up with him as he left the room the

birds had two good years at the top of

the charts but by 1967 Crosby was

already clashing with his friends

his strong suit may have been singing

Harmony but his personality and ego knew

little of that in working relationships

David Crosby was becoming a better

songwriter and he was breaking musical

conventions but the rest of the birds

weren't always pleased with his

Innovations one example was Triad

Crosby's autobiographical song about

menajahtwa relationships and an

alternative lifestyle that David really

lived for years

why can't

[Music]

I get

three no it was not just a song Try it

is not just a song I'd say

well it happened

and it happened a number of times uh

and uh

we were you know breaking paradigms we

were trying out new ways of being he was

always the astronaut in his groups he

was always doing the songs that were

pushing the envelope and that was an

error when the envelope in rock and roll

was being pushed very very far so really

no one ever got quite as out there as

David Crosby did but he had the musical

ability to ground it in something so it

never just became or rarely it just

became hippie uh nonsense

foreign

s were one of the hottest acts at the

famed Monterey Pop concert in 1967 but

by then tensions in the band were

running High

Crosby used the occasion to make a

political statement from the stage to

the shock and embarrassment of his

bandmates when President Kennedy was

killed

killed the story has been suppressed

Witnesses have been killed

and this is your country ladies and

gentlemen

embarrassing I don't think it was

appropriate Monterey to start doing them

we're up there to do some music

and to start ranting on on the Warren

Commission or this or that it was it was

ludicrous come on you know people are

going what what's he doing I want to

hear the song

change was in the air and soon

thereafter McGuinn and Hillman told

Crosby he was out of the birds and that

they'd be better off without it

well we drove up and told him he was

fired we can't work with him anymore he

drove to his house and

our Porsches and jumped out of the I had

to put the Porsche in we jump out the

Porsches and said I'm sorry we can't

work with you anymore it's not

comfortable

that's it

Crosby cashed out of his Bird's contract

and invested in a 60-foot schooner the

Mayan which became his songwriting

Sanctuary at Sea and Crosby kept singing

in the backyards of friends he Blended

beautifully with Buffalo Springfield

Steven Stills and Englishman Graham Nash

of The Hollies

the three gifted songwriters

instantaneously discovered that their

voices added up to much more than the

sum of their parts

they sang this song Tupac you don't have

to cry I asked them to sing it again

they looked at each other they sang it

again I said okay do me a favor one one

more time just sing it again they sang

it again and the third time I put my

Harmony on and that was when CSM was

born

[Music]

Crosby never looked back in 1969 Crosby

Stills and Nash released their debut

album

that same year they performed in front

of a half a million people at Woodstock

and were joined For the First Time by

Neil Young though everyone had heard

their album they had only performed

together once before an audience Crosby

Stills and Nash could sit down

and play you sing you the whole first

album

in your living room

anytime anywhere we did it repeatedly

uh

and so we knew how to sing like that

uh all you had to do is put mics in

front of us and we could do it

um

our biggest problem there was uh

there was a half a million people in

front of us

the pressure to perform was intense but

they pulled it off beautifully it was

like absolutely gorgeous it was just

euphonious I was beautiful performance

Crosby Stills Nash and Young were soon

known as one of the first Super groups

though they always insisted they were

anything but

they saw themselves as individual

artists free to pursue their own careers

who would play together when the time

was right you know that's why they sort

of named themselves like a law firm The

Firm of Crosby Stills and Nash because

each of them could create what they

wanted to create and then somehow put it

together and it made sense

the band went on super tours playing

huge stadiums that had never featured

rock groups before no one enjoyed the

trappings of success more than David

Crosby yeah I was at the best grass he

always had the best Coke he always had

the best looking women they were always

naked they were always available I mean

it was an antenna it was Insanity you

know this is really intense and Crosby

was King of the castle

by 1969 Crosby had tired of the smog in

LA and moved North of San Francisco he

bought a home and for the first time

made a serious commitment to one woman

she was the lovely Christine Hinton

David had known Christine since she was

a teenager hanging out on Sunset Strip

and the president of the Birds fan club

she was one of the women who inspired

David to write Guinevere

[Music]

David was happy and deeply in love but

shortly after the couple moved in

together Christine Hinton was killed in

a freak car accident as she was taking

her cats to the vet and one left in her

lap

David had to identify her body and

something in him shattered I had no

equipment to deal with that I had no

no idea how to deal with that

that was

too strong and it derailed me I knew

instinctively that if I didn't keep my

eye on David that he might do something

drastic because he really loved

Christine and I think it was the first

lady that he'd been with where he

actually admitted being in love

he retreated to his beloved Schooner the

mine drowning his pain and drink while

Graham Nash kept watch

we were in the middle of working and we

canceled all the work and we went

sailing well first of all we went

drinking and we drank our way all the

way around the world

uh

that was our drug of choice it was a it

was anesthetic

choice of David you know he did not want

to feel the pain and I stayed with him

constantly 24 hours a day for several

months

it was a point of no return in David

Crosby's spiral into substance abuse

cocaine and heroin were now added to the

mix but the music still needed David

Crosby Stills Nash and Young was set to

record Deja Vu Crosby's depression

created an intense atmosphere and after

the recording was done the band

fractured though they did regroup to

tour

there were many partings while Crosby

continued to write and play usually with

his closest collaborator and best friend

Graham Nash

politicized by the social shocks of the

late 60s Stills Nash and Young shared

Crosby's intense passions and their

music carried the message

when Crosby was devastated by Robert

Kennedy's assassination he wrote the

heartbreaking long time gone as his

anguished and angry response in music

[Music]

[Music]

and when the students at Kent State were

killed in May 1970 and outraged David

Crosby showed a tragic Life Magazine

picture to Neil Young Who turned the

anger into music in about an hour Crosby

Stills Nash and Young rushed to the

studio to record Ohio

more songs documenting the social

upheaval of the moment established

Crosby Stills Nash and Young as the

political minstrels and Poets of a

generation

yet David Crosby's enormous success

would be marred by his equally enormous

and devastating drug habit and soon

trouble with the law

by 1971 Crosby Stills Nash and Young

would take one of their many breaks from

each other and pursue solo careers

David Crosby had plenty of money and

plenty of drugs to fuel his solo

recording sessions and the album was

titled appropriately enough if I could

only remember my name

he dedicated it to the lover who had

died just two years before Christine

Gail Hinton

though still grieving for her David

Crosby was never one to be without a

woman he found Comfort through the early

70s with hinton's best friend Debbie

Donovan another original member of The

Birds fan club

Debbie Donovan moved in with Crosby and

took care of him despite his many other

extracurricular relationships and in

March 1976 she bore him a daughter

Donovan Anne

but Crosby imitated his own father's

pattern of absenteeism and the

relationship with Debbie crashed shortly

thereafter heavy cocaine and heroin use

were doing nothing to enhance his

relationships the longer that I got

loaded on hard drugs the more

self-centered I got

and a lot of it you know got to be

purely

just

Hedonism just how much pleasure can I

have

and it wasn't about you know loving

somebody else it was just about how much

pleasure can I have

it would only get worse by 1976 he had

developed a hole in his nose from

snorting cocaine

turned to a new means of delivering

Freebase firing up Cocaine by lighting

ether and smoking it in a pipe it is the

most devastatingly addictive form of

drug abuse there is and it had him good

I remember seeing him parked on off

Street off of Beverly Boulevard one day

in that Mercedes

in the middle of the daytime I said it's

David doing there and I drive it behind

him and he was hitting that pipe and I

went up and sort of scared him and he

jumped 20 feet you know and there he was

and I talked to him for a minute and

he's you know parked in the middle of

the street in the middle of the day

doing that so I was going wow

the same year of 1976 when David Crosby

was 35 he encountered a blonde named Jan

dance at a recording studio in Florida I

walked into a room and there was this

girl playing a pinball machine and she

had one hip cocked out to the side in

these little tight white pants and uh

not that that had anything to do with

her he sang to me in my bedroom he sang

me a song on the edge of my bed and I

felt totally head over heels and love

and then the next morning he took me to

the International House of Pancakes and

that was our first date it was April

Fool's Day

in time Jan would become his wife but

first the two forged a Fool's Bond David

would teach Jen to freebase cocaine and

together they entered a decade of

addiction the couple would be as devoted

to the drug as to each other

when Crosby went back on tour with

Stills and Nash in 1977 he had little

control over his performance

I remember seeing Crosby Stills and Nash

during the bad years during the troubles

as we might call them and it would be

pretty pitiful and the others would try

to cover for for him the music was

always so good at the core of it that

people got through it and the crowd was

rooting for David in fact people if I

looked the other way

[Music]

I know

One Night in 1979 Graham Nash realized

his friend's drug problem was

insurmountable when Crosby stopped a jam

session because his cocaine pipe had

fallen on the floor

the pipe fell off the amp and smashed

onto the floor and David stopped the

music he stopped the jam going on

you know because his pipe had broken and

it was at that moment that I realized

that I couldn't help David I had tried

taking

more drugs than David I had tried taking

no drugs I had tried taking as the equal

amount I tried every way in my limited

you know knowledge of how to deal with

this to

try and make him understand that I

thought he was on the wrong path

nothing had ever been more important to

David Crosby than the music

I couldn't do it anymore I could not

make music with David and I told him

that very moment that that was it

and it shocked me that me removing

myself from his life and his musical

life had no effect

and it was mind-blowing to me because I

thought that

I meant more to him than that Crosby was

now spending everything he had on dope

nevertheless Nash remained a friend

quietly paying for Crosby's daughter

Donovan to go to school Nash even went

so far as to buy David's music

publishing rights before David could

sell them for drugs

by May of 1981 Crosby had overdosed

repeatedly and suffered several grand

mal seizures his friends knew they

needed to act to save his life it's very

hard to let go

you have to fight for beauty you have to

fight for greatness you have to fight to

keep it in your life and even though I

had tried removing myself from David's

life I still cared about him deeply and

I still did not want the world to lose

David Crosby

classic intervention took place when a

group that included Graham Nash and

Jackson Brown surprised Crosby at his

home North of San Francisco to persuade

him to fly to LA to a rehab hospital

he took it calmly then went into the

bathroom and lit up his pipe I rented an

airplane because he was so in such bad

shape he couldn't travel in public

transport

we had even promised him that he could

go on getting high up until the time he

walked into the hospital and he did you

know and this over there he was you know

smoking up

crack pipe in a small plane I mean you

know it was a dangerous thing to do

David stayed in the hospital for one

night then checked himself out the next

day and slipped deeper into addiction

with Jan and I went to do photos for

Rolling Stone up to his house in Mill

Valley

um in the about 82

and um it was right in the middle of his

freebasing time and gee he just looked

horrible you know he had he had sores

open sores on his arms and on his face

you know and his girlfriend Jan did too

they looked like death warmed over and

they looked like skeletons you know I

mean David still had a little meat on

his bones but they just were you know

real bad shape one side effect of

Crosby's addiction was severe paranoia

although he had always loved guns now he

never went anywhere without them

carrying a handgun

that's really part of the cocaine

psychosis there's no justification for

it at all when you do a lot of cocaine

you get very paranoid

and you think they those are quotation

marks are out to get you uh and I did

and I used to carry a gun and uh I'm

very lucky that I didn't wind up

shooting somebody with it in 1982 he was

arrested in California for the first

time for weapons and narcotics

possession after nodding off at the

wheel on his way to a no nukes concert

he was arrested two more times that year

served five months on the Texas charges

and failed again at rehab and I went

down to Dallas to get David out of jail

the first time

the first thing I did was take him to go

eat a steak

because I knew David would like that so

we went to this great Steakhouse he had

a great steak we got on the plane flew

back to Los Angeles and he went straight

to his dealer

that was disappointing

it was expected but

not quite so soon

drug addiction did not quench Crosby's

passion for social change and he did

manage to play the Live Aid benefit for

Ethiopian famine relief despite his own

miserable physical condition

finally in 1985 the crash came while on

parole in California he was busted once

again after a car accident and charged

with possession of drugs and guns this

time Jan and David went on the lamb he

got an outlaw friend a charter a plane

to take them to Florida the plan being

to escape the country on his well-loved

Schooner they found the Mayan in a

condition not unlike theirs totally in

disrepair and far from seaworthy

I thought I was going to leave the

country on my boat unfortunately I

hadn't sent any money to take care of

the boat for many years so the boat was

trashed there was no way I could go

anywhere

up to that point

I had a strong ego and I would say you

know I'll do whatever I want hell with

you people

and at that point I said no

I can't just do whatever I want this

isn't working I'm going to die

David left Jan on the boat and he walked

Barefoot to a local FBI office and

turned himself in

I went in and said I think you're

looking for me and they said who are you

I said I'm David Crosby and I said oh

yeah we are

the chance on the wall

do you have any comments for us wish me

luck huh

why'd you turn yourself in here

I couldn't find the right thing to do

at the time my husband was dying

I really think

my husband had a certain peace of mind

at least he felt that he would be safe

and that maybe he could

kick this habit

by 1985 David Crosby's musical Fame had

been utterly overshadowed by his

notoriety for numerous drug and weapons

arrests

when he finally turned himself in a

Texas judge took steps that would save

his life well the judge sort of said you

know Mitch Crosby we need to get your

attention and we're going to

we're going to send you down to TDC

that's the Texas Department of

Corrections

and they did get my attention but more

importantly they had locked me up long

enough

to where I woke up and remembered who I

was and that took a while

Crosby landed in jail in Texas for nine

months the good news was that behind

bars he finally underwent detoxification

and began his recovery from drugs

David's girlfriend Jan went into rehab

at the same time and both struggled

alone to get clean and we were both of

us broken you know we were pretty Broken

Spirits and we just had to stay alive I

I could do it for him and he could do it

for me and that's pretty much what

happened

David played with the prison band and

slowly began to write songs again I

thought he'd probably come out stronger

than when he went in which turned out to

be the case except the food really

messed him over he says he does the

worst food in the universe a court

overturned Crosby's conviction on appeal

and in 1986 he was released from jail a

deeply changed man greeted his friends

you know he walked through the door and

I they didn't warn me he was coming over

I think God I finally realized who I was

looking at and I I guess I Graham says I

said

David are you in there

after his release to a halfway house

Crosby made a triumphant return to the

stage

[Music]

seem to have not lost a step

you know after everything he'd been

through you'd think wow he's scoot his

voice up he's not going to be able to

sing he's not going to be able to think

he's not going to be able to none of

those things happen to David David and

Jen were both clean and newly committed

to surviving and to each other

after I'd gotten out and we'd been

together for

probably another year or so I was awake

and I looked over at her and realized I

was really in love with her and thought

well Mary you're a fool

all right

it's one you know every once in a while

I have a good idea that was one of the

best

David and Jan married in a double

ceremony where Graham Nash and his wife

Susan renewed their vows

it was a Triumph really that David had

made it back all the way from from the

darkness all the way to this beautiful

sunny wedding day

but there was still a price to pay for

the life he had led when Crosby Stills

and Nash reunited for Woodstock 94. he

became increasingly exhausted and Ill

he finished the tour amazingly some days

I remember him being so sick that he

would go out and sing and as soon as he

would come off the stage we would hold

him and help him walk

back David discovered he had had

hepatitis C for years and without a new

liver he would die

I just wasn't really to accept the fact

that I could do the right thing and that

God would then smack me in the head and

say well you're going to die anyway

I was more scared

because now I wanted to live

now I was in love with life

you know

now I didn't want to give it up

David and Jan had been trying for some

time to have a baby and they had just

learned that after arduous fertility

treatments Jan had finally become

pregnant David was put on a waiting list

for a liver transplant but while he

waited he was dying

we took a little bit of time to go

sailing on the Mayan to say goodbye in

case that was the end of it and uh

we were lucky that it wasn't

his doctor said he had a week to live

when a donor match was finally made and

David underwent a successful liver

transplant

just weeks before the operation David

had received stunning news he had a 32

year old son and the son was ready to

meet him the pregnant girlfriend he had

run out on in the 1960s had given up his

healthy son to a loving adoptive family

now that grown Sun had located his birth

mother and learned David Crosby was his

father

they met for the first time in the

hospital where Crosby was recovering

I tried to kind of put a lot of his

anxieties to rest you know I think he

was worried about

me being some angry guy that you know

wanted to know why

he wasn't in my life earlier and there

was really none of that

didn't want him to

not like me

wanted him to like me wanted him to be

okay wanted him to not

I think I wanted mostly for him not to

be mad at me when we started talking

about music and what I was doing and

he asked me you know do you like my

music and I said of course you know I

grew up listening to that and that was a

big relief I could tell

as if David Crosby hadn't lived through

enough miracles of late his long-lost

son had more news for him that very

night Crosby would become a grandfather

James and his wife welcomed their first

child Grace

and six months after his liver

transplant and meeting James Crosby was

given another gift Jan gave birth to a

healthy boy named Django

as it turned out David Crosby had more

in common than DNA with his older son

James Raymond is an accomplished

musician and now plays with his father

in Crosby's new band CPR

[Music]

his son and he have a certain musical

connection that I don't think they could

be faking I think it's just there cpr's

first record is one of the strongest

records David's ever made and it's

wonderful because very few Rock

performers have ever figured out a way

to grow up and not embarrass themselves

[Music]

David Crosby's face would stay on the

cover of the Rolling Stone not for crime

or drugs or music but for his obvious

Talent had something he learned late in

life

fatherhood

by the turn of the century David Crosby

had rebuilt his life been straight for

14 years and was making up for his

Missing Years with his family he spent

more time with his grown daughter

Donovan and was determined to be present

as a father with Django so David was not

really there for Donovan which is one of

the wonderful things now that I can see

that he is doing with his life in terms

of of supporting Donovan and also being

there for Django uh he's there 24 hours

a day for General Friends of the happy

family discuss their own longing for

children with David and Jan

we're having this long conversation

about thinking about starting a family

you know we're gonna we're thinking

about doing this sometime

and of course you know the

difficulties we would have

um you know creating children and um Jan

just said well what about David

I thought it was a great idea

you can see that there was love there

and they'd been together a long time and

they were a good stable relationship and

we were sure

that it would work

and uh

you know I didn't even hesitate about it

I said yeah that would be a great idea

and in January 2000 rock star Melissa

Etheridge and her partner Julie Cipher

stunned the world when they announced

that 58 year old David Crosby was the

father of their two children they had

done some medical research which assured

them a sperm donation from David would

indeed be safe since he had been clean

for so many years but that was not the

deciding factor I think that by seeing a

Jan and David's newborn child

it pretty much erased any doubts I had

about David as a as a father in the

genetics of it or whatever this gorgeous

gorgeous baby sweet boy healthy the

proof is obviously in the pudding the

kids are great kids

that would that's how you tell

the story is now a rock and roll

footnote and several months after the

announcement David Crosby was in the

news again this time for the Stellar

reviews of his music Crosby Stills Nash

and Young toured the country together

for the first time since 1974. David

Crosby poured his heart in to teach your

children well and his own experience now

tempered his harmonies

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you would think that the life he led

would have destroyed that voice

um

but he still sings Like An Angel just

like an angel that's been to Hell and

maybe that's a better kind of vocal

quality he's actually much much better

singer than he ever was before he's so

much stronger now and he's incredibly

powerful singer

free

David Crosby showed few signs of

mellowing in his 50s instead he wrote a

book and made a documentary about

musicians and social activism called

Stand and be counted what they are is

sort of an oral history of activism in

this country and sort of a primer

on how to do it you know you can start

in your backyard and make a difference

book

[Music]

good night he's a Peaceful Warrior

he's a Peaceful Warrior and he only

builds things he only creates things and

he only makes things matter he tries to

spend every moment doing that

he's he's back in possession if it's a

tremendous enthusiasm it's been an

amazing story an amazing story that has

no signs of quitting

careful what he does with his life

every day is given to him he knows that

you know it's another he wakes up in the

morning ah another day it's pretty great

[Music]