Last week, David Crosby of The Byrds, Crosby Stills and Nash, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young plus various solo offerings died.

Another to add to the long list of 60s and 70s rock greats who have left us recently.

Crosby first came to attention in the UK as a member of US group The Byrds, pioneers of folk rock and a distinctive jangly guitar style

This video features a US TV appearance with a song which is a contender for the first psychedelic recording.

The Byrds: Eight Miles High

In 1968 he teamed up with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash to form one of the best close harmony groups of their time. One of my favourites of theirs is Suite: Judy Blue Eyes which I posted here.

That group became even more potent with the addition of Neil Young a year later. I featured CSNY’s great protest song Ohio in 2010.

This though is from that first eponymous CSN album; a slower, acoustic piece which Crosby wrote.

Crosby, Stills and Nash: Guinnevere

David Van Cortlandt Crosby: 14/8/1941 – 18/1/2023. So it goes.

Released in the interregnum between Stills’s time in Crosby, Stills and Nash and Manassas before he took up with C, N (and Y) again, my elder brother took exception to the apparent incitement to free love in this song’s lyric and title. Myself I took it to mean be nice to the people you encounter.

I note Love the One You’re With‘s abrupt ending echoes that of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.

“What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?”

Previously I featured only C S and N. This is the full monty CSNY with their Neil Young composed protest song about the Kent State University shootings, Ohio.

The cover shown on the original clip (now vanished into the ether) was of Deja Vu, but Ohio didn’t appear on that; only coming out on a studio album with the compilation So Far (on which a notable absentee was CSN’s first hit in the UK, “Marrakesh Express” – a track which for which I can only find fairly dodgy live versions on You Tube.)

Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young: Ohio