Musician David Crosby dead at 81

David Crosby, whose soaring harmonies with two different iconic bands elevated him to musical stardom in the 1960s even as his famously volatile temper often fractured relations with his bandmates, has died at the age of 81, his family said. 

A statement from Crosby's wife released to Variety magazine confirmed the musician's death "after a long illness" and said that he had died "lovingly surrounded by his wife and soulmate Jan and son Django."

In a career extending six decades, Crosby first spent three years with the Roger McGuinn-led Byrds, who scored No. 1 hits in the mid-60s with Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn, Turn, Turn. 

Soon after he joined up with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and, on occasion, Neil Young. Both configurations yielded mellow hits like Teach Your Children, Just A Song Before I Go and Wasted On the Way, as well as impassioned protest fare such as Wooden Ships, Almost Cut My Hair and Ohio.

Crosby also released eight solo albums, beginning with the acclaimed If I Could Only Remember My Name in 1971 and as recently as 2021's For Free.

Crosby, more often than not sporting a walrus mustache, built a reputation over his career as one of rock's most colourful characters, a hedonistic connector of the artists who lived and amassed in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

"I couldn't shake the guy from my mind," Nash recalled of an early meeting, at the house of Cass Elliott of the Mamas and Papas, in his 2013 book Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life. "He was such a free spirit, so irreverent … the energy he put out was incredible."

Also, Nash noted, Crosby "had the best dope in Hollywood."

Crosby proselytized to his famous friends about a young Canadian singer-songwriter he'd seen, Joni Mitchell, and dated her for a time as her career ascended.

However, he could exasperate bandmates with his​ undisciplined, opinionated ways. The ​Byrds fired him from the band and he burned bridges with his Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young partners near the end of his life.

"David had become insufferable," McGuinn said in the Cameron Crowe-directed documentary on Crosby's life, 2019's Remember My Name. "He was hard to hang out with."

Crosby admitted to having a volcanic temper and lamented the bridges burned in the same documentary.

"I still have friends, but all of the guys I made music with won't even talk to me," he said. "One of them hating my guts could be an accident. But McGuinn, Nash, Neil and Stephen all really dislike me, strongly."