One of my gateway drugs to Americana music has set sail for the Southern Oceans
Oh no. Normal routine. Alarm goes off. A groan and a moan. Cold floor. Struggle for glasses and shuffle into bathroom and turn the radio on. “….The singer David Crosby has died….”
Shit.
Well, it’s amazing he made it this far in the scheme of things but man, did he live brightly. His last 20 years alone were an extraordinary purple patch that built upon a legacy of such music. I’m sure the site will reflect his influence properly but the news has stopped me in my tracks and I must reflect.
How does a dissolute West Coast head with the voice of an angel resonate so deeply with a middle-class boy from the shires? No clue but he did. That voice transports me now, just as it did in my teens. This weekend is going to be a melancholy bath in the words and music of this genius. Maybe it was his flaws that seeped into the music and made it universal, maybe it was his cussedness or his politics that made him totemic to some. For me the combination of that voice and his minor key tunings sparked flights of emotion few other musicians could or can.
So, the sounds this week are all Croz – if you take what you need, you should take all of them!
First up the demo version of Everybody’s Been Burned where he’s sitting right beside you and whispering in your ear, then Traction In The Rain a gossamer-light hymnal to an LSD escape and finally, not entirely his song, but a definitive performance of Wooden Ships and Crosby as he utters those immortal lines as he looks to skies, sailing his boat into the great beyond – “guess I’ll set a course and go…..” Goodbye sir and thank you.
Normal service will be resumed next week.
