When his Dallas appeals finally ran out, he and his girlfriend, Jan Dance, fled to Florida, hoping to sail his boat to some safe Latin American haven. Over the next few years, he checked himself into half a dozen rehab programs and bolted from each. Crosby was on a solo tour when police raided his dressing room to find him with a propane torch, a glass pipe containing drug residue, and a loaded. While he was arrested a number of times on charges involving drugs, alcohol and guns, the most consequential bust came at a Dallas nightclub in 1982. “Great reference,” Crosby said sardonically when he was told about the arrangement. The comic had died of an overdose just months earlier. To make sure he didn’t overdose on tour, his bandmates hired Richard “Smokey” Wendell, a former Secret Service agent who had done the same job for John Belushi. He was addicted to alcohol, heroin and cocaine, and got clean only after spending 11 months behind bars in Texas for drug and weapon offenses. When hepatitis C destroyed his liver in 1994, doctors saved his life with a transplant. He suffered from diabetes and arterial disease, was implanted with eight cardiac stents, and survived heart attacks, blackouts, seizures and a motorcycle wreck. The bigger surprise, though, was that he had any later years at all.

He piloted his own plane, lived on a ranch in the wine country north of Santa Barbara, and in his later years experienced a surprising burst of creativity that produced four albums along with concert dates across the country.

He was twice inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame - once for his years with the groundbreaking folk rock group the Byrds and then for his on-and-off decades with Crosby, Stills & Nash, a group described by the Hall of Fame as “America’s longest-running experiment in vocal harmony and social relevance.”Ĭrosby sailed the world in a 59-foot Honduran mahogany schooner called the Mayan.

He and his band mates sold 35 million records. Over the years, David Crosby achieved more than many an old hippie musician could even hallucinate.

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