(Pop-Rock, Singer-Songwriter) [CD] David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name (50th Anniversary Expanded Edition) - 1971 (2021), FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

#77701. Music Is Love [2021 remaster] (Graham Nash / Neil Young / David Crosby) 03:23
02. Cowboy Movie [2021 remaster] 08:07
03. Tamalpais High (At About 3) [2021 remaster] 03:31
04. Laughing [2021 remaster] 05:23
05. What Are Their Names [2021 remaster] (Neil Young / Gerry Garcia / Phil Lesh / Michael Shrieve / David Crosby) 04:14
06. Traction in the Rain [2021 remaster] 03:47
07. Song with No Words (Tree with No Leaves) [2021 remaster] 05:56
08. Orleans [2021 remaster] (Traditional, arr. by David Crosby) 02:00
09. I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here [2021 remaster] 08:22
10. Kids and Dogs [2021 remaster, bonus track] 07:00
All songs written by David Crosby unless indicated otherwise.

#77701. Riff 1 [demo] 02:23
02. Tamalpais High (At About 3) [demo] 01:54
03. Kids and Dogs [demo] 03:08
04. Games [demo] 03:17
05. Laughing [demo] 03:59
06. Song with No Words (Tree with No Leaves) [demo] 03:13
07. The Wall Song [demo] 04:16
08. Where Will I Be? [demo] 03:41
09. Cowboy Movie [alternate version] 10:57
10. Bach Mode (Pre-Critical Mass) [session] 02:00
11. Coast Road [session] 05:16
12. Dancer [session] 05:03
13. Fugue [session] 02:03
All songs written by David Crosby.

Few figures in 20th century American music had as pervasive an influence as David Crosby. As a founding member of the Byrds, he shaped the ringing sound of 1960s folk-rock and pioneered trippy psychedelia, yet his greatest fame came as part of Crosby, Stills & Nash, a supergroup he formed with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash that helped usher in the mature, reflective ’70s. Sometimes joined by Neil Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash were wildly successful but volatile, so the members cycled through solo projects and other line-up permutations during their salad days in the ’70s. Crosby released only one album during this period, the bruised 1971 LP If I Could Remember My Name, then paired with Nash for a few records while CSN were on hiatus. Personal problems plagued Crosby through the ’80s, an era that culminated in a sentence in a Texas prison in 1985, but he rebounded with Oh Yes I Can, the solo album he released 18 years after his solo debut. It took him another 20 years after the release of 1993’s Thousand Roads before he started his solo career in earnest with 2014’s Croz. Over the next decade, he worked steadily—between 2016 and 2018 he released an album every year—as he explored an elegant, jazzy folk-rock inspired by Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, and Snarky Puppy, a combination showcased on the smooth 2021 set For Free.
Crosby was born in Los Angeles on August 14, 1941, the son of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby. He dropped out of drama school to pursue a career in music, touring the folk club circuit and recording as a member of the Les Baxter Balladeers. Under the auspices of producer Jim Dickson, Crosby cut his first solo session in late 1963; early the following year he formed the Jet Set with Jim McGuinn and Gene Clark, and with the additions of bassist Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke, the group was rechristened the Byrds. Although McGuinn chiefly pioneered the Byrds’ trademark 12-string guitar sound, Crosby was the architect of their shimmering harmonies; his interest in jazz and Indian music also influenced their subsequent excursions into psychedelia. However, creative differences plagued the group throughout its career, and in 1967 Crosby -- reportedly rankled by his bandmates’ refusal to release his ménage à trois opus “Triad”—left the Byrds in the wake of their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival.
After producing Joni Mitchell’s 1968 debut LP, Crosby cut a handful of solo recordings and began jamming with ex-Buffalo Springfield singer/guitarist Stephen Stills. In time, the duo was joined by ex-Hollies member Graham Nash; with its exquisitely beautiful three-part harmonies, strong individual songwriting contributions, and graceful folk-rock sound, Crosby, Stills & Nash’s 1969 debut LP proved a pop landmark, launching all three members to greater fame than they’d experienced in any of their previous projects. The addition of Stills’ former Buffalo Springfield bandmate Neil Young expanded the group to a four-piece, and in August of 1969 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) made just their second live appearance to date at the Woodstock Festival; 1970’s Déjà Vu arrived in stores with advance orders numbering over two million, and through the thought-provoking social and political messages of songs like “Woodstock” and “Ohio,” they emerged as generational torch bearers of enormous musical and cultural influence.
Following a sold-out CSNY tour, the group went on hiatus, and Crosby resumed work on his long-delayed solo debut, releasing If I Could Only Remember My Name in 1971; the following year, he and Nash issued the first of several duo efforts, and he also took part in a short-lived Byrds reunion. Despite continued creative differences, CSNY re-formed for a 1974 tour; Crosby and Nash issued Wind on the Water a year later, and in 1977 Stills returned to the fold for the multi-platinum CSN. However, as Crosby’s longstanding drug problem continued to worsen, he eventually fell out with both Stills and Nash, and a planned second solo album, Might as Well Have a Good Time, was rejected by Capitol in 1980. A series of arrests for cocaine possession and illegal weapons charges hampered him throughout the years to follow, even as he reunited with Stills and Nash in 1982 for the Top Ten hit Daylight Again. After completing the follow-up, 1983’s Allies, the trio did not record together for another seven years.
In late 1985 Crosby was sentenced to prison after fleeing the drug rehabilitation clinic he’d entered in lieu of serving out a previous jail term; upon his release the following August, he’d finally conquered his demons, later chronicling the ugly details of his addiction in the fine autobiography Long Time Gone. In 1988—a full 18 years after the release of Déjà Vu—Crosby reunited with Stills, Nash, and also Young for American Dream; his second solo effort, Oh Yes I Can, finally appeared the following year as well. After the 1990 release of CSN’s Live It Up, Crosby continued to suffer personal misfortunes—first he was severely injured in a motorcycle accident, and then in 1994 he lost his L.A. home as a result of massive earthquake damage. Months later, he returned to the headlines when it was announced he was diagnosed with hepatitis C and dying of liver failure, undergoing a successful organ transplant in 1995.
During the recovery period that followed, Crosby met James Raymond, the son he’d given up for adoption over three decades earlier and a professional musician as well; the two soon began writing songs together, and with guitarist Jeff Pevar they formed CPR, releasing a series of albums and touring regularly. In early 1997, Crosby, Stills & Nash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; six years earlier, Crosby had first entered the Hall of Fame as a member of the Byrds. Young returned to the fold for 1999’s Looking Forward, with the resulting millennial tour—dubbed "CSNY2K"—heralding the foursome’s first joint road venture in a quarter century. Crosby was again the subject of tabloid headlines when in early 2000 it was revealed that he fathered the children of singer Melissa Etheridge and her partner Julie Cypher; that same year, he also published a second book, Stand and Be Counted, which assembled interviews with actors and musicians to explore the intersection of celebrity and social activism.
From 2001 onward, a Crosby, Stills & Nash tour became a regular and annual event, with Crosby finding safe haven and camaraderie on-stage alongside his musical compatriots of over four decades. In both 2002 and 2006, Neil Young completed the CSNY lineup for their live dates, and although the politically motivated 2006 Freedom of Speech tour was very much driven by Young's muse, Crosby’s “Déjà Vu” was a cornerstone of the set and served as the title for the both the 2008 live album and film that documented the tour. Also in 2006, Crosby, along with Nash, accompanied Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour on sessions for his solo album, On an Island, and the pair went on to help him promote the record on tour.
The expansive, lavishly packaged three-disc retrospective Voyage was issued in 2007. Produced by Nash and archivist Joel Bernstein, the collection married two discs of classic material with a disc of unreleased recordings and set the template for both Nash’s 2009 Reflections and Stills’ 2013 Carry On. In summer 2013, Crosby began to talk about the sessions for his fourth solo album, his first in over 20 years. Produced in conjunction with his son Raymond and featuring contributions from Wynton Marsalis and Mark Knopfler, Croz appeared in late January 2014.
The singer/songwriter next collaborated with Snarky Puppy’s Michael League. The pair wrote some songs together, and then debated how long it would take to record an album. League wanted two weeks; Crosby wanted a month. Working at Jackson Browne’s Groove Master studios, it was completed in 12 days. The first single, “Things We Do for Love,” was released in July of 2016; the full-length Lighthouse followed in October. Continuing this prolific late-career run, Crosby released another full-length record the following year. Released in September 2017, Sky Trails was again produced by Raymond, and included a cover of Joni Mitchell’s "Amelia," from her 1976 album Hejira. He announced a coinciding fall tour of the U.S. to support the album. Crosby quickly followed Sky Trails in October 2018 with Here If You Listen, which once again featured the Michael League-anchored band that supported the singer/songwriter on Lighthouse.
Cameron Crowe produced the A.J. Eaton-directed documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Named after a Joni Mitchell song, Crosby’s eighth solo album, For Free, appeared in July 2021; the record featured a cameo by Michael McDonald and a song by Donald Fagen. (Jason Ankeny, AllMusic)

David Crosby’s debut solo album was the second release in a trilogy of albums (the others being Paul Kantner’s Blows Against the Empire and Mickey Hart’s Rolling Thunder) involving the indefinite aggregation of Bay Area friends and musical peers that informally christened itself the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra. Everyone from the members of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane to Crosby’s mates in CSNY, Neil Young and Graham Nash, dropped by the studio to make significant contributions to the proceedings. (Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Bill Kreutzman, primarily, act as the ad hoc studio band, with other notables adding bits of flavor to other individual tracks.) Crosby, however, is the obvious captain of this ship. With his ringing, velvety voice—the epitome of hippie crooning—and inspired songwriting, he turns If I Could Only Remember My Name into a one-shot wonder of dreamy but ominous California ambience. The songs range from brief snapshots of inspiration (the angelic chorale-vocal showcase on “Orleans” and the a cappella closer, “I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here”) to the full-blown, rambling Western epic “Cowboy Movie,” and there are absolutely no false notes struck or missteps taken. No one before or since has gotten as much mileage out of a wordless vocal as Crosby does on “Tamalpais High (At About 3)” and “Song with No Words (Tree with No Leaves),” and because the music is so relaxed, each song turns into its own panoramic vista. Those who don’t go for trippy Aquarian sentiment, however, may be slightly put off by the obscure, cosmic storytelling of the gorgeous “Laughing” or the ambiguous (but pointed) social questioning of “What Are Their Names,” but in actuality it is an incredibly focused album. There is little or no fat despite the general looseness of the undertaking, while a countercultural intensity runs taut through the entire album, and ultimately there is no denying the excellence of the melodies and the messy beauty of the languid, loping instrumental backing. Even when a song as pretty as “Traction in the Rain” shimmers with its picked guitars and autoharp, the album is coated in a distinct, persistent menace that is impossible to shake. It is a shame that Crosby would continue to descend throughout the remainder of the decade and the beginning of the next into aimless drug addiction, and that he would not issue another solo album until 18 years later. As it is, If I Could Only Remember My Name is a shambolic masterpiece, meandering but transcendently so, full of frayed threads. Not only is it among the finest splinter albums out of the CSNY diaspora, but it is also one of the defining moments of hung-over spirituality from the era.
[The 2021 reissue adds eight acoustic demos, mostly of songs from the album. The wordless sketches “Riff 1” and “Where Will I Be?” and the haunting ballad “The Wall Song”—which later turned up in finished form on the 1972 Graham Nash David Crosby album—are the three that don’t appear. There are also five songs recorded during the album sessions, including an alternate version of “Cowboy Movie,” three wordless songs, and a true undiscovered gem in the lovely “Coast Road,” which would have been a highlight if it had made the final cut. This song alone makes the set worth checking out; the rest of the extras serve to give a warts-and-all glimpse behind the scenes of one of the most intriguing albums of its time.] (Stanton Swihart, AllMusic)

PERSONNEL:
David Crosby: vocals, guitar
Graham Nash: guitar, vocals (“Music Is Love,” “Tamalpais High,” “Laughing,” “What Are Their Names,” “Traction in the Rain,” “Song with No Words”)
Jerry Garcia: electric guitar (“Cowboy Movie,” “Tamalpais High,” “What Are Their Names,” “Song with No Words”), pedal steel guitar (“Laughing”), guitars (“Kids and Dogs”), vocal (“What Are Their Names”)
Neil Young: guitars, vocals (“Music Is Love,” “What Are Their Names”), bass, vibraphone, congas (“Music Is Love”)
Jorma Kaukonen: electric guitar (“Tamalpais High,” “Song with No Words”)
Laura Allan: autoharp, vocal (“Traction in the Rain”)
Gregg Rolie: piano (“Song with No Words”)
Phil Lesh: bass (“Cowboy Movie,” “Tamalpais High,” “Laughing,” “What Are Their Names”), vocal (“What Are Their Names”)
Jack Casady: bass (“Song with No Words”)
Bill Kreutzman: drums (“Tamalpais High,” “Laughing”), tambourine (“Cowboy Movie”)
Michael Shrieve: drums (“What Are Their Names,” “Song with No Words”)
Mickey Hart: drums (“Cowboy Movie”)
Joni Mitchell: vocals (“Laughing,” “What Are Their Names”)
David Freiberg, Paul Kantner, Grace Slick: vocals (“What Are Their Names”)
Produced by David Crosby.