David Crosby - Rockefellers, Houston, TX, 4-18-1987

Two days ago, January 19, 2023, another great musician passed away. David Crosby of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young (CSNY), died at the age of 81, after a long illness. He lived a wild rock and roll lifestyle, including using lots of heavy drugs in his younger days, so I'm sure he was as surprised as anyone that he lived as long as he did. That's especially true considering his liver failed and he got a transplanted one in 1994.

In 2015, Crosby had a falling out with his longtime musical partner Graham Nash, and they never reconciled. As a result, there were no CSN or CSNY concerts or albums after that. It's too bad that there will never be one last hurrah for them now. But at least Crosby went out on a high note musically. For decades, he was known as the least prolific songwriter in CSNY. But from 2014 to 2021, he released five solo studio albums, all them generally well rated by critics. I saw a quote from him today where he basically said he didn't know how much time he had left, so he wanted to go all out making music that would last well beyond his passing.

I've already posted tons of CSN and CSNY music. To commemorate Crosby's death, I want to post some more of his music. I've never posted any solo concert recordings from him, so this is a good time for this. This one is one of my favorites. It came at a key point in his life. In the early and mid-1980s, his life seemed ruined due to an addiction to crack. He hit a low point in 1985 and 1986, when he had to serve nine months in a Texas prison due to drug and gun possession offenses. But he got clean in prison and stayed that way the rest of his life. He also rediscovered his musical muse, after barely writing any songs for the previous five or six years. Thus, this concert found him newly revitalized, almost like a musical rebirth. He wrote a bunch of excellent new songs and his voice was back in top form. 

Unfortunately, the recordings of most of those new songs would be marred by bad production choices, both on the 1988 CSNY reunion album "American Dream" and his 1989 solo album "Oh Yes I Can." This concert featured him in solo acoustic mode. That's a great thing in my opinion, because the songs are stripped down to their core, free of the many bad production trends of the 1980s. The new songs here are "Drive My Car," "He's an American," "Oh Yes I Can," and "Compass." I think they hold their own with the other songs here. "(He Played Real Good) For Free" is a Joni Mitchell song, and "Drop Down Mama" is a cover.

A great thing about this bootleg is that it's a soundboard, with really excellent sound quality. There were no problems to fix, although I boosted the volume of the cheering after many of the songs because the recording didn't capture much crowd noise. 

This actually consists of two concerts, an early show and a late show. He played many of the same songs at both. So I combined them to make one show without any repeats. I removed the intro to the second show, so it sounds like one long show. The first five songs, up through and including "Delta," are from the early show, and the rest are from the late show. The ones he played in both are: "Almost Cut My Hair," "Oh Yes I Can," "Compass," "Guinnevere," "Wooden Ships," and "Long Time Gone." I generally used the late show versions, but I used the early show version of "Almost Cut My Hair" because he gave a longer and more interesting verbal intro for that one.

This album is an hour and 29 minutes long.

01 talk (David Crosby)
02 The Lee Shore (David Crosby)
03 talk (David Crosby)
04 [He Played Real Good] For Free (David Crosby)
05 talk (David Crosby)
06 Almost Cut My Hair (David Crosby)
07 talk (David Crosby)
08 In My Dreams (David Crosby)
09 talk (David Crosby)
10 Delta (David Crosby)
11 Drop Down Mama (David Crosby)
12 talk (David Crosby)
13 Carry Me (David Crosby)
14 talk (David Crosby)
15 Triad (David Crosby)
16 talk (David Crosby)
17 Drive My Car (David Crosby)
18 He's an American (David Crosby)
19 Almost Cut My Hair (David Crosby)
20 Bittersweet (David Crosby)
21 talk (David Crosby)
22 Oh Yes I Can (David Crosby)
23 talk (David Crosby)
24 Compass (David Crosby)
25 talk (David Crosby)
26 Guinnevere (David Crosby)
27 talk (David Crosby)
28 Wooden Ships (David Crosby)
29 talk (David Crosby)
30 Long Time Gone (David Crosby)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16375927/DAVIDCRSB1987RckefllrsHustnTX__4-18-1987_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is apparently from April 11, 1987, only a week before this concert. I don't know the location.