Who wants to see an abandoned soul?
Who wants to try and open it?
Who wants to know what desperate is?
Who wants to buy what’s broken?
David Crosby “What’s Broken”
In my narrow life’s narrative, celebrities seem to be dying weekly, sometimes daily. The loss always gives me pause. The end of the songs, the poems, the novels, the visual works of art. No more new creations from these perennial creators. The book is closed.
But day before yesterday, the largest tree fell in that enormous forest of musicians who have enriched me. From 1969 till now, if I could name only one, it would be David Crosby.
In 2014, I would drive through the darkness of the pre-dawn listening to the lyrics posted above from the album Croz. I couldn’t believe the man remained so prolific in his seventies.
In 1969, we were playing electric guitars in high school, trying to copy riffs from the Beatles, the Stones, the Monkees. I was bored with the scene. And then, one day in my friend’s bedroom, on his portable stereo, he put on the new album Crosby, Stills & Nash. The very first song I heard from them, “Suite Judy Blue Eyes”, totally astounded me. The tight vocal harmonies, the acoustic guitars. From that very day, I dropped all interest in the electric guitar. I purchased an Alvarez 12-string acoustic, and my musical life changed. Now, years later, I still play an Alvarez 12 and a pair of Martins. So much has changed in my musical tastes and abilities, but one musician still towers above them all. I no longer play in a band. I no longer perform. But in the stillness of my room, cradling an acoustic guitar, I feel his Presence affirming what I attempt.
In 1969, when I looked at their faces inside that first album, I was amused at the red-haired musician with the walrus mustache and mischievous twinkle in his eye. When I learned which voice was his, that rich baritone that always found the sweet spot in the chord, and later learned of his amazing assortment of alternative tunings, I knew I would be spending the rest of my life trying to figure out all the possibilities of acoustic guitar riffing and song writing.
And of course, I drew his portrait. Over and over and over again throughout the years. And now again early this morning at my gallery desk, I draw him yet again as I say Good-Bye.
I lived in Texas when he was arrested in 1982 at a Dallas night club. I cried. And then I cried again in 1985, the day he turned himself in to the FBI as a wanted fugitive, his hair full of lice and his body wasted by disease. His imprisonment cratered me. And then . . . he was out again. Writing music. Performing.
I finally saw him in person in 1992, in Dallas of all places, when Crosby, Stills & Nash were doing an acoustical tour. When they finished singing “Deja-Vu”, Graham Nash chirped: “So. You think you have been here before, David?” Crosby then cracked a smile and said, “Yeah, but at least now I’m not getting arrested!”
I saw Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young later in Dallas, then the trio two more times in Grand Prairie. David’s stage presence, to me, was always riveting.
Since his liver transplant, I have anticipated his death. But when it finally came, I was not prepared for how I feel. For two days, I’ve wanted to draw his portrait and post a blog tribute, but the gallery has had me covered up the entire time and today is also filled with appointments. Hence, this early morning attempt to get something out there. I have to say something. Write something. No matter how many months go by, I’ll never get the words to come out the way he deserves.
So, for now, all I can say is Good-Bye, my Friend. I’m sorry you never got to hear the words from me, but at least you got to hear the words from thousands, hear the applause from countless thousands, and know there were millions more out there touched by your creations.
Waking
Stream of consciousness
On a sleeping
Street of dreams
Thoughts
Like scattered leaves
Slowed in mid-fall
Into the streams
Of fast running rivers
Of choice and chance
And time stops here on the delta
While they dance, while they dance
I love the child
Who steers this riverboat
But lately he’s crazy
For the deep
And the river seems dreamlike
In the daytime
And someone keeps thinking
In my sleep
Of fast running rivers
Of choice and chance
And It seems as if time stops here on the delta
While they dance, while they dance, while they dance . . .
David Crosby, “The Delta”
Thanks for reading.
Recollections 54 The Art of David Tripp 