David Crosby is certainly one of the most fascinating figures in music history. During his years as a professional musician, Crosby penned some of the most successful songs of the 1960s and 1970s, battled drug addiction, spent time in prison, and came out of those years with both a career and a new perspective. If you are familiar with David Crosby’s life, then you know he’s an incredibly divisive figure who burned a lot of bridges. However, he was also an incredibly talented figure, and it was the culmination of these two things that seemingly got him booted out of The Byrds.
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The original lineup of The Byrds consisted of Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke. All in their 20s, the five fellas’ fame took up off in 1965 after the massive success with the cover of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”. Subsequently, the group furthered their success with “Turn! Turn! Turn”.
If you give five artistic and ambitious 20-year-olds fame and fortune, we’ll something is bound to go wrong. Frankly, it’s nearly unavoidable, and Crosby attested to that fact, and others in the 2018 music documentary, Echo in the Canyon.
Roger McGuinn Humorously Described David Crosby as “Insufferable”
First and foremost, it’s worth mentioning that before his death, David Crosby was well aware of his faults. Often, including in this documentary, he confessed to being overly intense, crude, and rude. Though like all of us, he lived and he learned, and was courageous enough to admit it.
Back to the story—by 1967, The Byrds were looking to continue their success, and according to the documentary, had two specific routes they could take to hopefully do so. The first track was to follow a more popular route by covering Carole King’s “Going Back”. The second was to perform the David Crosby-penned track, “Triad”. They went with the Carole King, and that is seemingly when things started to go south for Crosby and The Byrds. However, Crosby revealed that it wasn’t the sole reason for his ejection.
Following this decision, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman alerted Crosby that he was out of the band, and as McGuinn light-heartedly noted in the documentary, Crosby was “insufferable” at this point in time. Crosby agreed, as he humorously stated in the doc, “Ladies and gentlemen, that’s not why they threw me out of The Byrds. They threw me out of The Byrds because I was an a–hole.”
Of course, being an “a–hole” isn’t that simple, and Crosby gave some context to his behavior by adding, “If you give kids millions of dollars, they’ll screw up. We held together for a pretty long time. Bands tend to devolve.” All in all, David Crosby is and will always be a legend, and not just for his music, but also for being an incredibly down-to-earth individual.
Photo by Andrew Putler/Redferns
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