HE’S 78 now, but David Crosby is still achieving career firsts. In the Altadena studio owned by his son James Raymond, the pair have just finished cutting a new song, “Rodriguez Tonight”, featuring lyrics by Donald Fagen. “I asked him a couple of hundred times,” laughs Crosby. “I’m a huge fan - Steely Dan are my favourite band, even beyond The Beatles.”
CPR: (l-r) James Raymond, David Crosby and Jeff Pevar
EVAN HURD/SYGMA/SYGMA VIA GETTY IMAGES
As Crosby puts it, the music he’s recording at the moment has “saved my butt - again! I’m having a hard time in my life right now. I just lost a kid [his biological son Beckett Cypher died in May]. That blew me out of the water, man. The country I love is in desperate throes. The truth is, man, I swear to God - I got two magics, my family and the music, and I’m reaching for them both real hard.”