One of my favorite records has long been Dave Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name
. It's recently been remastered and reissued - marking my ownership of a third copy (LP, original CD issue and now this one!). I didn't have to fork out the loot this time because a buddy of mine was head's up about it and gave it to me for xmas. Stephen Barncard, the original session engineer who has also overseen all subsequent releases of the album has some great session notes online here. It was a collaborative and fertile time in the Bay Area, with members of the various bands all dropping by each other's sessions and playing on each other's projects, in what came to be known as the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra. A typical track from this album would include Cros on guitar and vocals, with Garcia, Lesh, Billy and Mickey backing him. Beautiful. If you want to read more about the bands and records involved in , click here.
David Crosby is a stone cold hippy. He didn't go Hollywood, he went the other way around and left the Byrds and their LA scene for the Bay Area. He lived on his boat in Sausalito while he took enormous quantities of drugs, hung with the Dead and the Airplane, and wrote, co-wrote, sang and played on some phenomenal music in the late sixties and early seventies...the free love, guns, dope, jail time, reunion tours, good and bad records, environmentalism, sperm donation to Melissa Etheridge...it all adds up to an interestng cat who still talks like an idealist. Outraged, but hopeful...
This compilation requires two downloads and includes a bunch of stuff Cros has been involved with, from the Airplane to the various C/S/N/Y permutations - live tracks, too.
I love this music. It hits me on a real visceral, emotional level. These people were some of my original musical and cultural heroes. I really believed and believed in them. The songs about revolution, outer space, enlightenment, beautiful girls, sunny afternoons...I only wish I could feel the way these songs make me feel 24 hours a day.
Burning Dervish Volume 8: David Crosby
Download Part One
Download Part Two
The original albums some of these tracks appeared on can be found here.
1 comments:
I managed to find one CDs worth of this elsewhere...any chance of my acquiring these in the future? Would love to be informed of a repost. The original LP and Blows Against the Empire remain all-time faves for me since their release and it is only as of late I have become aware of the outtakes being circulated.
Thanks
Duncan Walls
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