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Melissa Crosby Biography & Facts

David Van Cortlandt Crosby (August 14, 1941 – January 18, 2023) was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He first found fame as a member of the Byrds, with whom he helped pioneer the genres of folk rock and psychedelia in the mid-1960s, and later as part of the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash, who helped popularize the California sound of the 1970s. In addition to his music, Crosby was known for his outspoken personality, politics, and personal troubles; he was sometimes depicted as emblematic of the counterculture of the 1960s. After a short time performing in the folk music scene, Crosby co-founded the Byrds in 1964. They scored their first number-one hit in 1965 with a cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". Crosby appeared on the Byrds' first five albums and the original lineup's 1973 reunion album. In 1968, he formed Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. After the release of their debut album, CSN won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist of 1969. The group later occasionally included Neil Young. The core trio of CSN remained active from 1976 until 2016, and the duo of Crosby & Nash also recorded three gold albums in the 1970s. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) reunions were held in each decade from the 1970s through the 2000s. Crosby released eight solo albums, albeit sporadically, over the course of his career. His solo debut was 1971's If I Could Only Remember My Name. The last five of his solo albums, beginning with Croz (2014), came in the last decade of his life. Additionally, he formed a jazz-influenced trio with his son James Raymond and guitarist Jeff Pevar in CPR. He also appeared frequently on recordings by other artists, including Joni Mitchell, Jefferson Airplane, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Elton John and David Gilmour. Crosby's combined work with the Byrds and CSNY has sold over 35 million albums. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: once for his work in the Byrds and again for his work with CSN. Five albums to which he contributed are included in Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", three with the Byrds and two with CSN(Y). He was also an occasional actor, appearing as a member of Captain Hook's pirate crew in Hook (1991). Early years David Van Cortlandt Crosby was born on August 14, 1941, in Los Angeles, California, the second son of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, who formerly worked on Wall Street, and Aliph Van Cortlandt Whitehead, a salesperson at Macy's department store. His father was a relative of the Van Rensselaer family, and his mother—granddaughter of Bishop of Pittsburgh Cortlandt Whitehead—descended from the prominent Van Cortlandt family; they "regularly inhabited the New York society pages before their wedding". Crosby’s older brother was musician Ethan Crosby. His brother inspired his early love of jazz, particularly John Coltrane and Miles Davis; the latter would later recommend that Columbia Records sign the Byrds, and then cover the Crosby composition "Guinnevere." Their parents divorced in 1960, and his father then married Betty Cormack Andrews. Growing up in California, he attended several schools, including the University Elementary School in Los Angeles, the Crane Country Day School in Montecito, and Laguna Blanca School in Santa Barbara for the rest of his elementary school and junior high years. At Crane, he starred in H.M.S. Pinafore and other musicals but he flunked out. Crosby finished high school via correspondence courses from the Cate School in Carpinteria. He briefly attended Carpinteria Union High School in 1958. Ethan ('Chip') had been at CUHS before David. At CUHS David was given the lead in the Junior Class Play. Musical career The Byrds Crosby briefly studied drama at Santa Barbara City College before dropping out to pursue a career in music. He performed with singer Terry Callier in Chicago and Greenwich Village, but the duo failed to obtain a recording contract. He also performed with Les Baxter's Balladeers in 1964/1965 and published four singles in 1965, including a cover of the Beatles's song, Michelle. With the help of producer Jim Dickson, Crosby recorded his first solo session in 1963, with a cover of a song by Ray Charles. Miriam Makeba was on tour and in Chicago at the time with her band, which included Jim McGuinn, a multi-instrumentalist who later dropped his first name and began to go by his middle name, Roger McGuinn. Callier introduced Crosby to McGuinn and Gene Clark, who were then performing by the name the Jet Set. Crosby joined them, and they were augmented by drummer Michael Clarke, at which point Crosby attempted, unsuccessfully, to play bass. Late in 1964, Chris Hillman joined the band as bassist, and Crosby relieved Gene Clark of rhythm guitar duties. Through connections that Jim Dickson (The Byrds' manager) had with Bob Dylan's music publisher, the band obtained a demo acetate disc of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and recorded a version of the song, featuring McGuinn's twelve-string guitar as well as McGuinn, Crosby, and Clark's vocal harmonies. The song was a massive hit, reaching No. 1 in the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom during 1965. While McGuinn originated the Byrds' trademark 12-string guitar sound, Crosby was responsible for the soaring harmonies and often unusual phrasing of their songs. While he did not sing lead vocals on either of the first two albums, he sang lead on the bridge in their second single "All I Really Want to Do". In 1966, Clark, who then was the band's primary songwriter, left the group because of stress and this placed all the group's songwriting responsibilities in the hands of McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman. Crosby took the opportunity to hone his craft and soon became a relatively prolific songwriter, collaborating with McGuinn on the up-tempo "I See You" (covered by Yes on their 1969 debut) and penning the ruminative "What's Happening". His early Byrds efforts also included the 1966 hit "Eight Miles High" (to which he contributed one line, according to Clark, while Clark and McGuinn wrote the rest), and its flip side "Why", co-written with McGuinn. Because Crosby felt responsible for and was widely credited with popularizing the song "Hey Joe", he persuaded the other members of the Byrds to record it on Fifth Dimension. By Younger Than Yesterday, the Byrds' 1967 album, Crosby began to find his trademark style on songs such as "Renaissance Fair" (co-written with McGuinn), "Mind Gardens", and "It Happens Each Day"; however, the latter song was omitted from the final album and ultimately restored as a bonus track on the 1996 remastered edition. The album also contained a rerecording of "Why" and "Everybody's Been Burned", a jazzy torch song from Crosby's pre-Byrds repertoire that was initially demoed in 1963. Friction between Crosby and the other Byrds came to a head in early to mid-1967. Tensions were h.... Discover the Melissa Crosby popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Melissa Crosby books.