Why was David Crosby in jail?
The turbulent life and career of David Crosby is loaded with personal tragedy, political belligerence, and a routine tussle with the law’s long arm. A founding member of The Byrds who helped usher in the wave of psych-tinged folk rock that dominated the 1960s, Crosby would go on to achieve greater critical acclaim by joining forces with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, plus bringing in Buffalo Springfield’s Neil Young for the ‘supergroup’s defining Déjà Vu album in 1970.
A creature of the counterculture, Crosby was a vociferous critic of both American domestic and foreign policy, condemning the Vietnam War and scrutinising the Warren Commission on stage in 1967. He was also present at three of the most consequential music events of the decade, playing Monterey, Woodstock, and the infamous Altamont Free Festival, cementing himself as a key character of the 1960s tumultuous collision of socio-political upheaval and popular music’s emerging importance as an agent of change.
Crosby also had an infamous drug habit, reaching its addled peak in the early 1980s. Arrested in 1982 after crashing his car containing cocaine and quaaludes, Crosby did himself no favours caught by Texan police freebasing in the back of Dallas club Cardi’s and packing a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, carried since John Lennon’s assassination.
Out on bail while appealing a five-year sentence, Crosby was pulled over again in 1984 after driving erratically on his motorbike in California’s Ross, discovered with baggies of coke and some smack for good measure. Sent to a drug rehab programme in New Jersey’s Fair Oaks Hospital in 1985, he escaped after two days due to a prohibition on musical instruments.
Marched back to Texas due to another drug arrest in New York, Crosby was denied bond and spent two months in the Dallas County Jail, even spending time in solitary confinement for ‘bad behaviour’. When probed on this time by Mojo in 2018, Crosby curtly highlighted the pits he was in: “It’s not a vacation spot, man. They mean it to be hard. And they’re assholes. And it was Texas.”
Freed on bond awaiting appeal in May, Crosby managed to play Live Aid that summer with Stills, Nash, and Young, but after missing a hearing in November and becoming a fugitive, he gave up on the addict life and handed himself in that December.
Sent to Huntsville Prison, he eventually got clean and even wrote songs, notably ‘Compass’ from Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young’s American Dream album. After marrying Jan Dance in 1987, Crosby sent the judge who sentenced him a thank you letter, crediting him with saving his life.
“I made every mistake possible, all of it” Crosby confessed to Mojo, “I went right down the tubes until I was a junkie. It doesn’t get any worse. Freebaser and junkie. I was as bad as it gets.” Quizzed on which chapter of his life was worse, Crosby made clear the choice he’d make: “If I had the choice of going on as a junkie or going back to prison, I’d go back to prison in a second.”
