David Crosby was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter, who helped define the sound of the Woodstock generation as a key member of the 1960s and ’70s bands the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash, but whose wanton drug abuse made him a cautionary symbol of the era’s culture of excess.

David Crosby had a difficult start in life. He was expelled from several private schools before graduating from a public high school. Following an early interest in music, especially jazz and the Everly Brothers, he began to play folk music in his teens with his older brother.

Crosby joined the Byrds in 1964— a group once regarded as the mid-’60s American counterpart to the Beatles. They had their first number-one hit in April 1965 with a cover of "Mr. Tambourine Man" by Bob Dylan.

Mr. Crosby’s image as the twinkle-eyed stoner and sardonic hedonist of the cosmic age was said to have been a model for the obstinate free spirit played by Dennis Hopper in the 1969 movie “Easy Rider.”

His impish indulgences turned potentially lethal many times. He became nearly as well known for his drug offenses, weapons charges, and prison stints as for his music. By the mid-1970s, he was addicted to both cocaine and heroin.

In 1990 David Crosbie said,

“You don’t sit down and say, ‘Gee, I think I’ll become a junkie,’” “When I started out doing drugs, it was marijuana and psychedelics, and it was fun. It was the ’60s, and we thought we were expanding our consciousnesses.”

But followed with this statement,

 “Drugs became more for blurring pain.” He added: “You don’t realize you’re getting as strung out as you are. And I had the money to get more and more addicted.”

By 2018 David Crosbie expressed his need to continue creating music,

“I’VE GOT TO make the most of every minute I have.” “Wouldn’t you?”

The golden-voiced pioneer and true American original leaves behind a singular catalog full of gorgeous music as he now is “In Heaven with the Stars” forever.