In September 1969 David Crosby’s girlfriend Christine Gail Hinton was killed in a car crash, and her death, and the effect it had on him is writ large throughout this album, which is dedicated to “My Lady Christine”. An album of grief and an album of acceptance and of healing it is, to my mind, one of the most beautiful and underrated albums of the 20th century.
It’s the kind of album that only appears rarely, when everything falls right, when the right music meets the perfect lyrics and the record button has been pressed, this album occurred in an almost shambolic way, with Crosby wasting time getting high and partying, then bringing musicians in to record,often the best tracks came from jams, with Jerry Garcia deserving a lot of praise for his contributions to the whole album.
In addition to Garcia it features a supporting cast of the big names of the time, Neil Young, Graham Nash, Joni Mitchell and various members of Santana and Jefferson Airplane all drift in and out of the album, an album that just seemed to happen, the opener “Music Is Love” was just Crosby,Young and Nash singing the title over and over, luckily a tape happened to be rolling.
It’s tough to pick out highlights, it’s a short album that flows almost perfectly, but “I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here” which closes the album is outstanding, with Crosby wordlessly chanting on a mutilayered masterpiece, one recorded and finished within 15 minutes, with no retakes.
It’s tough to know if “If I Could Only Remember My Name” gave Crosby any closure, any sense of peace, he certainly didn’t record any more solo work of nearly two decades afterwards and descended into a period of drug abuse that is pretty much unrivalled, but as a tribute to someone he loved, as a way of saying “goodbye”, it is beautiful, and it is heartwarming, and it deserves to be heard more.
Listen on Spotify http://open.spotify.com/album/12USOTZV9btHrSAb3YB1Ak
