I guess we all now know what David Crosby has been doing in the time he hasn’t spent cutting his hair. The ex-CSN(Y) and Byrds man has delivered five solo albums in the last seven years with 2021’s For Free being his latest. How’s that for an 80-year-old guy who many thought would be a ‘long time gone’?
Enlisting some heavyweight musicians, plus collaborating with his son James Raymond and members of his Sky Trails Band who have backed him on his recent solo tours, Crosby lends his considerable presence and still-resonant vocals to 10 songs. In fact, he only sings on For Free because his tendonitis makes guitar playing difficult.
“River Rise,” a piano plodder of a sweet tune, featuring Michael McDonald’s harmony on the chorus, opens the collection. A perfectly plucked acoustic pushes a richly layered vocal of mid-tempo mover “The Other Side Of Midnight,” and things get deep in the pocket funky on “Rodriguez For A Night,” a tune Donald Fagen penned the lyrics for. The horns rise in perfect Steely Dan style around Crosby and his players on this one. Crosby tackles his ex-lover and the woman whose first album he produced, Joni Mitchell on the title track. He duets with Texas singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz on this delicate piano-based cover, staying true to Mitchell’s original.
“I Won’t Stay for Long,” written by Raymond, is an absolute gut-wrencher that ends For Free. There isn’t anywhere else to go after the listener is brought to the edge of this song’s lyrical cliff, inspired by Marcel Camus’s 1959 film Black Orpheus. Crosby manages a masterpiece of a vocal performance, his best on For Free, as he gets his whole being around the lyric of longing and regret. Who knows how many more albums we might get from David Crosby, but we should all be pretty damn grateful that we have been blessed with For Free.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
