Speaking to David Crosby in 2016, I asked him whether, looking back at his career through the prism of 50-plus years, he thought it had all been worth it. “Totally,” he told me. “Love it. I just wish I’d done more music and less drugs. I regret the time I wasted being wasted, that I could have spent making more music.”
Of course, Crosby experienced bad times – especially during the 1980s and ’90s – but if there’s one takeaway from his discography it’s that great music can provide nourishment during profoundly difficult periods. For Crosby, that involved creating an album as breathtaking as If I Could Only Remember My Name in the aftermath of deep, personal tragedy. But latterly, as his fine run of solo albums since 2014’s Croz illustrated, he was able to reinvigorate and sustain his singular solo career after a 21-year gap.
I’ve spent most of this last week or so listening to the PERRO sessions – the bootleg recordings from If I Could Only Remember My Name – where Crosby was joined by a gang of friends and accomplices who constituted the cream of the West Coast music scene. It’s perhaps my favourite set of Crosby recordings, not because the songs are there – a lot of it is quite baked – but because the warmth and the vibe are sweet and seductive. For our tribute to Croz, we’ve revisited many of our own encounters with him from down the years, letting him tell his own colourful tale first-hand.
What else? Our first Led Zeppelin cover story for a decade digs deep into the band’s momentous 1973: a year in which they comprehensively shattered box-office records and rewrote the blueprint for rock’n’roll tours. For this piece, Peter Watts has even tracked down a handful of eyewitnesses and collaborators who’ve never been interviewed before about their experiences working with Zeppelin. It does feel like an untold story.
There’s a lot more, of course – Nina Simone, Nuggets, Paul Weller, Mark Eitzel, Faust, The Roches – as well as emerging artists like Jana Horn, Lonnie Holley, Elijah McLaughlin, Andrew Wasylyk and more. As ever, we strive to join the dots between the music of previous decades and the music that’s being made now.
Finally, I’d like to draw your attention to this month’s Feedback, which includes the best letter we’ve ever printed in Uncut…