David Crosby - David Crosby (1968)

David Crosby got fired from the Byrds in October 1967. This came after a long period of instability within the band, which lasted for the greater part of the year and culminated in the band's disastrous appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival. In it, Crosby constantly talked in between songs about conspiracy theories involving John F. Kennedy's assassination, and to further the other members' annoyance, sat in for a revolting Neil Young at the Buffalo Springfield's performance as a favor to his friend Stephen Stills. Tensions furthered when the band refused to record his song "Triad", objecting to its' sexually charged lyrics, and when Crosby in turn refused to participate in the recording of "Goin' Back", believing the band should record only original material. Because of that, Crosby was finally fired and original member Gene Clark was invited to rejoin the band and finish the album they were working on, The Notorious Byrd Brothers. While Clark himself wouldn't last long, David found himself aimless for a few months, spending most of his time sailing, writing songs, and staying with friends, without any definitive plans going ahead. In March 1968, armed with a few songs and with the idea to begin a solo career of some sort, David entered the studio with The Doors, Love, and Janis Joplin producer Paul Rothschild at the helm, planning on recording some demos to see if any record labels would be interested in signing him. Although label interest proved slow, Crosby came out of this session with about four songs or unfinished ideas that showed great promise, such as "Games".

In April of 1968, Buffalo Springfield, the band Crosby had sat in with just a few months prior, had finally split up for good, which meant that his friend Stills was also unemployed. The two proceeded to reconnect and start working together in earnest, collaborating with the Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner to write lyrics to David's "Wooden Ships", and record a studio demo for a song of Crosby's called "Long Time Gone", as well as some other songs written by Stills sometime in June. Meanwhile, the Croz kept on recording solo demos in the hope of getting picked up by a label, recording the first versions we know of the great "Guinnevere" and "Laughing" right about this time. However, everything changed in July, when at a party at former Mamas & Papas member Cass Elliot's Laurel Canyon home, the two met Graham Nash from the Hollies. Jamming together to one of Stills' new compositions and immediately noticing a musical bond, especially when it came to three-part harmonies, the three quickly get together and become one of rock's very first supergroups, the very creatively titled Crosby, Stills & Nash. With that, any plans David had of recording a solo album became secondary to the new group, which very quickly took priority over them. With the trio succeeding in attracting major label interest and recording one of the most successful debut albums of all time in early 1969, those plans became virtually non-existent, with DC only returning to the idea of recording a solo album by the time CSN(and Y!) had spectacularly disbanded in late 1970, with If I Could Only Remember My Name.

This whole story leaves us with the question: What if David Crosby had succeeded in recording his first solo album in mid-1968? In order to answer that, we must first gather together all of the songs he had available to him at this moment, either in finished form or that he had begun writing during this period and would finish at a later date. After that, we must select the version of said song that most closely matches Crosby's vision circa 1968, and that features the least involvement from Stills and Nash. While Stills and possibly Nash would have most likely guested on the record on guitar and vocals, we're talking about an actual solo album here, meaning this is a timeline where CS&N either didn't happen or happened later than it did in ours, giving him the time to release this album. Considering Crosby's songs are relatively long at about 4 to 5 minutes each, and it was becoming en vogue within the rock world to release albums with fewer and fewer songs starting at about this time, I reckon an eight-song, 40-minute long record would be plenty. And considering he probably didn't have any more songs than that written, it'll have to do nonetheless. Because of that, songs written before The Byrds' breakup can also be considered for inclusion, if he continued performing them regularly after his break from them and they weren't released elsewhere by the band, and solo songs that weren't in a particularly advanced state of completion will also be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to inclusion here. With all of that out of the way, here's what I think Croz's first solo album could have looked like:

Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills, and Nash)

Tamalpais High (If I Could Only Remember My Name)
Guinnevere (CSN)

Laughing (If I Could Only Remember My Name)

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Triad (Deja Vu)

Games (Graham Nash, David Crosby)

Long Time Gone (CSN Demos)

Kids and Dogs (If I Could Only Remember My Name)

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David Crosby - David Crosby (1968)

The Croz, pictured sometime in early 1968 in California.

We start off this album with a blast, with "Wooden Ships" from the first CSN record. Although co-written by Stephen Stills and the Airplane's Paul Kantner, the original idea for the melody of this song came from David, as can be seen in his solo demo, which makes it fair game for inclusion here. He'd sing lead on the full song, as he did live with the Lighthouse band, but other than that the song would be unchanged. A great opener to any album, it starts things off strong for David. Up next is "Tamalpais High", demoed during the March 1968 Rothschild session as an acoustic guitar instrumental with scat singing, the kind of song he seemed to be very keen on writing around this time. The arrangement on the 1971 album is a bit different from what I envision for this album, but it'll have to do as no other versions exist. In the third slot, we have "Guinnevere", from a studio session in mid-1968 with Cyrus Faryar of the MFQ on bouzouki and Jack Casady of the Airplane on bass. The only real glimpse we get of what this theoretical album would actually sound like, and by this sample, it would be pretty amazing. Easily the high point of this reconstruction. "Laughing", inspired by a conversation he had with his friend George Harrison, finishes off side one. It was demoed in the studio in May 1968, shortly after the others, warranting its inclusion here. Two completed studio versions of the song exist, one on his first record in 1971 and one on the shaky Byrds reunion album from 1973. Out of the two, the one that sounds the most like Croz circa 1968 is the first, which means it gets to be included here.

Side two starts off with his ode to menage a trois "Triad". Since this song was (allegedly) the reason Croz got kicked out of the Byrds, it's only fair we should include it in his first solo album, right? Presented here in a beautiful solo acoustic arrangement from the Deja Vu sessions, David gets to sing it instead of giving it away to the Jefferson Airplane. Next comes album highlight "Games", another song that was performed for Paul Rothschild in March '68, this time presented in completed form, before being inexplicably shelved for another four years. We can use the Crosby & Nash version as its arrangement is pretty close to the original and sounds like something Croz would come up with back then, Graham's harmonies notwithstanding. We follow it up with the only other rocker on the album alongside the opener, which is "Long Time Gone". Demoed in the studio in July 1968 with help from Stephen Stills, we use this demo version to provide the album with yet another authentic recording that comes from the 1968 sessions, alongside "Guinnevere". Again, as would be the case with "Wooden Ships", David sings the full song instead of sharing the lead with Stephen. "Kids and Dogs", the final song on the album and also the last from the March 1968 demo session, is another haunting song with scat vocals, which was inexplicably left off the If I Could Only Remember My Name album in 1971, despite being recorded in a beautiful 7-minute version with guitar by Jerry Garcia and some fantastic multitracked vocals by David. And it's that very version that ends our album.

This hypothetical debut is 40 minutes long with two roughly 20-minute sides, about what you'd hope for in length for an album back then. One shortcoming this album does have is its absolute lack of potential singles, but since David's material was probably meant for the album-oriented FM radio format that was beginning roughly at this time anyway, that isn't that much of a problem. Self-titled for the lack of a better title, it features a painting of him by his friend Joni Mitchell as the cover, the two of them spending a lot of time together at this point as he had produced her debut album for Reprise Records. Speaking of which, this album would've probably been released by either Reprise, due to the Joni connection and the fact other similar artists were also signed to them, or by Elektra Records, of which Rothschild was an employee. This album probably wouldn't sell that much, but would be rightly lauded as a great record by the critics, with Crosby's jazzy melodies and beautiful voice propelling the songs, and great songwriting throughout. A moody album without many fast-paced songs, it provides a great continuation to the sound Croz had already been hinting at with songs such as "Everybody's Been Burned" and "Tribal Gathering" with the Byrds. I honestly believe that grouping together to form Crosby, Stills and Nash might've been detrimental to Crosby and Stills as songwriters, as illogical as that sounds. That move might've prevented him from getting the individual praise he so deserved as a singer and songwriter, something we've tried to do right by in this reconstruction.

Sources:

- David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name

- Crosby, Stills & Nash - Crosby, Stills & Nash

- Crosby, Stills & Nash - CSN [Box set]

- Crosby, Stills & Nash - CSN Demos

- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Dejá Vù [Box set]

- Crosby & Nash - Graham Nash David Crosby