Photo by Edd Lukas and Ian Coad. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
The notoriously irascible Robert Altman and a drinking buddy once amused themselves by inventing titles of fake country-western songs; Altman came up with I’m Swimming Through the Ashes of All the Bridges I Have Burned. That’s the experience of watching the biodoc David Crosby: Remember My Name.
Most of the doc is a series of interviews with Crosby as he goes on yet another concert tour at age 76; before leaving, he cruises around his old haunts on Sunset Boulevard and Laurel Canyon. Remember My Name’s producer, the director Cameron Crowe, replays an interview with Crosby from 1974, when Crowe was the wunderkind rock writer portrayed in Crowe’s film Almost Famous. Crosby reacts with a telling observation about his friendships.
With the perspective of age, Crosby reflects on his musical achievements, his addiction and recovery and his trail of relationship carnage. He notes that “all” of his intimate collaborators – Roger McGuinn, Graham Nash, Steven Stills and Neil Young – “hate me”, and ruefully observes, “if it were just one, it could be an accident”. The film includes clips of McGuinn, Nash and Young (plus Stills’ emphatic silence) to corroborate.
Crosby’s well-known battle with cocaine and heroin came into play with his estrangements. I would reflect that recovery from addiction will generally IMPROVE behavior, but is no guarantee of ACCEPTABLE behavior. The drugs certainly didn’t help Crosby avoid his “two or three heart attacks” eight cardiac stints, his liver transplant and his diabetes.
Contemplations aside, David Crosby: Remember My Name does an excellent job of tracing Crosby’s musical career and personal life. We get his side of his romance with Joni Mitchell, and the story of getting dumped by Mitchell in front of all their friends – with a song Mitchell composed for the occasion. There’s an wonderful telling of the writing and recording of Neil Young’s great song Ohio.
And here’s an odd note for movie fans: Crosby’s father was Floyd Crosby, a prolific but usually pedestrian cinematographer whose career topper was his Golden Globe-winning work in High Noon. I compared the father-son career paths and found that in 1964-65, when David was starting with the Byrds and hanging out with the Beatles and Miles Davis, Floyd was cranking out Bikini Beach, Pajama Game, Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini and Beach Ball. While David was in the vanguard of the 1960s Counterculture, Floyd was winding up the Annette Funicello/Frankie Avalon teen culture that had been hanging on from the 1950s.