What David Crosby's Final Year Of Life Was Really Like

In 2021, David Crosby went on The Howard Stern Show, and the talk drifted onto the subject of death. At 80 years old, the singer-songwriter was realistic about his remaining time on Earth. "I could have two weeks [left], I could have ten years," he said. He was also adamant about wanting to keep going until the end, saying, "People get old and die, and that's how it works. And I'm gonna. But in the meantime, I'm gonna have myself a bunch of fun ... I know that I'm supposed to, you know, quietly shuffle off into the distance, but I'm not gonna."

Throughout 2022, Crosby worked to keep that promise. According to Variety, while he maintained a sense of humor about his mortality, he was engaged with plans for more albums, another band, and even a return to live performing after previously suggesting those days were past. Those who worked with him in the last full year of his life described Crosby as engaged and energetic, a far cry from someone at the end of his road. "He was a weakened guy from a lot of different preexisting conditions," said Steve Postell, "but he was not dying." 

Crosby's death on January 18, 2023, was taken as a shock by Postell and other collaborators, who had been in contact with him just one day prior. "He just wanted to create to the very end," said Sarah Jarosz. Here is what David Crosby's final year of life was really like.

Travel can become more difficult with age, and when your livelihood depends on travel, this can become a serious worry. David Crosby had been vocal in his last years about depending on income from touring engagements (per an interview with GQ). But the challenges of life on the road seemed to have caught up to him by 2022.

That year, Crosby gave an interview to a journalism class at Golden High School in Golden, Colorado (via Best Classic Bands). There, he said, quite definitely, that his days on tour were behind him, telling the interviewers that this was down to his age — 80 at the time. He credited his advancing years with motivating him to put out as much music as he was able to in the time he had left, but that his age had also left him without the stamina needed for a tour. The year before, he told Rolling Stone that traveling by tour bus was out of the question, as he couldn't sleep on the road anymore.

But Crosby appeared to have second thoughts by December 2022. His recording work, which continued throughout the year, found him in happy company. So happy, in fact, that he posted on Twitter that he was considering forming a new band and taking it on tour. Steve Postell told Variety that planning for that tour was well underway when Crosby died.

While David Crosby's cause of death has not, as of January 2023, been disclosed, a statement released by his wife described him as having endured a long period of poor health. Forbes reported that social media saw heavy speculation among fans as to just what was behind this state of chronic illness. With the COVID-19 pandemic still not resolved, some pinned the blame on the coronavirus.

On the other hand, Crosby did catch COVID-19, an experience he shared with a journalism class in Golden, Colorado, in 2022 (via Best Classic Bands). "COVID is a very weird disease," he told the students. "It makes you feel absolutely freaking awful. It has been thoroughly unpleasant...it's no fun at all. You want to avoid it if you possibly can."

Crosby shared this anecdote relatively early in 2022, well before his death. And Forbes traced the source of rumors about COVID-19 being behind Crosby's passing to an unconfirmed report on an entertainment website. Social media users opposed to COVID-19 vaccines or skeptical about the disease's severity seized on those rumors, spinning them into a story about the dangers of getting shots or boosters for the virus. But not only was COVID-19 not confirmed to have played a role in Crosby's death, he was also known to have suffered from other health challenges for years prior, including Type 2 diabetes, liver failure necessitating a transplant, and heart issues.

David Crosby continued to find musical collaborators in his final years. Among them was his son, James Raymond, born to Crosby and Celia Crawford Ferguson in 1962 and put up for adoption. The two reconnected following Crosby's health scares of the early 1990s (per The Baltimore Sun), and they went on to form a trio with Jeff Pevar, CPR. Raymond also worked for and with his father on a one-on-one basis. Heading into the final year of Crosby's life, the two had collaborated on the album "For Free," according to People.

Raymond was among the musicians Crosby had been playing with around the time he announced on Twitter at the end of 2022 that he was considering forming a new band. Other partners in the venture were Steve Postell and Sarah Jarosz, who told Variety that tour planning and recording for a new album were well on their way by the time Crosby passed. They had kept in regular contact with Crosby through phone and in-person visits in the last month of his life, reviewing lyrics and rehearsing new songs. Postell also kept tabs on the singer through Raymond, who notified Postell of his father's death. Jarosz, who acknowledged Crosby as a supporter for years (per Facebook), had collaborated with him and Raymond before: She had sung with Crosby on "For Free."

When asked about his health on The Howard Stern Show in 2021, David Crosby was relatively upbeat. "Nothing's broken yet!" he laughed. But he did share one malady that had a direct impact on his ability to keep making music: tendonitis. Crosby said that the condition affected both his hands, and that on the right hand, it limited how far his fingers could close and open. This made it more difficult for him to play the guitar, and he guessed on Stern's show that he had two good guitar-playing years left at best. By 2022, in an interview with Songfacts, he estimated that he'd lost between 20 and 30 percent of his playing ability, which was a factor in his seemingly final decision to retire from live performing.

Crosby's singing, however, was unimpacted, and he continued to produce records. In the event that he ever got the itch to go back on stage again, he told Stern, he could teach his guitar lines to another player. That was the approach he was taking as he reversed course and prepared to go back out on the road in 2023. Speaking to Variety after Crosby's death, Steve Postell said that he had helped convince him to take that approach. Had Crosby lived, Postell would have covered the guitar lines he would normally have played.

David Crosby was outspoken when it came to politics throughout his professional life, always on the side of the left. Through his songs, through interviews, and through Twitter, he weighed in on everything from Richard Nixon (via Rolling Stone) to misinformation and insensitive commentary on podcasts (via Stereogum).

In his final years, Crosby occasionally provided an advice column to Rolling Stone dubbed "Ask Croz." In his final column, dated July 20, 2022, he took a few political questions from readers. Asked if he might have been too hard on Donald Trump as president, Crosby stuck to his guns. "He has absolutely no values at all," he wrote on Trump. "He's all ego. No knowledge. No accomplishments." Asked about his previous promotion of conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of John F Kennedy, Crosby said he still believed that there was a second shooter and that Lee Harvey Oswald's bullet didn't kill the president.

But Crosby also took criticism from fellow liberals in the last year of his life. When the Biden administration professed support for unions, Crosby said on Twitter, "Wish I agreed...I think most unions are useless and totally dishonest." Among the many replies challenging his claim was one from Phoebe Bridgers, who offered Crosby a one-word insult (via Twitter). The two had clashed before on Twitter; Crosby criticized Bridgers for destroying a guitar on "Saturday Night Live," to which she responded in a similar manner.