Long Time Gone: The Autobiography of David Crosby [Hardcover]

David Crosby (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1988

A thorough and candid autobiography that is both a personal journey and a cultural history of American pop music. From the early folk era to the Golden Age of rock & roll, Crosby's story is both a cautionary tale and an insight into one of pop music's enduring legends.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Crosby, founder of the 1960s rock group the Byrds and, later, leader of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, tells in excruciating detail the story of his rise to fame and subsequent depraved life as a slave to drugs. His fast-paced narrative is punctuated by the explanatory text of his long-time friend, screen writer, director and actor, Carl Gottlieb, as well as by the recollections of other friends, lovers and associates. In a milieu dominated by rock'n'roll, sex and drugs, Crosby descended to a hell of addiction that ended only after his arrest on gun and narcotics charges and forced detoxification in a Texas jail. Now drug-free for over two years, Crosby is able to write candidly about his 14 years of addiction, seemingly sparing us none of the horrors. It is a harrowing tale. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Crosby is a founding member of two seminal folk-rock groups, the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and his tale is the archetypal chronicle of drugs, sex, and rock with a twistrecovery from substance abuse. Crosby's 20-year involvement with drugsbeginning with marijuana and escalating to heroin and cocaine freebasing, which ultimately led to his Texas incarcerationis candidly revealed. The narrative, like CSN&Y's best music, is a harmonic weaving of the shifting viewpoints offered by Crosby, co-author Gottlieb, and a seemingly endless parade of friends, lovers, musicians, and business associates. Conspicuously absent, however, is Stephen Stills's voice. Essential for all popular music and culture collections. Barry Miller, Austin P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 489 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (October 15, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385245300
• ISBN-13: 978-0385245302
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #791,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Entertaining Than The Music, November 10, 2003

By 

Timothy Ritter (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Long Time Gone: The Autobiography of David Crosby (Hardcover)

David Crosby had the good sense to enlist help in writing this book--lots of help--and the result is stunning. Instead of a typically self-absorbed druggy memoir, it becomes part oral history, part biography, part raree show--all in all a sweeping portrait of a man and an era. The list of celebrities and hangers-on who contribute their recollections is long, too long to give here. Among the most amusing is David Geffen, the producer, who was, in his own words, "a formidable figure always". Not formidable enough, however, to keep himself from being bullied by Crosby into taking an envelope of weed through airport security and being handcuffed and jailed.

Geffen had already begun to have doubts about his business relations with the singer after Crosby talked him into financing a movie in which "a tribe of nomads arrives at a campsite, spends a night and a day, and moves on, leaving the environment lovingly unblemished". The script was written by Crosby and an equally stoned partner. Geffen perceived at once that the film would be something less than a blockbuster, and pulled the plug on it even as Crosby was scouting locations.

But this sort of thing was quite mild compared to the hilarity of Crosby's hard drug phase, which followed his soft drug phase. Marijuana gave way to cocaine, and cocaine led to the breakdown of the barrier between his nostrils. As a precautionary measure, Crosby switched to freebase cocaine, which is smoked rather than snorted. This effort at health protection was in vain, however, as freebase turned out to be one of the most addictive substances on earth, demanding tribute from its hapless user virtually round the clock. So fierce was his desire to get the stuff into his lungs that he excused himself from a crisis intervention featuring such stars as Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, and Grace Slick, to go to the back room to be alone with his pipe.

And, with a propane torch for the odd procedure which turns ordinary cocaine into "freebase" Crosby slipped many times, leaving his body not "lovingly unblemished", but rather covered with burns and impetigo. By the eighties he was consuming thousands of dollars worth a day of the drug, and his life became a dizzing round of nightclubs, treatment centers, airplane rides (paying no attention to the illumination of the No Smoking sign), and binges with the ever-present torch and pipe in operation even while driving. "'I'm the best no-hands knee-steering driver in the world,' he would reassure startled passengers."

That may have been true, but in 1982 he passed out from coke overload while on his way to a demonstration at a nuclear power plant, and smashed into the center divider of the San Diego Freeway, and was busted by the Man. Here is laid bare the dilemma of the addict/activist: in order to save the people from radiation, he must at the same time endanger the people by driving while comatose. Law enforcement, after a couple more such incidents, decided he was a clear and present danger.

Yet he hung on for another 4 years, struggling to live as a functioning addict, even as his friends abandon him and the long arm of the law reaches ever closer. Obdurate to the point of psychosis, Crosby continues to cling to his guitar and torch and pipe until he has nowhere to turn but the nearest police station to make a clean breast of things. He finally kicks his addiction for good, not in the plush confines of Betty Ford, but in a solitary confinement box in a Texas prison, and emerges about a year later, with a greater knowledge of himself and of mattress fabrication procedures.

If there ever was a story about which the phrase "cautionary tale" is not a cliche, this is it. I'm surprised Geffen hasn't made it into a blockbuster.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How did he do that?, March 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Long Time Gone (Paperback)

I have repeatedly encouraged young readers who desire to "step into" the reality of the 70's to read this book. It should be a prerequisite for anyone seeking a career in drugs, sex, and rock n roll, or anyone who questions what they missed being born later. David Crosby is an incredible talent and an incredible survivor. This book approaches very closely doing that justice.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How Low Can You Go??, January 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Long Time Gone: The Autobiography of David Crosby (Hardcover)

David Crosby hits rock bottom in this painfully honest autobiography of him and (later on) his wife, and their downward spiral into freebase hell. He sinks so low that you stop caring about him. Still a great read, and a definite warning about the stupidity of drugs.