For Free

Description

On his new album "For Free", David Crosby shares the latest offering from a life devoted to the pure and powerful alchemy of music. Arriving just one month before his 80th birthday, For Free finds the folk-rock legend continuing to tap into the enormous creative surge he has experienced since the release of his acclaimed 2016 album "Lighthouse", this time collaborating with people like Michael McDonald and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. With a transcendent quality that exists somewhere between poetry, prayer, and wild rock-and-roll, 'For Free' once again reveals Crosby's rare gift for conveying essential truths with undeniable warmth and a profound sense of wonder. Produced with his son James Raymond (a multi-instrumentalist who also served as the album's producer), 'For Free' features a number of musicians who joined Crosby on 'Sky Trails' in 2017, including saxophonist Steve Tavaglione and drummer Steve DiStanislao. While much of the album encompasses the complex textures and signature intricate grooves of the Sky Trails Band's sound, its title comes from Crosby's beautifully sparse cover of a Joni Mitchell classic that he has returned to several times over the years. "Joni is the greatest living singer/songwriter, and 'For Free' is one of her simplest," notes Crosby, who is joined by Jarosz on the track. "It's one of my favorite songs because I love what it says about the spirit of music and what compels you to play." Faithful to the original version, "For Free" unfolds in a delicate piano arrangement, with Jarosz and Crosby's voices channeling awe and sorrow for a haunting effect. The follow-up to 'Here If You Listen', a 2018 album created with Michael League of Snarky Puppy, Michelle Willis, and Becca Stevens, who also collaborated with Crosby on 'Lighthouse-For Free', opens with "River Rise": a majestic and massively uplifting number co-written with Raymond and McDonald, who also lends his iconic voice to the song's soaring harmonies. "River Rise" was born from the desire to write something very evocative of California, but almost with a country song perspective, something that speaks to the empowerment of every man or every woman," explains Raymond. In a particularly significant turn for Crosby, 'For Free' also includes a track written by Fagen expressly for the album. "Steely Dan is my favorite band and I've admired Donald for a long time, so it was a pleasure for us," he says. A highly detailed portrait of outlaws, angels, and pharmacy cowboys, "Rodriguez For A Night" fuses Fagen's sophisticated storytelling with Crosby's warm and authoritative vocal presence, ultimately creating a glorious collision of worlds. Crosby calls on another friend for the album's striking cover, using a portrait that Joan Baez painted of him. As the most recent achievement of an unprecedented career, one that has included co-founding cultural groups such as The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash (both inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame); collaborating with James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Elton John, and Carole King and entering the illustrious Songwriters Hall of Fame — 'For Free' draws much of its power from the rarefied chemistry between Crosby and Raymond. "Can you imagine what it's like to connect with your son and discover that he is incredibly talented — a great composer, a great poet, and a very good songwriter and musician all around?" asks Crosby. "We are such good friends and we work so well together, and we will each do our utmost to create songs of the highest possible quality." For the final track of 'For Free', Crosby selected a piece written solely by Raymond, the gently devastating "I Won't Stay for Long". Inspired by Marcel Camus's 1959 film Black Orpheus — a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and his attempt to bring his wife Eurydice back from the dead — the song is centered on an exquisite vocal performance by Crosby, who extracts a whole world of emotion from every finely chiseled lyric (for example, "I face the grain line/Of a thousand-year storm/I don't know if I'm dying/Or about to be born"). "'I Won't Stay for Long' is my favorite song on the record — I've listened to it 100 times now and it still reaches out and grabs me, it's so painfully beautiful," says Crosby. "I ended up with a pretty stunning vocal, because it meant so much to me that I sang the hell out of it. One thing James and I both believe is that songs are an art form and a treasure, so when a song is as good as that one, we will give it everything we've got."