David Crosby
Lincoln Forum-Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
April 15, 1984

Recording: Sony mic (ECM 939T) > Sony D6 > Maxell XLII-S
Lineage: Master Audience Cassette > Akai GX-R60EX > Cool Edit Pro (indexed) > CDR > Flac

Disc One

01 Lee Shore
02 For Free
03 Carry Me
04 Page 43
05 Drive My Car
06 Bittersweet
07 Homeward Through The Haze
08 Delta
09 Guinnevere
10 Deja Vu
11 In My Dreams

Disc Two

01 Naked In The Rain
02 Almost Cut My Hair
03 Triad
04 Wooden Ships
05 Long Time Gone

David Crosby: Guitar, Piano & Vocals

Straight from the closet archives I bring you a document of a wonderful evening, originally scheduled to be a McGuinn/Crosby co-headlining solo show on April 5th, 1984. It was announced Crosby was "sick" and could not perform on the original date. We all assumed at the time "sick" meant his continuing battle with his drug demons and know years later that likely was the case. McGuinn played alone and put on his usual exceptional solo show which I will post at another time.

Crosby was re-scheduled to play 10 days later and the same tickets would be good for both shows, I was actually inpressed with this arrangement since many times there would be no make up show since McGuinn went ahead and played a full show at 1984 ticket prices we got our money's worth.
He was in the midst of a 2 month tour with the first 5 or so songs of the show solo and then the rest with a full band, but on this night it was as he put it simply "me and my guitar and my songs". I'm not sure how many shows were played this way during this 2 months, but for me, on this night, it was the only way to see it, with all the drug problems and legal trouble there was no hiding behind a crush of instruments. It was Crosby and only Crosby with nothing between him and the Oklahoma City audience, alone, the true way to see the mark of a good musician. The crowd was incredibly polite and respectful for the entire show, most of the time you could here a pin drop during the songs and great enthusiasm between songs, Crosby mentions what a great audience it is a number of times.
No his voice wasn't the best I've ever heard it and he didn't hit every note every time on every song but you could tell he was having great fun playing this night and seemed to really need to be there.

To help put it in context, the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Visual Documentary states about April 1984 "Crosby's freebasing is making him a fire hazard. His backing group have taken to arming themselves with fire estinguishers on their bus. Meanwhile, Crosby torches his suite at the Vista Hotel, New York and damages furnishings at the Yankee Pedlar in Torrington, Connecticut. Promoter Michael Gaiman observers: People would say half-kiddingly that he's down from 7 grams to 2 grams a day, but he and his girlfriend Jan Dance were going to hell arm in arm".

We returned to the Lincoln Forum not really knowing what to expect but looking forward to the prospect of a solid solo show by a wonderful songwriter.
The Lincoln Forum was more of a restaurant/club than a theater or "forum", there were seats toward the front and booths starting about 20 feet from the stage and stair stepping to the back, we sat in the first row of booths after the floor seats at both shows, my McGuinn recording turned out so nice we made sure to get the same location once again. I doubt the place held more than 300 or so people and had quickly sold out.

Despite his on-going frightening addiction, Crosby proved to everyone that night he was no coked out drug fiend that could no longer play.
Starting out a bit tentative, he ended up pulling out old songs, new songs, hit songs and rarely played songs for an absolutely wonderful show.
The whole show was very spontanious as he clearly had no set list of songs to play and simply played what struck him at the time, his between song banter with the audience was funny and eloquent, intelligent and honest. Crosby had the audience eating out of his hand and sincerely seemed to enjoy the evening to himself without the backing band, it really felt like an escape from his inner demons, listening to it again recently it seems even more so now that the whole drug story has come out and knowing what was still ahead for him.

I enjoyed seeing him play the piano which I had never seen him do all the times I've seen CSN(&Y), the highlights for me were some of the more obscure songs like "Homeward Through The Haze", "Naked In The Rain' and "In My Dreams", songs I didn't think I'd ever get a chance to see him play and have not seen since.
I don't think anyone could listen to Deja Vu, Delta or Wooden Ships and say he couldn't play or sing during this troubled time, even mentioning a sore throat at one point.

Quality is excellent, up close and warm with just a bit of hiss (at least with headphones) due to the quiet acoustic nature and having to up the recording levels a bit.
I did not do any eq'ing because anything I did took the spectrum down too much in my opinion and I didn't want to lose any of the wide spectrum and warmth of the recording. This is the first transfer direct from the master tape, it has been traded in the past on cassette.

I taped a lot of shows in 1984 and to my pleasent surprise this was one of the most enjoyable of the bunch...I hope you enjoy this, as much as I have, from my master tape of what I think was a very special evening for both artist and audience.

As with all my audience recordings so no one is dissapointed, samples are below...

Enjoy!
mjk5510