THE ROCK FAMILY AFFAIR

From the September 24, 1971 issue of LIFE
Photography: JOHN OLSON
DAVID CROSBY

David Crosby, rhythm guitarist, singer and composer with Crosby, Stills Nash & Young, says, of his father, "In some ways I must be such a mystery to him. But in the last few years we've become good friends. What I like best about him is that he seems to feel no need for me to be like him, so we're not offended by each others differences. Like he knows I get high. He doesn't do it, and he doesn't approve of it, but he doesn't inflict his values on me. His head is wide open."

Floyd Crosby is a distinguished Academy Award-winning cinematographer, who retired four years ago and lives with his wife in this simple, modern house Ojai, Calif. He can't explain why David turned out the way he did--"Davey's mother and I were both in the New York Social Register." yet he clearly loves his son. "We don't see other often," he says, "but we get along well."

"I've never been able to accept authority," says David,30, "and I've always been in trouble for it. My parents did their absolute best, but I'm just another stumbling-along-blind human being trying to do without the instruction booklet."

David also sees his mother in Santa Barbara where, he says, "her friends tell her son is a Communist, or a revolutionary--that's worse now--or a pervert. It hassles her, but she is really a good mother. She worries a lot. She always came to the principals office when I got in trouble."