David Crosby :: 1970 Outtakes (aka Perro Tapes)

Repost: Crosby’s 1970 outtakes (aka, Perro tapes)

One of my favorite LPs from the early ’70s is David Crosby’s underrated masterpiece If I Could Only Remember My Name? A fully realized embodiment of the sound of California’s folk/rock/country/psychedelia movement of the time, the album features such players as Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, Joni Mitchell, Phil Lesh, etc., etc. Almost as good as the album (and just as, if not more, interesting) are these outtakes from the 1970 sessions. These tracks are further proof that Crosby was an artistic force to be reckoned with at his creative peak.

DOWNLOAD: David Crosby :: 1970 Outtakes (aka Perro Tapes)

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23 thoughts on “David Crosby :: 1970 Outtakes (aka Perro Tapes)

  1. And as if these sweet 16 outtakes weren’t enough, the always impressive Never Get Out of the Boat blog posted three discs worth of material from the same sessions a while back.

    nevergetoutoftheboat.blogspot.com

    A quick search for “Crosby” should turn it up.

  2. It’s amazing how “rich” this sounds. A very warm sound.

    I swear you just don’t hear things like this anymore.

    s

  3. amazing that you posted this because a friend was telling me how great this is a couple days ago. thanks!

  4. I agree that the sound here is impressive– even assuming that an album like this could get made now, it would be too compressed to sound like this. The funny thing about “If I Could Only Remember My Name” is that relative to who David Crosby was at the time– ex-Byrd, one-third or one fourth of the first American supergroup– it is a pretty slight piece of work. The songwriting is minimal, a lot of mhmmhmmhm over acoustic guitar. The musicianship is as strong as you would expect from the cream of the Marin County scene, but the whole thing has the feel of a stoned weekend jam in someone’s living room. I think everyone expected that Crosby would produce something else at some point, and that this was a tossed off bit of work intended to cash in on CSNY’s popularity. Actually, with the exception of “After the Goldrush” each of the CSNY solo projects released at that time had that feel. Graham Nash’s “Songs for Beginners”at least had songs. “Stephen Stills” had a hit single, and was what we used to call “a good guitar record”– but, weirdly, the Clapton and Hendrix guitar work was buried in the mix. It is funny to think that these recordings represented an artistic peak, but that is what they turned out to be.

  5. Crosby’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name,” is a beautiful document of self reflection in the lines of Skip Spences “Oar”, Also pleased to know Crosby also sings non-senseable melodic sounds when doesn’t have lyrics yet. Thanks for posting, as this website always seems to tap into what I am interested in.

  6. I’ll date myself here, but who cares. I bought this album as soon as it came out and proceeded to play it for everyone I knew, who all then went out and bought it too. Apparently the buck stopped there, because the album soon sank from the charts.
    A shame, cause it’s another true gem from that period. Also great around that time,were Stephen Stills solo album, Graham Nash’s Songs for Beginners. Bob Weir had a great solo album around then, too. Also Blows Against the Empire and Sunfighter from the Paul Kantner/Grace Slick combine.
    Gratifying to see I was right about Crosby’s album.

  7. it is a pretty slight piece of work. The songwriting is minimal, a lot of mhmmhmmhm over acoustic guitar

    From here

    The songs on If I Could Only Remember My Name were a combination of personal tunes Crosby had written during the years and numbers that developed during jams in the studio. “Laughing” dates back at least to early 1968: Crosby cut an acoustic guitar and voice demo version at Hollywood Sound Recorders in March of that year for Elektra producer Paul Rothchild. In September 1969, when he was still shopping for a solo deal, Crosby cut a second solo version at Heider’s studio in Hollywood. Later, he tried unsuccessfully to entice his CSNY partners to record the song on Déjà Vu. Perhaps the song was waiting for the right musicians and the perfect setting to come along.

  8. How good is Phil Lesh’s playing on these tracks? Too bad he didn’t record more with Cros – they certainly seemed on the same page.

  9. I have not listened to “If Only I Could Remember My Name?” yet (I’m getting it soon). But I was mesmerized by these outtakes. I also believe this set of outtakes is an underrated gem (still waiting for reposts of Pink Floyd’s Zabriskie Point Sessions and the Freewheelin’ Outtakes by Bob Dylan).

    The only reason (I speculate) that David Crosby’s albums (and Stills’s and Nash’s for the record) is that Neil Young stole all the glory. While I believe Young is a phenomenal musician who released a multitude of outstanding oeuvre (On The Beach, Chrome Dreams, etc.), his work consistently seems to cause the other CSNY members solo recordings (which are just as phenomenal) to be overlooked (especially Crosby and Nash). This should not be so, as each member’s work is worth a look.

  10. The track called “Tamalpais High” above is actually “Kids and Dogs,” a duet between Crosby abd Jerry Garcia. “Tam High” is another tune that appeared on “If I Could Only Remember My Name.”

    > The funny thing about “If I Could Only Remember My Name” is that relative to who David Crosby was at the time— ex-Byrd, one-third or one fourth of the first American supergroup— it is a pretty slight piece of work. The songwriting is minimal, a lot of mhmmhmmhm over acoustic guitar.

    I couldn’t disagree more. You may as well say that Ella Fitzgerald’s scat-singing was “a lot of la la laing over a bunch of guys blowing their horns.” The songwriting and performances on “If I Couldn’t Only Remember My Name” represented a quantum leap over most of the material that Crosby wrote for the Byrds.

    Steve

  11. Fantastic stuff with beautifal sound quality. How about posting some FLACS or virgin WAVS of the original recordings for the audiophiles? The mp3s sound great…but…are…lossy…..

  12. dear drunkard, be well thanked for uploading these recordings
    crosbys music is getting into me, it’s so much fresher and directer. i wish i had been sitting right in fornt of him those days and i wish i could make a guitar sound like that and have that voice.
    well, what i actually wantd to say is, that i am too late to download thse songs and i would really like to be able to carry them with me. where do i find these recordings again? you’d do me a good favour
    and, are their concers still worth visiting? or isn’t it four way street standards anymore?
    from belgium

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