'If Only I Could Remember My Name'

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young released their highly influential album Déjà Vu in 1970, which spelled the beginning of the end for the super group.


Neil Young released his fantastic After the Gold Rush that same year. Graham Nash released Songs for Beginners. Stephen Stills released Stephen Stills. And David Crosby released If Only I Could Remember My Name. Three of those four are on the 1,001 records list (in addition to Déjà Vu). 


For one, Crosby's effort has the worst album cover of the four and probably one of the worst album covers for any reputable rock musician of all time.

At times, it's really good rootsy, folk-country rock. Other times it's as bland and vanilla as you can possibly get. It features the stylings of Nash, Young, members of Jefferson Airplane, Santana, the Grateful Dead and Joni Mitchell.

It also is the only recorded footprint of Ethan Crosby, David's brother. He, too, was a musician, playing guitar and jamming with David in the early-1960s. He also became a sort of anti-modern philosopher and after being disillusioned out of college and, eventually, the music business, he became a hermit and hid out in the hills and mountains of northern California in Big Sur and Mount Shasta.

He died at the age of 60. He'd been missing from his handmade, makeshift cabin in the wilderness, where he had left an apparent suicide note. His decomposing body -- half eaten by bears -- was found in the woods.

When you listen to If Only I Could Remember My Name, think of Ethan. And think of all the cocaine David snorted.