The Music of David Crosby, Celtic Connections Glasgow review

Cult musical hero David Crosby – or Cros to his friends and associates – was fond of proclaiming that his role in supergroup Crosby Stills & Nash was to write all the “weird shit”. This presented something of a challenge for composer and Cros fan Kate St John in conceiving this tribute concert, but she and a gifted ensemble of musicians doubled down in the first half by choosing to render his left-of-centre debut solo album in its entirety.

If I Could Only Remember My Name is an album treasured by the Crosby cognoscenti, if falling short on catchy hits. No matter – The Staves were all over the devotional harmonies of Music Is Love, Kris Drever helmed Laughing as you have never quite heard him before, Ed Harcourt took on the big beast declamatory jam Cowboy Movie with additional lysergic shredding, while all the singers blended bluesily on What Are Their Names, co-written with Neil Young and Jerry Garcia and sadly as relevant as ever.

Best of all, Hothouse Flowers leonine frontman Liam Ó Maonlaí showcased the soft, soulful side of Crosby’s music on Traction in the Rain but missed out on the chance to sing Almost Cut My Hair in the wide-ranging second half – that honour went to the freshly shorn Harcourt, while Drever and Ó Maonlaí excelled again on The Byrds’ Everybody’s Been Burned and CS&N’s Guinnevere respectively.

Scottish expat Margo Buchanan delivered a bluesy Long Time Gone while new Scot Michelle Willis brought her experience of touring and collaborating with Crosby to the stage, leading on the Steely Dan-like Morrison, the first song which Crosby wrote with his long-lost son James Raymond.

In keeping with Crosby’s creative perversity, there was no big finish, just a couple of lovely, low-key connoisseur cuts including Cros’s own personal CS&N favourite, Delta.