ANOTHER GENERATION, ANOTHER WAR

It has been more than 33 years since David Crosby, alongside colleagues
Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, commanded an audience of half a million
kids at Woodstock during the height of the Vietnam War. Sending pleas for
peace upon acoustic ballads and angelic harmonies, CS&N, with a late
arrival by Neil Young, became an icon of America's anti-war movement.

Today, on the eve of another military adventure in the Middle East, the
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer finds himself on the barricades once more,
ready to confront the realities of war with the possibilities of nonviolence.

"It took us 10 years to end the war in Vietnam," says the 61- year-old
singer-songwriter, who Thursday will headline the Scottish Rite Auditorium
in Collingswood. "I don't think war solves anything. At least with Desert
Storm, on the face of it, there was a clear excuse for turning back
aggression, even though the country we helped not only doesn't have a
democracy but doesn't let women drive cars.

"This time around, I think it's just based on greed for power, greed for
money, by the people in charge. We haven't succeeded in the war on terror.
We haven't captured Osama bin Laden, so now we've got a war for oil. It's
just a substitute for something else."

Iraq isn't the only battlefield Crosby would like to see this country
avoid. Although he proudly claims to have been clean and sober since
serving time in a Texas prison for drug and fire arms violations in the
1980s, he opposes at least some of the government's drug policies.

"The war on drugs is a failure and one of the reasons is they keep putting
marijuana in the category of hard drugs, which is ridiculous," he says.
"They should be concentrating instead on heroin and cocaine, which they
should come down hard on."

Crosby was able to find value in his incarceration.

"Prison makes you treasure your freedom. It forces you into introspection.
And if you're lucky, you can discover how much compassion you're really
capable of," he says. "Another thing I learned about myself was that I
could handle being alone, that I could handle being cooped up with a lot of
tough people and not (get) scared."

On the other hand, even jail couldn't prepare him for what happened in
1995, months after he lost his liver to hepatitis C and received a
transplant. That's when he agreed to meet James Raymond, who had tracked
down Crosby after a persistent effort to locate his biological parents.
When their paths crossed, Raymond, a keyboard player, had already
established himself as an award-winning musical director for Nickelodeon's
Roundhouse series, as well as a versatile recording-session ace.

"Well, sure, I was nervous," Crosby recalls of the anticipation he
experienced before the familial reunion. "James could've come at me with a
whole lot of anger, which he would've been entitled to. It was pretty
emotional. He was very friendly and extremely talented. And it's been great
ever since. We're more like brothers than anything else. He doesn't need
fathering."

The upshot was Crosby gained a son and a granddaughter, Grace, the same
year Crosby had a new son, Django. In 1997, they decided to collaborate on
original work with a new band, CPR. The third member of the acronym, Jeff
Pevar, has recorded and co-produced with the likes of Jackson Browne, Joe
Cocker, Shawn Colvin and Rickie Lee Jones. Raymond and Pevar will perform
at Thursday's show.

"James has been like a lightning rod for me," Crosby says. "I've made more
good music in the last five years with James than I'd done in the previous
10 by myself."

CPR represents just the latest chapter in a larger-than-life story that
began when Crosby was a founding member of folk-rock pioneers The Byrds.
He's covering several of the band's tunes on his road trip.

All told, says WMGK-FM (102.9) disc jockey Michael Tearson, those chapters
compose a tale of someone who, above all else, is a survivor.

"He's been through issues and problems that would have taken out ... weaker
men," notes Tearson, who will emcee Crosby's local concert.

He says Crosby's candor has set him apart from so much of the rock music pack.

"David has never been afraid of letting you know what he really thinks,"
says Tearson. "It's not always the prettiest picture. It's not always the
easiest picture, but he puts a lot of thought into his work."

In 2000, Crosby wove a series of interviews into a book called Stand and Be
Counted. Subsequently converted into a four-hour documentary, the project
examined the soundstage of social activism, from Bob Geldolf's Live Aid to
George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh, with insights from a diverse
group of musicians including Harry Belafonte and the members of R.E.M.

"Societies have always faced inertia and artists are frequently the ones
who lead the way," Crosby says. "I was interested in how these benefits for
causes came about. But the great thing about music is you can start
something big in your own back yard. You just have to take that first step."