I blew it, says singer

Press, 12 March 1985, Page 10

I blew it, says singer

NZPA-AP Dallas The singer, David Crosby, in a Dallas jail while appealing against a cocaine and weapons conviction, says he walked away from a Court-ordered drug treatment programme two weeks ago because he was a bundle of raw nerves.

“I was desperate to play music, my sustaining force, my job on this Earth,” Crosby said in a Dallas “Times Herald” interview published yesterday. The 43-year-old member of the trio, Crosby, Stills and Nash, said that he had nearly shaken his drug habit when he fled Fair Oaks Hospital, in New Jersey, on February 24. A Dallas judge had sent him there.

“I was just about to turn the corner. I blew it, it was my mistake. But I missed the music, my friends, and I was frustrated.”

Crosby was arrested in New York City and was returned to Dallas on Friday. He said that he believed a friend had tipped off the police. “They got me before I had a chance to compound my mistake. People with good interests were tracking me because they wanted to help me.” Although an Appeals Court panel overturned a drug conviction stemming from Crosby’s arrest in 1982 at a Dallas nightclub where he was performing, Dallas County prosecutors have asked the Full Court to reconsider the case.

Crosby said that at one point drugs ruled his life. “I knew I needed help when drugs became more important in my life than my music. I didn’t realise it for a while, but my perceptions were altered. I couldn’t control events in my life.”