David and Jan Crosby Were a Force for SYV Schools' Music and Arts

Family friend

By KC Murphy Thompson as told to Pamela Dozois, Contributing Writer

Before legendary musician David Crosby’s death on Jan. 18, he and his wife Jan Crosby made a huge impact on the Santa Ynez Valley schools’ music and arts curriculum. They became involved in a grassroots coalition called “Let There Be Music” which propelled them into creating an extraordinary concert series named the Valley Music Festival, which over six years raised thousands of dollars to rescue the arts in schools in the Valley.

Santa Ynez Valley resident KC Murphy Thompson, who worked in the music industry and is now the co-director of the Nature Track Film Festival, was a good friend of the Crosby family, and offered her reflections of the work David and Jan did for the community:

Around 1997 or so is when I first met David Crosby. Like a lot of us in the Valley back then, the Roasted Bean coffee shop was sort of the social hub for our little town and that is where I would frequently see David, his wife Jan, and their son Django. With my background in the music industry, he and I quickly discovered we shared similar musical affinities, and we knew quite a few people in common though he was highly dismissive of my association with Guns N’ Roses, which cracked me up. So of course, I’d remind him of that from time to time.

At that time, public schools in California had tightened their financial belts, and the first thing to go was the music and arts curriculum.

As his son and mine entered pre-school together, a movement in the Valley was afoot to return music and arts curricula to local public schools. Community members like Linda Burrows at Solvang School had already launched the “Let There Be Music” initiative to restore these subjects, which had been reduced or entirely eliminated from classroom instruction. I became involved with Linda’s efforts around the same time David and Jan became aware that a grassroots coalition had formed to restore arts and music education throughout Valley schools.

David would often tell the story of how he stopped at the light on Alamo Pintado and Highway 246 when he saw the “Let There Be Music” fundraising “thermometer” attached to the pole near the intersection. That galvanized him and Jan both. They came up with the idea of a series of benefit concerts and enlisted me to help produce them at the Solvang Festival Theater. It was decided the concert’s proceeds would be directed to both Arts Outreach and Let There Be Music. Local promoter Stephen Cloud partnered with the Guacamole Fund to mount the six back-to-back yearly events.

From the start David and Jan were a visionary team, David charged with enlisting the guest artists, and Jan orchestrating logistics, amenities, and ambiance.

I’ve seen a lot of Green Rooms but none as serene and beautiful as those Jan Crosby created for our backstage area.

Over a six-year period Crosby brought an extraordinary parade of friends and colleagues to the Valley Music Festival stage, beginning with his band CPR featuring his son James Raymond on keyboards, Jeff Pevar on guitar, Andrew Ford on bass, and Steve DiStanislao on drums — basically, a supergroup. He set the bar even higher by inviting Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald to kick off the first year. After that came Melissa Etheridge for year two, then Jackson Browne for the third concert, followed by Clint Black in year four and Graham Nash in year five before the Valley Music Festival concluded in year six at the Firestone Vineyard with Neil Young.

All in all, it was an extraordinary run that injected thousands of dollars into local school arts and music programs and enabled the inclusion of these subjects in district budgets.

If your child is taking arts and/or music instruction in a Valley public school today you can thank the Crosbys, and parents like Linda Burrows, for jumpstarting that effort.

At one point during the run of con - certs, David mentioned that Stephen Stills wished to donate a slew of custom guitars to the schools David and Jan were supporting. So one morning, we set off with a carload of gorgeous guitars and we drove around to all the local campuses, dropping them off one at a time with unsuspecting teachers and stunned students. David was delighted. That was one fun day for sure, and it was especially gratifying for me when my kid’s teacher played that guitar in his classroom.

David actually returned to that same classroom later on in the school year to share his extensive knowledge of whales. He knew a lot about whales from his seafaring days sailing his beloved schooner Mayan around the world. And his underwater diving visits with the giant cetaceans left him with a profound sense of awe and reverence for them that he completely brought alive for those fifth-grade students. It was wonderful to see the hands pop up with questions about “spyhopping,” (that’s when a whale, using its tail, holds itself vertical to poke its head above the water) and so on, that David expertly fielded.

David and Jan saw local community needs and they generously addressed them, not only through the Valley Music Festival but also through other benefit events for The Family School and many other local nonprofits, schools and movements that aligned with their hearts, passions, and priorities. David was an icon of the activist generation whether within his respective bands or with his life partner Jan, who lovingly served as his north star for his many good deeds. They made a formidable and consequential team, and they brought a light and love to every endeavor they took up.

The accelerating losses of our musical and generational icons literally hit close to home for all of us here in the Valley on Jan. 18. David was like some kind of unicorn icon, a musical alchemist possessed of formidable intellect, mischievous mirth and outsized opinions.

There was no one better at small talk over coffee than David Crosby. He introduced me to Shantaram, one of the best and most memorable books I’ve ever read. He once told me that “Life is what happens after breakfast,” a humorous variation on his friend John Lennon’s famous observation that “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”

Life happened to David Crosby in a big way, hence he leaves a big void in hearts around the world, and here in our little Valley. Like a lot of us, I got used to seeing him at the store, or the bakery, or zooming down the road. He always seemed to have time for a chat, a laugh, or a song. Fair winds follow him now as we carry on in fond remembrance of a remarkable man who lived among us and made the world a better place.