David Crosby: The Folk Singer Who Became an FBI Fugitive
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is exactly right.
Double Elvis. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt season three podcast. This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families. It's a scorched earth war that shows just how far someone will go to get what they want.
Cindy said I had to choose between the truth and my family, and I had to choose the truth.
Listen to season three of Burden of Guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Disgraceland is a production of double Elvis.
This is the story about one of the craziest rock and roll animals to ever do it. A man whose transgressions were as low down and wild as I don't know, pick your wild rock star, Keith Moon, Ozzie Osborne, almost as lunatic and gross as GG Allen. Almost. But this rock star sang sweet, soft, harmonious music. but music that in real life soundtracked a gunshot to the face. A home invasion. One of the gnarliest Freebase addictions you'll ever hear about. And an escape from authorities that made this man an FBI fugitive. A man who I can't believe I'm saying this, but that's what getting older does to you, I guess. A man who made great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music.
That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Three Way the Hard Way, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to we built this city by Starship. And why would I play you that specific slice of Marconi plays the mamba cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November 28, 1985, Thanksgiving Day. And that was the day that rock star David Crosby made a fateful decision to use the last couple of dollars he had to hire a plane to fly him across the country to escape the long arm of the law. On this episode, heroin, cocaine, grass, and LSD, guns, so many guns, even more arrests, paranoia, David
Crosby.
I'm Jake Brennan.
And this is Disgraceland.
New York City, nineteen sixty three. Ronald Van Empson walked as Doberman up Bleaker Street. It was after midnight, and the path ahead was blanketed in shadow. But Von Emsen knew his way around, as did his dog. The two took this same stroll, same route, every night, just after the last folk singer had plied his or her trade at Cafe Rafio, the coffee house Von Emsen owned. Raphael was a hipster hangout, though admittedly not as hip as Gertie's or the Gaslight or Cafe Wa where the Midwestern import, Bob Dylan, was turning the whole scene on its head. Von Emson didn't care much for Bob Dylan. If Von Emson was being honest, what with that nasal whiny voice of his? Instead, he preferred the more traditional vocal stylings of the young 20-something David Crosby, who had grown up singing harmonies in a musical family.
Crosby also had an anti-authority streak that a thirty one year old Von Emson could relate to. Counterculture shit stirring beatnik that Von Emsen was. But to some Von Empson himself was an authority figure. And one of those people was now standing directly in front of him and his Doberman blocking the way.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–12:36
2
Who was David Crosby and how did his early New York folk‑scene roots shape his career?
12:36–22:44
3
How did Crosby become a founding member of The Byrds and later join CSNY?
22:44–33:44
4
What led to Crosby’s descent into heroin, cocaine, and free‑base addiction?
33:44–39:33
Speakers
8 identifiedMore from DISGRACELAND
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