Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, December 6, 1993                   TAG: 9312040179
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: MARK BROWN ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CROSBY WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE BYRDS FLY AGAIN

No, he's not talking about a revamp of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the most famous and lucrative group with whom he's ever been involved.

It's the Byrds that Crosby wants to pull together - the band that still has the most potential to take the music a step further.

"Tell Roger [McGuinn] we want to go out. We're very frustrated," Crosby said by cellular phone recently while riding in a limo outside of Boston.

After the Byrds' box set retrospective in 1990 brought the band together for some new recordings, Crosby and Chris Hillman realized there was more road to travel.

But McGuinn has been content to stick with his own solo career. A short series of Byrds' concerts a few years back was staged only to protect the group's name, not as a permanent reunion.

Not that Crosby doesn't have enough to do, touring with Graham Nash this past summer and playing his own solo shows.

"I just wish that Roger wanted to do it so that Chris and I could go out and do the original" Byrds sound, Crosby said.

Crosby's latest album, "Thousand Roads," features a wealth of collaborations, from Phil Collins to John Hiatt and Marc Cohn. Collins and Crosby co-wrote the single, "Hero."

"[That] was a great stroke of good fortune for me, because I haven't a clue how to make singles, and he's a master of it," Crosby said. "It got me a lot of airplay."

Others have certainly been getting it. The Gin Blossoms, the Sand Rubies and dozens of "alternative" artists these days are in a large part retreading the ground the Byrds did 30 years ago and Tom Petty did 15 years ago.

"I feel complimented when I do hear something that's an influence from one of the groups I've been in. But I don't really want to get into self-aggrandizement," Crosby said. "You wind up standing there saying `Gee, how significant I am!' I'm just a little leery about looking at myself too closely."

For now he's content with half of the supergroup. Plans include recording with Nash to make a sequel to "Wind on the Water," their acclaimed 1975 album.

But he also doesn't dwell too long in the past. CSNY reunions come more frequently than Byrds reunions, but they're not a way of life.

Upon Crosby's release from prison for gun and drug convictions in 1986, the band re-formed for a benefit concert and an album. They re-formed again in 1991 for a benefit concert for Bill Graham.

"We do it when we want to," Crosby said.