David Crosby says concert captured on new live album “had that kind of magic to it”

David Crosby & The Lighthouse Band Live at the Capitol Theatre, out Friday, is billed as David Crosby‘s “first live solo release.” But since it documents a 2018 show that he played with his frequent collaborators The Lighthouse Band — Becca Stevens, Michelle Willis and Michael League — Crosby doesn’t actually consider the record a “solo” release at all.

“We sell them that way because my name sells them more than saying, ‘Hey, this is The Lighthouse Band,’ who you’ve never heard of,” Crosby tells ABC Audio bluntly. “And so we sell them as David Crosby records, but that’s a group record.”

Crosby previously recorded an album, 2016’s Lighthouse, with the trio, and before the pandemic, he’d toured on and off with them regularly. “That’s a really definite group chemistry that happens in between me and [them],” he notes. “I noticed it right away when we started working together. I said, ‘Oh, wait a minute, this is special.'”

Also special: the 2018 show in Port Chester, NY that’s documented on the album.

Crosby explains, “It was the end of the tour. We were polished up. We knew what we were doing. There was a certain confidence to it. The night had that kind of magic to it. We all agreed it was as good as we were gonna be.”

In addition to songs new and old, the album includes new arrangements of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Guinnevere” and “Woodstock” and “Déjà Vu” by CSNY. With such a rich back catalog, how does Crosby decide which throwback tunes to perform?

“It’s pretty hard not to do ‘Guinnevere.’ It’s probably my best song,” he admits. “We didn’t go anywhere near a whole lot of them. But there were certain ones that just really flourished under a fresh read, a fresh look, a fresh treatment.”