David Crosby’s 2016 winter solo tour enables him to showcase his half century of experience as a singer, songwriter, guitarist and still proudly outspoken voice of a generation.

Accordingly, his unaccompanied Wednesday concert at San Diego’s Balboa Theatre will include, in his words: “Stuff from The Byrds, Crosby/Nash, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, my solo records, the Crosby, Pevar & Raymond records. It changes night to night. I have a large catalog to pick from. Most of my material works very well in a solo acoustic setting, so it lets me roam farther afield than with CSN and CSNY.”

An evening with David Crosby When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday Where: Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Ave., downtown Tickets: $37.50-$72.50 Phone: (800) 745-3000 Online: false;">ticketmas...

By coincidence, the tour may also end up being an unplanned requiem of sorts for Crosby, Stills & Nash (the rock supergroup he co-founded in 1968 with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash), if not Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (the even bigger supergroup that was launched when Neil Young joined in 1969).

“I wouldn’t say CSN was alive and well, no,” Crosby, 74, told the Union-Tribune, speaking from his home in Santa Ynez in late February. “I’d say it’s on indefinite hold.”

Nash, also 74, went further in a separate interview this month with Billboard, saying: “In my world, there will never, ever be a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young record, and there will never be another Crosby, Stills & Nash record or show...”

Nash then elaborated, telling Billboard: “I don’t like David Crosby right now. He’s been awful to me for the last two years, just (expletive) awful. ...”

The feeling, alas, seems mutual.

“Graham has been pretty much of a (expletive) to me, for a while,” Crosby said in his late February Union-Tribune interview. “I would not say that’s the only reason, but we’re definitely giving it (CSN) a rest.”

Feuds, of course, are nothing new between the members of CSN and CSNY. Both bands have run aground over the years, only to put differences aside and reunite. With luck, they will again, although an extended thawing period may be required.

In 2014, Young vowed CSNY would never get back together again. This followed Crosby’s pointed remarks about actress Daryl Hannah, Young’s new girlfriend, who Crosby called a “purely poisonous predator.” He apologized eight months later to Young, then told Rolling Stone: “I was completely out of line. I have screwed up massively.”

‘Wild Tales?’ Or tall tales?

The rift between Crosby and Nash came up inadvertently, after a mention of the Union-Tribune’s 2013 interview with Nash about his autobiography, “Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life.”

“Graham’s book is full of inaccuracies and chock-full of misinformation,” Crosby said. “When he handed (an advance copy) to me, he said: ‘It’s too late to change anything, but here it is.’ I was very unhappy about it. It’s a very shallow, very self-serving book, and full of b.s. Chock-full.”

In one chapter in “Wild Tales,” Nash recounts sailing with Crosby in 1970 from Florida to San Diego, via the Panama Canal. Crosby expertly guided his boat, the Mayan, for 3,000 miles without a scratch, until they arrived in San Diego harbor.

“As we prepared to tie up to the dock,” Nash wrote, “another boat full of blind-drunk newspaper people with hookers on board rammed in to the Mayan and ripped out the bowsprit ... It’s a good thing our guns were stowed out of Croz’s reach.”

Crosby sounded incredulous when his interviewer read this aloud to him. He was not amused when it was jokingly suggested “blind-drunk newspaper people” would have been the norm in 1970, if not now.

“There’s about nine things wrong with that paragraph,” he said. “A, there were no guns on the boat. B, very funny, ha-ha. C, they were PSA stewardesses, not hookers. And D, we were already tied up to the dock when the guy hit us.”

Crosby grew even more upset when another excerpt was read to him from the Union-Tribune interview with Nash, this one regarding Crosby’s behavior during a Crosby, Still & Nash tour.

“Often,” Nash wrote, “I would knock on (Crosby’s) hotel door, which he kept propped open with a security jamb, and he’d be getting (oral sex from two women), all while he was talking and doing business on the phone and rolling joints and smoking and having a drink.”

“Not true,” Crosby said. “I don’t drink. I don’t roll joints when I’m getting (oral sex). I wouldn’t have left the door open. It sounds good in his book. He did that, repeatedly, and said things that were not true, because they would sell the book.”

‘Long Time Gone’

Crosby wrote his own autobiography in 1989, “Long Time Gone.” In it, he took an unflinching look at his life and his years of near-fatal heroin and cocaine addiction.

He credits his survival to going cold-turkey while serving a six-month prison sentence in Texas in 1986.

“You have to understand that I wanted to quit. But I was so severely addicted that I probably tried to 10 times, and failed,” he said in a 1989 Union-Tribune interview. “Now, if you try enough times and fail, you don’t believe you can. And I had pretty much given up. I thought I was going to die on drugs — end of story.

“Being locked up, it took six months before I even began to wake up. But that’s what did it. If I had a choice of going back to being a junkie or spending another year in jail, man, I’d walk in and close the cell door with my own hands. I can only tell you that being a really heavy junkie and free-base addict is a much worse prison than bars will ever make. So I don’t regret prison a bit.”

Now, 30 years after his prison term, Crosby is more passionate about music than ever.

He recently completed a new album, “Lighthouse,” which teams him with Michael League, the bassist and leader of the Grammy Award-winning big band Snarky Puppy. A second album, which Crosby is making with his musician son, James Raymond, 53, is well under way.

“What happened is that, for some reason — maybe because I’m happy now — I’ve had this genesis, the biggest burst of songs I’ve written in the longest time. So I’m making two solo records, and they’re really good.”

Crosby laughed, then added: “He said modestly.”

Another laugh. “They really are good,” he said.

Snarky Puppy’s League agreed.

“It was amazing,” he said, speaking backstage at the Grammy Awards in February at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

“The way we connected is that David started tweeting at us relentlessly, going after each (band) member. Of the four dudes in CSNY, he’s the most jazz-ish. He tweeted us, we got in touch with him. He was part of our ‘Family Dinner 2’ album. And I finished producing his next solo album last night in L.A. It’s, like, the essence of David, with him singing and playing acoustic guitar in odd tunings. I’m on it, and a couple of the guys from Snarky Puppy are also on the record. It worked out really great.”

Crosby and League co-wrote five songs together. Crosby and his son, frequent musical partner James Raymond, have written nearly as many for Crosby’s other upcoming solo album.

“I’ll put them out whenever they’re done,” he said.

“I don’t think it matters which order they come out in. We don’t make money off of records any more. We make records because they will last longer than us and they are the music we made with our lives. I’m proud to do them, but it’s not to make money. I do them because I love doing them. We’ll finish them when we finish them and put them out whenever we do. The joy is in the making.”

Has the meaning of music changed for Crosby as he grows older?

“No,” he replied. “How I feel about the music is the same. Music is a joy, an uplifting force for humanity.

“I think I’m better at it than I was before. That sounds kind of egotistical, but you evolve in the way you approach the music. My feelings about the music are exactly the same and consistent. I love music and making it. Going on the road is hard, but singing to people is a joy. And, you know, I’m very opinionated and yack to people about all kinds of stuff. I answer questions on Twitter and at shows.

“If people in San Diego, or any other city, have a question they want me to answer during the show, send it to me at askcroz@gmail.com.”

Q&A: Dumb, brilliant, Woodstock

Has he had any unexpected questions thus far?

Crosby laughed.

“Christ! They’re all unexpected,” he said. “You never know what somebody’s going to ask. There are dumb ones, like: ‘What was it really like at Woodstock, man>’ And there are really brilliant ones.”

So, what was it really like at Woodstock?

“That’s funny,” Crosby said, speaking in a tone that almost made his rolling eyes audible over the phone.

“I’ve been answering questions on Twitter for a long time, and it’s really fun. But this is the first tour I’ve done it on. I;m doing it so that I get fresh questions for each show.”

As a member of two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -inducted bands, The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash, Crosby became a rock star in the 1960s. Sadly, too many other young stars who came up alongside him — including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and the Grateful Dead’s Ron “Pigpen” McKernan — all died of drug-related causes at 27.

Is it luck, pluck, fate or a combination of all three that accounts for Crosby still being alive and well?

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think part of it is I have a really good family and really love them, and they really love me. And that’s a sustaining energy that makes you able to go on. Love is the greatest stuff in the world. Aside from that, I have no idea why I would be alive, and all those other people — who I liked and thought were terrific — died.

“I am grateful, and I do think about it. I also think: ‘Whatever the reason, show your gratitude. Take the tools you have, and work with them.’”

And what about his recent dispute with Nash?

“I don’t want to even go there. I’m going to take the high road,” Crosby said Tuesday from a tour stop in Canada.

“I’m very, very happy. And I’m extremely happy the music is coming to me in such a wonderful way.

“I have a finished album in my computer, and another one on the way. My family loves me, I love them, and I’m having a blast on the road. And that’s my answer to everything.”

george.varga@sduniontribune.com