After years of hard living, the former Byrd reveals he’s driven by gratitude and work

He has a special place in the rock ’n’ roll survivors club. Finding fame with The Byrds and Crosby Stills, Nash & Young, dissolute Dave’s partying lifestyle was aptly described by the title of his all-star classic solo debut, If I Could Only Remember My Name.

Eight stents, two heart attacks, Type 2 diabetes, hepatitis C, plus drug and firearm legal tussles that included a jail term, only scratch the surface of the man’s extraordinary life story.

In 1994, Phil Collins funded his liver transplant following a long run of hepatitis C, and 24 years later Crosby, 77, is still on top, prolific form.

Recent output with collaborators, including his son James Raymond, 56, shows Crosby’s creativity is still fresh and alive.

“I was very lucky,” he says. “But then, I’m a very lucky guy. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been in both of those bands. It’s sheer luck. All I can do at the minute is be grateful and work a whole lot.”

He does this with sparkling trio The Lighthouse Band on new album Here If You Listen, and elsewhere with son James’s superlative Sky Trails band.

“I’ve written more good songs with him than any other human being in my life,” he says proudly.

But the father and son did not meet until James, whose mother had given him up for adoption early in life, was 32.

“I had just nearly died of liver failure and got a liver transplant. I met him right afterwards.

“Normally those meet-ups don’t go well. With James, he gave me a chance. I earned my way into his life. That was kindness at a very high level.”

As Crosby charts new ground, his past still looms. On the new album he reactivates two of his old demo recordings and covers his old lover Joni Mitchell’s hippie-era favourite, Woodstock.

“I still think it’s a great set of words. You can hear the dream being alive for us there in that song. We were a bunch of young idealists and dreamers.

“Right now, it’s really tough to be a dreamer in America, because we have an asshole for president. Things are not real hopeful in the United States now. But you can hear in that song how hopeful we were back then.”

Here If You Listen is out today