Listening to CPR, you have to recall the great Duke Ellington's definitive comment on musical quality: "If it sounds good, it is good." With that simple approach, David Crosby, Jeff Pevar and James Raymond bring grace and elegance to contemporary harmonies that echo the best jazz and rock roots. It "sounds good," which is a simple foundation supporting a complex structure. CPR includes a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer-songwriter with a lasting influence on popular music, a guitarist who's played with the greatest names in the business, and a keyboard player who's a composer and musical director in television and film, and (like the others), enjoys backup, session, and performance credits with some of the hottest acts in the culture.

It's this startling blend of solo and ensemble talent that is the basis for the band's success in the studio and on tour. David Crosby brings almost four decades of experience to the group, as a solo folk artist, and as a founding member of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash (and on occasion) Young. James Raymond began playing, composing, and arranging as a teenager, and by age thirty had been a musical director for an award-winning television series (Nickolodeon's "Roundhouse") and played with such diverse groups as Oleta Adams, Ronnie Laws, Chaka Khan, Tom Scott and Savory. Jeff Pevar has been a force in bands led by Ray Charles, James Taylor, Rickie Lee Jones, Joe Cocker, Shawn Colvin, Carly Simon, and many others. CPR's close harmonies are like threads of precious metal woven into the fabric of their music; following their intricate patterns of sound is a voyage of discovery.

A personal voyage of discovery began when James Raymond learned that David Crosby was his natural birth father. At the time, James was thirty years old, married, and expecting his first child. His long-delayed reunion with Crosby was the spark that ignited the creative connection that inevitably led to CPR. James Raymond's musical abilities had been evident since infancy, and nurtured by his parents. As a teenager he gravitated to jazz and R&B, playing with bands in clubs in which he was too young to be served. Fortunately, music doesn't have a legal minimum age, so James was free to grow up and become an accomplished session musician, musical director, composer, and keyboard player. He studied theory and composition in college and made the L.A. jazz scene with mentors like David Foster and Larry Carlton. He knew he was adopted as an infant, and with his parents' blessing, he sought out his birth records under California's family adoption laws. Disbelief was his first reaction, but he eventually made contact with his birth mother, who had married and emigrated to Australia years earlier. She confirmed that James Raymond's biological father was, indeed, that David Crosby.

At the same time, Crosby was hospitalized with a fatally failing liver, his life hanging on the availability of a donor organ. Hearing the news, Raymond's father corresponded with Crosby, revealing that his son was interested in meeting his birth father. Crosby, whose wife Jan had recently conceived, met with the stranger. In a short course of miracles, the older rock star became a father, received a successful organ transplant, discovered a new son, and simultaneously became a grandfather as James and Stacia Raymond's daughter Grace was born-- within months of David and Jan Crosby's son, Django. Crosby's little boy is an uncle to a girl older than he is, and given thefamily's genetic material, Crosby heirs and descendants should be writing and performing music well into the new millennium.

Jeff Pevar is the remaining component of the trio, and has no known Genetic connection to Crosby or Raymond. Nevertheless, his musicianship and temperament make him a talented, natural parallel third. Pevar is from the Other Coast, an easterner who came out of Connecticut and was in elementary school when he was transfixed, watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. His father was a jazz enthusiast, his mother played the piano, and when an older brother left an electric guitar at home after a spring break, young Jeff appropriated the instrument. He learned a few chords, begged and borrowed others, and struggled alone through popular songbooks and "How to Play Guitar" texts, teaching himself every nuance of the instrument.

By the time he was fifteen, he was playing in bar bands, doing top-40 covers and mastering a variety of musical styles, memorizing every guitar solo on every Allman Brothers and J. Geils record there ever was. Unfortunately, difficult and extreme domestic problems led to a breakup of his family, and Jeff dropped out of high school to play music exclusively. The world of performance became a safe haven, nurturing him. One gig led to another, and Pevar became, in his words, "a musical chameleon." He was playing every type of music, from bluegrass through R&B, jazz, rock, and country. His first tour as a professional was with Rickie Lee Jones, after which he played with the legendary Ray Charles band, and with Grammy winner Mark Cohn, a gig that eventually led to his inclusion in the world of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Cohn was an opening act with the legendary trio in 1992, and at a sound check, his guitarist Pevar played a few licks from Crosby's song "Triad." Crosby heard it, they made an instant connection, and Pevar wound up touring with Crosby and Nash for the next five years.

When James Raymond appeared in 1996, writing and playing with David Crosby,Jeff Pevar was already there. The group fell together as if it had all been planned by a higher power, a happy union of talent that was destined to make new music together. It was an effortless combination of complimentary styles, a variety of musical backgrounds, and mutually generous temperaments.

Listening to the CPR's debut album (Samson Music, catalog #GC0145), one can hear the deceptively easy beat that marks the opening of "Morrison" give way to righteous indignation in its chorus. There's a haunting imagery in "Somehow She Knew," poignant lyrics to "Time is the Final Currency," and a rhythmic lilt to "Little Blind Fish." The song "It's All Coming Back" simply rocks. All through the album Crosby's vocals blend effortlessly with Raymond's and Pevar's harmonies, creating an effect that's a soulful reunion of the familiar and the unexpected. In live performance, there's a startlingly fresh version of some early Crosby compositions, including a Byrds classic, "Eight Miles High." Crosby, Pevar and Raymond sing and play music that's both original and resonant of a rich pop music heritage. If CPR's performances create echoes with every listening, it's because the heart of the audience has a memory all its own.

(link to CPR page on Samson Records web site)