Longtime rock, folk star Crosby plays the Blue Note

Hawaii’s geographical isolation and relatively small population often keep us from getting the big events that thrill music lovers on the mainland. The major megafestivals don’t come to Hawaii — transportation costs for acts and their specialized gear are prohibitive. That means we don’t see as many significant musical figures here, asife from stars on an international tour. Those facts of life aren’t likely to change; but Hawaii will be getting something special this weekend when David Crosby plays a two-nighter at the Blue Note Hawaii.

The Blue Note seats about 300 people. Crosby rarely plays rooms even twice that size. Hawaii will be enjoying him up close.

“These (shows) will be the smallest ones I’ll probably play all year, but they’ll be fun,” Crosby said, calling precisely on time from a friend’s home in Hanalei, Kauai, his voice vibrant with energy.

With small shows, he said, “the words count. You can tell a tale to the people, and you don’t have to be sort of a pinhead 5,000 feet away.”

Among the “tales” that Crosby will be sharing at the Blue Note are some of the 11 included on his current album, “Croz,” which was released to good reviews early in 2014.

“It’s a lot of love songs, which is what we write mostly. The only consistent thing that’s applied to it is that we want it to be really good songs,” he said, “and then we try to serve the songs the best we can to make it speak itself out properly. It’s not easy but it is worth it.”

Putting together a physical album, within which a listener hears songs in the order determined by the artist, and where the music is supported by artwork and a booklet of song lyrics, gives him the opportunity to make the collection of songs more than just a collection of songs, he added.

“You try to build a dynamic into the whole record,” he explained. “Just as each song tries to take you on its own little voyage, the whole record takes you on a longer voyage. Each of these songs is like a day on that voyage. The sequence actually matters a lot. I wouldn’t say we agonize over it, but we do work at it, trying to get the sequence to get your attention and work as a dynamic.”

“I love the lyrics,” he continued. “They matter to me — a lot — so if it’s a record of mine, you’re going to find the lyrics on it.”

The record business has changed tremendously since Crosby hit stardom as a member of the Byrds in 1965. Back then music was sold on vinyl records; if you wanted the music you went to a store, bought the record, and the artist received a royalty. Today artists have entered the age of YouTube, which Crosby describes as a place where artists get exposure and a place where artists don’t get paid for their work.

“There are acts that exist because they succeeded on YouTube. At the same time, if it all goes that way — ‘We don’t pay you for your content’ — then we have to stop making records. We can’t afford to make them and have nobody pay us for them. Apple does pay us a little, (and) Amazon pays us better for the CDs, but the streaming services don’t pay us at all. If you listen to ‘Deja Vu’ 10,000 times (on a streaming service), I could buy you a cup of coffee — maybe.”

For anyone who doesn’t know, “Deja Vu” is one of the songs Crosby wrote for the first album he recorded with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young. It became the title song of the album. The album has sold more than 8 million copies.

“We didn’t really know what to expect,” Crosby said, asked about his years with the Byrds — one of the most influential American rock groups of the mid-1960s — and then with Stills, Nash and Young. “We were living pretty much in the moment, trying to make spectacular music and enjoy that. When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t really stand back and say, ‘Gosh, I’m significant.’ You don’t really do that.”

These days he has more time to consider the impact of his music, and the course of his life and career.

Crosby and his wife, Jan, have been in the islands for several weeks enjoying vacation time with friends. On Father’s Day in Hawaii, he said, a highlight was dinner prepared by a friend, featuring ahi that had been caught the night before. “It was pretty spectacular,” Crosby said.

In reference to Father’s Day, Crosby said one of the most fulfilling aspects of his life has been a productive relationship with his oldest son, James Raymond. Crosby was a college dropout, several years away from his breakout hits with the Byrds, when Raymond was born in 1962. The infant was placed for adoption; they reunited after Raymond reached adulthood, and have been working together since 1997.

“He’s a really wonderful cat,” Crosby said. “He’s a better musician than I am, and he’s really a joy to be in the studio with. He’s producing this record that I’m making right now, the second one that I’ve made in a row.

“I don’t understand why that is, but the songs are coming to me — a lot.”