One is hard pressed to think of a less relevant album for 1989 than a solo album by David Crosby. Yet, in all fairness, Oh Yes I Can – despite a title that is unsettlingly similar to that of Sammy Davis Jr.'s autobiography – is a quaint, if ultimately minor, album that finds this former symbol of degradation in good voice and an even better frame of mind. In fact, anyone judging Crosby's creative output based on his two weak-kneed contributions to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's American Dream may be pleasantly surprised.

Do not, however, expect stark tales of prison life. Having apparently gotten that bad trip out of his system on American Dream's "Compass," Crosby concentrates on the trademark of his post-Byrds work: ethereal ballads featuring choirboy harmonies, modal guitar tunings and intricate, if occasionally meandering, melodies. He gently touches on his recent problems in the metaphor-heavy "Monkey and the Underdog" but then just as quickly drifts back into the Southern California ether. Why dwell on downers like drug abuse and repentance when you can sing about the music ("Melody"), the glories of America ("Lady of the Harbor") and bummer love affairs ("Distances") – with the help of buddies like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, David Lindley, Graham Nash and Bonnie Raitt?

"Tracks in the Dust" (a relatively ambitious mini-Big Chill that recounts Crosby's dinner-time conversation with old friends about flower-power hopes and dreams) and the contemplative "In the Wide Ruin" are luminous ballads, and "Flying Man," with its wordless, overdubbed vocal choir, recalls "Tamalpais High (at About 3)," from Crosby's only previous solo album, 1971's If Only I Could Remember My Name. His attempts to rock out, like the single "Drive My Car," aren't totally convincing, and his extremely white blues song "Drop Down Mama" won't garner him an invitation to the Chicago Blues Festival. But in its detachment from reality and its blissed-out solipsism, Oh Yes I Can picks up the pieces of David Crosby's musical life right where he left them. (RS 548)

DAVID BROWNE