Kiss ‘n’ Tell

It’s become something of a ritual in our society--after a celebrity reaches rock bottom, they go detox, kick their nasty habits, lose 60 pounds, make a comeback (film/album) and sign a six-figure book deal for their autobiography. Who’s the latest? None other than fallen pop idol David Crosby. He’s cleaned up his act, is hard at work on a comeback album (for A&M; Records) and will release his memoirs in October, courtesy of Doubleday Books. (Expect lots of insider stuff--the only suspense is who’ll score the excerpt rights, Rolling Stone or People?). . . . Despite the drug-overdose death of guitarist Hillel Slovak, the Red Hot Chili Peppers will stay together--in fact, the group is releasing an EP, “Abbey Road,” recorded before Slovak’s death. The band plans to announce that its new guitarist is Blackbird McKnight, a former member of Parliament Funkadelic. . . . When Clive Davis signed the Four Tops to Arista Records, he obviously called in a few favors. The result--the group’s debut album is filled with admiring collaborators, including Phil Collins (“Going Loco in Acapulco”), Huey Lewis (“Are You With Me”) and Aretha Franklin, who duets with the soul vets on “If Ever a Love There Was.” . . . And MCA Records exec Jheryl Busby (soon to be head of Motown Records) is famous in the record industry for two things: helping turn lowly MCA into a hit-making machine and never returning phone calls. So when a quick-witted MCA exec spotted a huge crowd of “Last Temptation of Christ” protesters noisily demonstrating outside the MCA high-rise the other day, he grabbed a bullhorn, leaned out the window and bellowed: “Please go home. Jheryl Busby will return your calls!”