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Graham Nash To Revisit Early Albums During Northeast Concerts

Graham Nash performing in 2015
Credit Ian Pickus
Graham Nash performing in 2015

We’re going to catch up now with one of our favorites, Graham Nash. In 2018, the two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer with The Hollies and CSN released a double album called “Over The Years” featuring unreleased demos and mixes, which followed the 2016 solo album “This Path Tonight.” This fall, Nash will be spending a lot of time in our region.

On September 22, at The Bardavon in Poughkeepsie

September 28 at The Egg in Albany

October 4 at The Academy of Music in Northampton

October 15 at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

Some of the shows including his stop at The Egg will feature Nash performing two of his albums in their entirety: “Songs For Beginners” and “Wild Tales.”

Why did you want to do these full album performances?

Because I've never done them. And I had, I must confess, I had tremendous pressure from my wife, Amy Grantham. She loves those two albums, and has put pressure on me to do them. And so I want to do them, I want to share them, I want to share the feeling of those albums. I tried many times to try and figure out why, particularly “Songs for Beginners,” was so important to people. And I think it's a combination of the sincerity and the intimacy of the recordings. I wanted to make them personal. And I wanted to, you know, touch your heart as often and as soon as I could. And so it's going to be very interesting. I've never done this before. But I am going to come out and do “Songs for Beginners” with a full band start to finish, take an intermission, come back and do “Wild Tales” with the full band start to finish.

Is Shayne Fontaine in this particular group still?

He certainly is. Thank goodness.

What else can you tell us about the band you're putting together for this show?

Well, one of the things I've had to do is let go. And I mean that by this: I used to live in California. And so you know, I had my choice of musicians to be able to play with. But I've been living in New York City for the last four or five years. And I'm kind of out of my element there. So I'm playing with a with a bass player, and a pedal steel guitar player and two lady singers and a drummer that I've never even met.

Wow, when did you start rehearsing that?

On the 13th of September.

There's a lot of material that you haven't played in quite a while from those albums.

That's right. And some of the songs I've never played.

Really?

Yeah. So here we go. And I'm really looking forward to it. It's kind of interesting to let go and not control every single musician, you know. I think it willl be spontaneous. And they've been learning the albums, of course, you know, whilst I was on the road, and on the 13th, we'll start putting it all together. But I think it will be a very interesting show.

What's it been like for you to revisit a lot of that material, which you haven't played before and in quite a while?

Well, it's very interesting, because, of course, you know, Amy and I are on our own here in New York City. And I'm just playing them on my acoustic guitar. So I'm getting back to where it was that I wrote those songs on a piano or acoustic guitar, you know, just simple. And I'm saying hello to my songs. And right now, they're talking back to me and they're having a good time.

When you look back at the recording of those albums, what do you think about? I mean, who was that Graham Nash who was writing that music?

Graham Nash, at that point was a man who had been in the Hollies for six or seven years. We'd had, you know, 15,16, Top 10 hits. We were good at writing pop songs. But they didn't mean much, lyrically, and I realized, particularly when I first heard me and David and Stephen sing together, and then later of course, with Neil, that if I could take what I had learned with my time with the Hollies in terms of being able to write a melody maybe you couldn't forget, you know, if you'd heard it a couple of times. If I could put better lyrics to those melodies I'd have better songs and that's exactly what happened.

In your tour in recent years you've been playing “Bus Stop” by The Hollies usually at the start. Are there other old Hollies songs you'd like to revisit while we're talking about early Graham Nash career?

Yeah, I've been doing “Carrie Anne” and “On A Carousel” as one song. Quite interesting. I do “King Midas In Reverse” also. It's very interesting. The Hollies were a really decent band, you know, when I first came to America and left the Hollies, of course, I didn't talk about the Hollies too much with David and Stephen. I mean, they weren't talking to me about The Byrds or the Buffalo Springfield. We had discovered this new harmony sound that we had generated. And we had songs that we wanted to record. And so most of our efforts were personal between the three out of the four of us.

But I began to realize in these in these later years, because somebody sent me actually a CD of 60 songs of The Hollies on the BBC. Now, when you made music on the BBC, it was it was instant, you know, it was going out live, you know, you couldn't like, screw up the intro, and then say, Well, can we do that? Again, there was none of that. You had to keep going. And this CD sounded great. And I realized just how good The Hollies were. We were a very decent pop band. No doubt about it. And I've come to realize that in later years, and my friend, Allan Clarke, who I've kept in touch with all these years, is now has a new album out in England comes out in September.

I had thought he had retired, I didn't realize he was still going.

He had retired, he had some problems with his throat. But he slowly got back into it. And he was playing around on his computer with GarageBand and making little funny tracks and all of a sudden, he's got four or five of these funny little tracks. And you know, his friends are telling him they sound quite decent. So finish the album, and that's what he did.

Well, in your history, it all goes back to the two of you and your passion for music like the Everly Brothers and, and so on. So could you see yourself working with him again some time?

Yeah, we talked about it about three weeks ago. As a matter of fact, I was in England, finishing up my European tour, and had dinner with it with Allan and my old, old friend Ronnie Stratton. And we talked about it and yeah, there's every there's every chance that we could do work together again. I think one of the things that I'd like to do is a greatest hits of The Hollies, by me and Allan. We started the band. It was based on me and Allan singing and the way that we could create harmony and I think a greatest hits from me and Allan's point of view would be quite interesting.

Do you ever think about what would have happened in your life had The Hollies accepted more enthusiastically the songs that you were writing that led you to leave the Hollies because they sort of gave you short shrift? You know, the stuff that really CSN stuff?

Yes. “Marrakesh Express.” Right, like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What can you do? It was Crosby that really saved my life, my artistic life because the worst thing you can do to an artist is make them doubt themselves. And when I wrote “Marrakesh Express” and showed it to The Hollies. Heard the awful track the Hollies made of “Marrakesh Express,” it doesn't have any vocals on it, but the track itself is just limp, because quite frankly, that song needs the power of a train in it. And that's what Stephen Stills did. So brilliant. With his overdubbed electric guitars that he did on “Marrakesh Express.” So, once The Hollies didn't want to record my songs, I began to doubt myself. And it was Crosby that says, Wait a second, you know, those are decent songs, you know, they're the crazy ones. Don't think you know that, you know, good and don't stop what you're doing. Come on. These are decent songs. And I'll be very grateful to David for doing that.

Well, I mean, you've sort of led me there. Has there been any sort of rapprochement between the two of you lately?

I haven't spoken to David in almost three years.

It seems as if, I don't know, I follow him on Twitter. And there's the new documentary out where he talks about having made a lot of mistakes, and I follow CSN updates very closely. It seems like the door might be open.

Well, you know, with the door, there are always two choices. You either close it or you open it, you know, and right now the door is closed. We have to love each other before we can make great music together. This is not like just, you know, two guys singing together, we have to really like each other before we can get on each other's front page with music that we are creating. We have to love each other and we don't. And that's it.

There was a time where you two were talking like every day. You lived close by with each other. How have you replaced that relationship in your life today, now that it's not there anymore?

I've gone inwards. I've gone, I've gone inside myself. And I'm realizing something. And it took me many years to realize that I'm actually not bad. You know? When you're in a band with David and Stephen and Neil Young…You know, I'm not a great musician. I am not one of those people that can get up and jam. You know, I'm just not that kind of musician. I mean, I can play primitive guitar and primitive piano to be able to write songs, but I'm not really a great musician. And particularly when I was in CSNY, I often felt that I was I was the least talented one of the four of us.

It's surprising to hear because they used to introduce you, and I think this is true, when describing the different members as the one who wrote the songs that everyone wants to sing. The whole world loves your songs.

Yeah, yeah. How strange. But that's true. But you know, I still didn't completely believe in myself. And for these last two or three years that I've been a solo performer, I've really examine who I am, and what my value is, to both myself and to my public.

It's interesting, because you are the bandleader. Even though, you're saying in that group, you're not maybe the most talented to jam or something. But when you're on this tour, in particular, you'll be the one everyone's watching.

Correct. And I'm enjoying that. I'm getting to do songs that I have never done before. And I'm getting to do songs that I didn't have room to do. Because when you're in a band with four strong writers, there's not much room. You know, generally there's 12 songs on a record, right? You know, so if there’s four of us, I've always wanted three of Neil's and three of Stephen’s and three of and in three of mine. But what do you do when you write faster than that? You know, you have to do solo records, you have to do songs, you know, and that's one of the things I'm enjoying right now.

And a lot of people that enjoy music but don't write music are fascinated with the art of songwriting. And, you know, people want to know where my head was at when I wrote “Teach Your Children” or when I wrote “Immigration Man” or when I wrote “Our House,” you know, what were you thinking? What provoked those songs out of me? And people want to know, and, and so I tell them, and that's part of the show is, is talking to the people, because I want them to realize a couple of things.

First of all, I want my audience to realize that I want to be there to make music for them. I'm not going to phone it in and I'm not going to sing it half-assed. I'm gonna sing it with as much passion as I can get out of this 77-year-old body. And I do pretty good. I know I've sung some of those songs 1000s of times, but they're important to people. They're touchstones in their life. They know where they were when they first heard “Teach Your Children.” You know, it's important to them. And so I realized that importance, and so I'm not going to not do them, or sing them half-assed. I'm going to sing them the best way I can.

You just said that you write faster than just getting three tracks on 12-track album. Have you been working on a new solo record of late?

Absolutely. “This Path Tonight” was a combination of 20 songs that Shayne Fontaine and I wrote in a month. And we recorded those 20 songs in eight days. “This Path Tonight” had only 10 songs on it; 13 if you bought the deluxe box set from iTunes and Best Buy and stuff like that. So we have seven songs left over that didn't quite fit the picture. And so they were left off the album. So I have seven, and I've written five or six since and I'm sure Shayne’s writing. So on this next tour, that is the my last tour of the year, we're going to be putting together the next studio record.

Our buddy Arlo Guthrie said at one point that it's hard to write when you're happy. And you've had so much, you know, personal upheaval and change in your life lately with the dissolution of CSN and your divorce. What kind of impact has that had on your creativity?

It was kind of shocking, I must admit. Yeah, I guess I divorced not only my wife of 38 years, Susan Nash, but my band. I felt alone. I am supported by a wonderful woman that I've been married to for the last year, Amy Grantham, who is not only a brilliant artist, but a brilliant woman. And she's been supporting me. It's been lonely this last three or four years. I will admit, I do enjoy being a member of a band. But I have Shayne Fontaine, who is a great guitar player and loves music, first saw the Hollies when he was 12 years old in London, and has loved the music ever since. And he's such a great guitar player, that he's not just waiting for his solo. He wants the song to live. And that's what's great about Shayne. I have Todd Caldwell, who is the B3 organ player in the Crosby, Stills and Nash band, has been making music with me and Shayne for the last two or three years, and I'm having a great time. I'm in control of what I do. I can change the set at any moment. And I often do. I get to sing songs that I've loved for many years and never got a chance to sing and I'm having a good time, Ian.

The Everly Brothers were foundational for you in music. And I was wondering if you had a similar photography role model when you got started with that.

I was born into a very poor family in the north of England. And we didn't have pictures on the wall. But I loved photography from the moment my father turned me on to the actual act of photography, meaning putting a blank piece of paper into a reasonably colorless liquid and then waiting and waiting and waiting, you know, and then having this image appear out of nowhere. That was a piece of magic that I will never forget. So I began to collect photography. I collected paper images for many, many years. My favorite photographers were people like Diane Arbus, who was a New York photographer of greatness. Weegee, who was also a New York photographer who had a radio, a police radio, in the back of his car so we could go to all these murders and take grotesque pictures of beauty out of the chaos. Yeah, Ansel Adams, of course. Great. Great. Great image maker, Steichen, Stieglitz. Yes. I haven't collected any paper images for over 20 years; I've been collecting daguerreotypes, which were the very first photographs invented by the DaGuerre in France in 1839.

They take up a lot more room, I bet.

Yes, they do, because they're all cased.

Have you yourself switched to digital?

I waited for digital cameras to approach the resolution of film and they surpassed that many years ago. And so I've been using a digital camera for many years. I bought my first one about 30 years ago in in Japan, it was called a da Vinci. It came out like almost like a receipt for gasoline. You know, like then it comes out, you know, terrible, terrible resolution, but the digital world was a train that was coming at us and we had, you know, both musically and photographically, we either got on the digital train, or we got run over by the digital train. And here we are today, and I use a digital camera, but I will use anything. I don't care about the camera itself. I only care about what I'm pointing it at.

You obviously were part of the British invasion. Why was it so important for you to eventually become a U.S. citizen?

I didn't want to be outside of this society, throwing, you know, song, hand grenades into the middle of the government, you know, criticizing what was going on. I wanted to be a part of it. I love this country. I wanted to vote. I wanted to raise my voice. I wanted to be able to criticize this country and praise it. You know, depending on what was going on. I wanted to be a part of this country. That's why I've been an American citizen for over 40 years.

And I asked you this once before, but it was a couple years ago before an election. What do you make of the current state of affairs in the U.S.?

This country is a very different country than the one I came to love and be a part of. This Trump administration is on a certain road. And this road to me personally is pointing backwards. The Trump administration has undone a lot of incredible work that was done in the last 50 years, particularly in the environment. I love this country of the United States. But I certainly truly believe that we deserve better.

You are known for having recorded everything. And you've also been seen as the keeper of the flame for a lot of CSN projects and Greatest Hits collections and bootlegs and so on. I'm wondering if there are some unheard gems that you have future plans for that we haven't heard yet publicly.

Astonishing amount. I have, as you said, been the one that has recognized the importance of master tapes. I have, at my own expense, archived all of our tapes for all these years. And I was particularly glad when I heard about the terrible fire that happened in Hollywood, the Universal Music Group and building, where a phenomenal amount of master recordings were destroyed in the fire. For instance, Buddy Holly's masters. Are you kidding me? Now they say, well, you know, we have digital copies. But they aren't the master tapes. You know, digital is a very different world than analog. And it was a tragedy of what happened. And it was a tragedy that the Universal Music Group, you know, took 10 years to even admit that some terrible things had been had been happening in that fire, and some incredibly important masters were lost.

Did you lose anything in that?

I heard rumors that there were some Crosby-Nash things, but I think that they would have been digital copies. I have all our tapes. I know where they are.

Just one last thing on that. Has the recent sort of unrest between you and David, and I know you're in touch with Stephen and Neil, has that changed the way you hear the music at all? Because it sounds to me like you're still incredibly proud of what you guys did accomplish together.

I am. I'm incredibly proud. I'm very proud to have been the partners of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. Who wouldn't be? We have made some tremendous music. But we once again, we have to love each other. We have to like each other before we can make music together. And right now, we're at a complete impasse. Nobody talks to David. I used to talk to David a couple of times a day for 45 years. I haven't spoken to him in three years.

But if he picked up the phone, would you answer?

No.

Is there anything else that you know, the public should know about what's going on at this impasse?

No. The public has no need to know. The public only has to know that we have to love each other before we make fine music and it's not happening.

OK. I guess the last thing is: I don't know when we'll do one of these again. Like I said, I don't take them for granted. So when you think about your own legacy, what do you think of that? What do you think your legacy is?

Um, I hope that people will recognize the fact that I tried to make things better. I tried to make my life better. I tried to make life better of my wives and my children and my friends. I've tried to make everything better. I've always done this all my life. And I'll continue to do it. I'm 77 years old right now, I realized that I'm possibly coming to the end of my life. Quite frankly, you know, either one of us could drop dead during this interview. I mean, life is strange, you know. So I realized that I that I've tried my best to make things better. It's quite simple. I've always tried to make things better.

A lifelong resident of the Capital Region, Ian joined WAMC in late 2008 and became news director in 2013. He began working on Morning Edition and has produced The Capitol Connection, Congressional Corner, and several other WAMC programs. Ian can also be heard as the host of the WAMC News Podcast and on The Roundtable and various newscasts. Ian holds a BA in English and journalism and an MA in English, both from the University at Albany, where he has taught journalism since 2013.
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