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Graham Nash

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For the quiz show champion, see Graham Nash (Countdown).

Graham Nash
OBE
Nash performing in 2014
Nash performing in 2014
Background information
Birth nameGraham William Nash
Born (1942-02-02) 2 February 1942 (age 82)
Blackpool, Lancashire, England, UK
OriginSalford, Lancashire, England
Occupations
  • Musician
  • singer
  • songwriter
  • activist
Instruments
  • Vocals
  • guitar
  • keyboards
Years active1958–present
Labels
Websitewww.grahamnash.com

Graham William Nash, OBE (born 2 February 1942) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. He is known for his light tenor voice and for his songwriting contributions as a member of the English pop group The Hollies and the folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Nash became an American citizen on 14 August 1978 and holds dual citizenship of the United Kingdom and United States.

Nash is a photography collector and a published photographer. He was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1997 and as a member of The Hollies in 2010.[1][2]

Nash was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours List for services to music and to charity.[3]

Nash holds four honorary doctorates, including one from New York Institute of Technology,[4] one in Music from the University of Salford in 2011.[5] and his latest Doctorate in Fine Arts from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[6]

Early life and early music career

Graham William Nash was born in 1942 in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, his mother having been evacuated there from the Nashes' hometown of Salford, Lancashire, because of the Second World War. The family subsequently returned to Salford, where Nash grew up. In the early 1960s he co-founded The Hollies, one of the UK's most successful pop groups, with schoolfriend Allan Clarke. Credited on the first album as "Group Leader", he occasionally took a lead vocal. Nash was featured vocally on "Just One Look" in 1964, and sang his first lead vocal on the original Hollies song "To You My Love" on the band's second album In The Hollies Style (1964). He then progressed to often singing featured bridge vocals on Hollies recordings; "So Lonely", "I've Been Wrong", "Pay You Back With Interest". Also by 1966 Nash was providing a few solo lead vocals on Hollies albums & then from 1967 also on B-sides to singles, notably "On a Carousel" and "Carrie Anne".

Nash encouraged the Hollies to write their own songs, initially with Clarke, then with Clarke and guitarist Tony Hicks. From 1964 to mid-1966 they wrote under the alias L. Ransford. Their own names were credited on songs from "Stop Stop Stop" from October 1966 onwards.

In 1965 Nash with Allan Clarke & guitarist, Tony Hicks, formed Gralto Music Ltd, a publishing company who handled their own songs and later signed the young Reg Dwight (aka 'Elton John' – who played piano & organ on Hollies 1969 and 1970 recordings).

Songwriting, activism, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY), Crosby & Nash, and solo career

Nash Performing in 2011.

Nash was pivotal in the forging of a sound and lyrics, often writing the verses on Clarke, Hicks & Nash songs. However, Nash also composed songs by himself under the 'team banner' (like Lennon & McCartney), for example, 'Fifi the Flea' (1966), 'Clown' (1966), 'Stop Right There', 'Everything is Sunshine' (1967). The Butterfly album included several of his songs that had less group participation and exhibited more of a singer-songwriter approach. He was disappointed when this new style did not register with their audience, especially "King Midas in Reverse" (Nash and producer Ron Richards clashed over this song because Richards believed it was 'too complex' to work as a hit single).

Nash initially met both David Crosby and Stephen Stills in 1966 during a Hollies US tour. On a subsequent visit to the US in 1968, he was more formally introduced to Crosby by mutual friend Cass Elliott in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. Nash left the Hollies to form a new group with Crosby and Stills. A trio at first, Crosby, Stills & Nash later became a quartet with Neil Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY).

With both configurations, Nash went on to even greater worldwide success, penning many of CSN's most-commercial hit singles such as "Marrakesh Express" (which had been rejected by the Hollies), "Our House", "Teach Your Children" (also rejected by the Hollies), "Just a Song Before I Go" and "Wasted on the Way". Nash, nicknamed "Willy" by his band mates, has been described as the glue that keeps their often fragile alliances together.

Nash became politically active after moving to California, as reflected in Nash's songs "Military Madness" and "Chicago". His song "Immigration Man", Crosby & Nash's biggest hit as a duo, arose from a tiff he had with a US Customs official while trying to enter the country.

In 1972, during CSNY's first hiatus, Nash teamed with Crosby, forming a successful duo. They have worked in this configuration on and off ever since, yielding four studio albums and a few live and compilation albums.

In 1979, Nash co-founded Musicians United for Safe Energy which is against the expansion of nuclear power. MUSE put on the educational fundraising No Nukes events. In 2007 the group recorded a music video of a new version of the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth".[7][8]

Nash briefly rejoined the Hollies in 1983 (to mark their 20th anniversary) to record two albums, What Goes Around and Reunion.

In 1993, Nash again reunited with the Hollies to record a new version of "Peggy Sue Got Married" that featured lead vocal by Buddy Holly (taken from an alternate version of the song given to Nash by Holly's widow Maria Eleana Holly)—this Buddy Holly & the Hollies recording opened the Not Fade Away tribute album to Holly by various artists.

David Crosby and Nash playing Occupy Wall Street, November 2011

In 2005, Nash collaborated with Norwegian musicians A-ha on the songs "Over the Treetops" (penned by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy) and "Cosy Prisons" (penned by Magne Furuholmen) for the Analogue recording. In 2006, Nash worked with David Gilmour and David Crosby on the title track of David Gilmour's third solo album, On an Island. In March 2006, the album was released and quickly reached No. 1 on the UK charts. Nash and Crosby subsequently toured the UK with Gilmour, singing backup on "On an Island", "The Blue", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", and "Find the Cost of Freedom".

Nash playing at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2014

In addition to his political songs Nash has written many songs on other themes he cares about such as of nature and ecology—beginning with the Hollies' "Signs That Will Never Change" (first recorded by the Everly Brothers in 1966)—later CSNY's "Clear Blue Skies", plus anti-nuclear-waste-dumping ("Barrel of Pain"), anti-war ("Soldiers of Peace") and social issues ("Prison Song").

Nash appeared on the season 7 finale of American Idol singing "Teach Your Children" with Brooke White.

In 2010, Nash was inducted a second time to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this time as a member of the Hollies. He received an OBE "for services to music and charitable activities", becoming an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Diplomatic and Overseas Division of the Queen's Birthday Honours List on 12 June 2010. Nash received the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar at the George Eastman House on 22 January 2011, in Rochester, New York.[1][2]

Nash contributed a cover of "Raining in My Heart" to the 2011 tribute album Rave on Buddy Holly.

On 22 January 2016, Nash announced the forthcoming release on 15 April 2016 of his new studio album entitled This Path Tonight (his first collection of new songs in fourteen years) and shared the title track from it through the MOJO magazine's website.[9]

On 4 February 2016, the Rolling Stone magazine unveiled a new song from the new album, the reflective "Encore", the tender tune that wraps up Nash's new album.[10]

Upon the upcoming release of his new studio album, Nash has planned a solo tour due to kick off on 25 & 27 March 2016 at Bluesfest in Byron Bay, Australia, due to continue in the United States on 22 April 2016 at Saban Theatre, Beverly Hills, CA, to visit Europe starting from the UK on 21 May 2016 at the Albert Hall, Manchester and to end on 14 June 2016 at the Alte Oper Hall, Frankfurt, Germany.

Nash now endorses Bernie Sanders for the 2016 United States presidential election.

Photography career

Interested in photography as a child, Nash began to collect photographs in the early 1970s. Having acquired more than a thousand prints by 1976, Nash hired Graham Howe as his photography curator. In 1978 through 1984 a touring exhibition of selections from the Graham Nash Collection toured to more than a dozen museums worldwide. Nash decided to sell his 2,000 print collection through Sotheby's auction house in 1990 where it set an auction record for the highest grossing sale of a single private collection of photography.[11]

In 2010 21st Editions published a monograph titled "Love, Graham Nash" which includes facsimiles of his lyrics paired with signed photographs by Graham Nash and printed by Nash Editions.

Early digital fine art printing

In the late 1980s Nash began to experiment with digital images of his photography on Macintosh computers with the assistance of R. Mac Holbert who at that time was the tour manager for Crosby, Stills and Nash as well as handling computer/technical matters for the band. Nash ran into the problem common with all personal computers running graphics software during that period: he could create very sophisticated detailed images on the computer, but there was no output device (computer printer) capable of reproducing what he saw on the computer screen. Nash and Holbert initially experimented with early commercial printers that were then becoming available and printed many images on the large format Fujix inkjet printers at UCLA's JetGraphix digital output centre. When Fuji decided to stop supporting the printers, John Bilotta, who was running JetGraphix, recommended that Nash and Holbert look into the Iris printer, a new large format continuous-tone inkjet printer built for prepress proofing by IRIS Graphics, Inc.[12] Through IRIS Graphics national sales rep Steve Boulter, Nash also met programmer David Coons, a colour engineer for Disney, who was already using the IRIS printer there to print images from Disney's new digital animation system.

Coons worked off hours at Disney to produce large images of 16 of Nash's photographic portraits on arches watercolour paper using Disney's in-house model 3024 IRIS printer for a 24 April 1990 show at Simon Lowinsky gallery.[13] Since most of the original negatives and prints had been lost in shipment to a book publisher, Coons had to scan contact sheets and enhance the images so they could be printed in large format. He used software he had written to output the photographic images to the IRIS printer, a machine designed to work with proprietary prepress computer systems.[14]

In July 1990 Graham Nash purchased an IRIS Graphics 3047 inkjet printer for $126,000 and set it up in a small carriage house in Manhattan Beach, California near Los Angeles. David Coons and Steve Boulter used it to print an even larger November 1990 show of Nash's work for Parco Stores in Tokyo. The show entitled Sunlight on Silver was a series of 35 celebrity portraits by Nash which were 3 feet by 4 feet in an edition of 50 prints per image, a total of 1,750 images.[15][16] Subsequently, Nash exhibited his photographs at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego and elsewhere.[17]

Nash Editions

In 1991 Graham Nash agreed to fund Mac Holbert to start a fine art digital based printing company using the IRIS Graphics 3047 printer sitting in Nash's Manhattan Beach, California carriage house. Holbert retired as road manager for Crosby, Stills and Nash so that he could run the company. It opened its doors on 1 July 1991 with the name of Nash Editions Ltd.[13] Early employees included David Coons, John Bilotta and a serigraphic print maker named Jack Duganne. They worked to further adapt the IRIS printer to fine art printing, experimenting with ink sets to try to overcome the fast-fading nature of IRIS prints, and even going as far as sawing off part of the print heads so they could be moved back to clear thicker printing paper stocks (voiding the $126,000 machine's warranty).[18] Nash and Holbert decided to call their fine art prints "digigraphs" although Jack Duganne coined the name "Giclée" for these type of prints.[19] The company is still in operation and currently uses Epson based large format printers.

In 2005, Nash donated the original IRIS Graphics 3047 printer and Nash Editions ephemera to the National Museum of American History, a Smithsonian Institution.

Personal life

Nash was married to his first wife, Rose Eccles from 1964 until 1966.[20] Nash was then married to Susan Sennett for 38 years, from 1977 until 2016.[20] The couple had three children, named Jackson, Will and Nile. Nash is currently in a relationship with his new partner Amy Grantham, who he met in New York City. The couple both share a love of photography. [21]

Nash released an autobiographical memoir in September 2013 entitled Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life, published by Crown Publishing.[22] Photographs that he took during his career are on display as an art collection at the San Francisco Art Exchange.[23] In interviews pertaining to both the memoir and art exhibit he mentions the impact of Joni Mitchell, with whom he lived for two years in his early time in California. Nash also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Stephen Stills. This apparently led to the initial break-up of CSN in 1970.[22][23][24]

Discography

See also discographies for Crosby Stills Nash & Young, the Hollies and Crosby & Nash.

Studio albums

Date of release
Title
Peak Billboard chart position
RIAA certification
[25]
Label
28 May 1971
Songs for Beginners
15
Gold
Atlantic Records
2 January 1974
Wild Tales
34
Atlantic
15 February 1980
Earth & Sky
117
EMI Records
27 March 1986
Innocent Eyes
136
Atlantic
30 April 2002
Songs for Survivors
Artemis Records
15 April 2016
This Path Tonight
93
Blue Castle Records

Box set

Date of release
Title
Peak Billboard chart position
RIAA certification
[25]
Label
3 February 2009
Reflections
Rhino Records

References

  1. ^ a b "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum". Rockhall.com. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  2. ^ a b "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Inductees". Rockhall.com. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  3. ^ "No. 59446". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 12 June 2010.
  4. ^ http://www.grahamnash.com/content/bio
  5. ^ "University of Salford Manchester – "Son of Salford" Graham Nash receives honorary degree". Salford.ac.uk. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
  6. ^ editor. "Graham Nash awarded honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts". Retrieved 22 May 2013. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  7. ^ ""For What It's Worth," No Nukes Reunite After Thirty Years". Nukefree.org. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  8. ^ "Musicians Act to Stop New Atomic Reactors". Nirs.org. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  9. ^ "Graham Nash Previews New Album, This Path Tonight (Graham Nash shares the title track of his forthcoming album, This Path Tonight, in an exclusive stream for MOJO readers.) (by MOJO Staff)". MOJO. 22 January 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  10. ^ "Hear Graham Nash's Reflective New Song "Encore" (Tender tune is the final track on This Path Tonight, singer-songwriter's first solo album in 14 years) (by Andy Greene)". Rolling Stone. 4 February 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  11. ^ Beth Gates-Warren, editor, Photographs from the Collection of Graham Nash, Sotheby's, New York, 25 April 1990
  12. ^ "Nash Editions: Fine Art Printing on the Digital Frontier, by Garrett White". Digitaljournalist.org. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  13. ^ a b "Digital Fine-Art Printing Comes of Age (Adapted from Chapter 1 of Harald Johnson's book, Mastering Digital Printing, Second Edition, Thomson Course Technology PTR, 2005, ISBN 1-59200-431-8.)". stansherer.com. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  14. ^ Harald Johnson, "Mastering Digital Printing", Thompson Course Technology, 2002, ISBN 1-929685-65-3
  15. ^ "Nash Editions: Fine Art Printing on the Digital Frontier, by Garrett White". digitaljournalist.org. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  16. ^ Masayoshi Yamada, Graham Nash Photographs: Sunlight on Silver, Parco Co. Ltd, Tokyo, 1990
  17. ^ Garrat White, Eye to Eye: Photographs by Graham Nash, Steidl, 2004 ISBN 3-88243-960-2
  18. ^ "The Center for Photographic Art, Interview, Mac Holbert, September 2004". photography.org. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  19. ^ '''Mastering Digital Printing''' By Harald Johnson, Page 11. Books.google.com. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  20. ^ a b "Graham Nash's Marriage Over After 38 Years". Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  21. ^ http://jwiederhorn.tumblr.com/post/137637249043/graham-nash-opens-up-about-trump-divorce-and
  22. ^ a b Italie, Hillel (20 September 2013). "Graham Nash: Rock star's memoir recalls the early days of his career". Edmonton Journal and the Associated Press. Edmonton, Canada: Canda.com. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  23. ^ a b Aidin, Vaziri (20 September 2013). "Folk rocker Graham Nash strums 'charmed life' tune". San Francisco Chronicle online (SF Gate). San Francisco: Hearst Newspapers. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  24. ^ James, Endrst (16 September 2013). "Graham Nash recalls big dreams and 'Wild Tales'". USA Today. Gannet. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  25. ^ a b "Recording Industry Association of America". RIAA. Retrieved 20 October 2011.

Bibliography

  • Eye to Eye: Photographs by Graham Nash by Nash and Garrett White (2004)
  • Off the Record: Songwriters on Songwriting (2002)
  • Love, Graham Nash (2 vols. [1] 2009)
  • Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life by Graham Nash (17 September 2013)
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