AMY GRANTHAM
GRAHAM NASH
Graham Nash considers it his goal to heal the world through music. And he continues this tradition on his first studio album of new material in seven years, Now, a deeply personal set of songs about protest and love.
The Crosby, Stills & Nash and Hollies co-founder embarked on a North American tour in August, performing songs from Now, as well as his older tunes including “Our House,” “Teach Your Children” and “Military Madness.” At his concerts, he tells stories about friends he has played with along his journey and those he has lost, including David Crosby, who died in January 2023.
His tour will include performances at The Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood, Sept. 28-29, and at Carnegie Hall in New York, Oct. 1. Judy Collins will join him on these dates.
“Judy is a longtime friend,” Nash says. “I’ve known her since 1969 and I’m really pleased that we’re actually going to make some music together. We tried to do it in Australia — we were on tour at the same time, played the same shows, but it was festival-style. She was on in the morning and I was on in the night. I’m really looking forward to making music with her.”
How is touring compared to your earlier years?
“It’s very different now,” he says. “I have three people that play with me.Todd Caldwell put together a band with a young man named Zach Djanikian and a young man named Adam Minkoff.” Caldwell plays keyboards; Djanikian and Minkoff are multi-instrumentalists.
“Quite frankly they are much younger than me and they are kicking my behind every single night,” says Nash. “I have to bring my A game every night. It’s thrilling for me. It’s very different music than I’ve ever done before. It’s fantastic. I’m really looking forward to playing with these guys and Judy.”
The cover of Graham Nash’s new album, “Now.”
Nash said the hopeful Now song “A Better Life” (listen below) is about “making the world better for everyone,” adding, “We really need to do that. As adults we need to leave this place in a better state than how we found it.”
Carrying on the tradition of offering lessons to children and parents about creating a peaceful world and “a code you try to live by,” as he wrote in “Teach Your Children,” Nash encourages us in “A Better Life” to make a “better life, leave it for the kids … ’cause what we leave them is tired and worn. And it’s up to us to help it.”
Over the years, Nash’s voice has often drawn attention to environmental, peace and social justice issues. For instance, he co-organized the memorable 1979 No Nukes shows in New York with Jackson Browne, John Hall, Bonnie Raitt and other members of Musicians United for Safe Energy. (see video below) In 2011, he performed at another No Nukes show to provide aide to the victims of the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
At 82, he remains a searching and vibrant musician and photographer, and lives near the defunct venue The Fillmore East and St. Mark’s Church in New York with Amy Grantham, whom he wed in 2019.
He finds inspiration in New York for both his music and photography. He said in a prior interview, “I’ve lived in New York City for about seven years and, quite frankly, I wish I’d done it earlier. It’s an incredible city … there’s so much beauty and so much pain.”
In 2021, Nash released the book “A Life in Focus: The Photography of Graham Nash.” In between photos, he shared memories of Browne, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, family members and others.
The cover of the book, “A Life in Focus: The Photography of Graham Nash.”
What is your eye drawn to when you’ve got your camera in your hand?
“I can tell you what I don’t photograph,” he said. “I don’t photograph landscapes. I don’t photograph sunsets. I don’t photograph kittens with balls of wool. I don’t take photographs that match my couch. I’m more into the surreal moments that happen in front of me and they seem to happen in front of me a great many times.
“I’m working on a new book of photographs right now that should come out probably in September of next year.”
On Now, which he finished during the pandemic and released in May 2023, he defies the notion that aging kills creativity and romantic passion. He sings on “Right Now”:
I used to think that I would never love again
I used to think I’d be all on my own
I really thought that it was coming to an end
And just the thought of it chilled me to the bone
But not now
I always thought I really knew what I was doing
And in my mind, I never thought that I would fail
But all that time was I fooling myself
With the chance I took
On the paths that were on my trail
He declares on the breezy song “Follow Your Heart” that “my world turns around” when he is near his love. In “When It Comes to You,” he says of his wife, “you’re the very best thing that’s happened to me and, at this point in my life, that’s something to say.”
“It Feels Like Home,” written decades ago, has a CSNY-infused sound and reminds me of “Our House,” which Nash wrote about his relationship with Joni Mitchell. On his current version of domestic bliss, he sings, “It feels like home to me every time I step inside our doorway and you’re standing there.”
“I wrote that with (CSNY drummer) Joe Vitale — he was our drummer for about 30 years,” Nash says. “He’s a great musician who lives outside of Cleveland. I really like that song.”
In 1968, Nash traveled to visit his then-partner Mitchell in Laurel Canyon in a “small wooden house … a little jewel box, with a sloping shingled roof and a lovely garden out back,” he wrote in his 2014 memoir “Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life.”
From left, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and David Crosby on the cover of their 1969 debut album.
When he arrived, Crosby and Stephen Stills were there, practicing Stills’ song “You Don’t Have to Cry.” He joined them and found himself immediately stunned by their gorgeous harmonies. He wrote: “The three of us were levitating, all right. The vibe was so high, it was hard to touch down.”
Crosby was no longer with The Byrds and Stills’ band Buffalo Springfield had disbanded. Nash left The Hollies and his home in England, and moved to California to form a trio with them.
As Collins did in our 2020 interview when she spoke about her great love affair with Stills, Nash spoke about his sustained love for Mitchell.
You and Judy share your positive feelings for your prior mates.
“Yes, we do.”
You still send Mitchell roses on her birthday?
“Every year,” he said. “Once you are in love with Joni Mitchell, it’s very hard to let go of that feeling. And I don’t want to. I have sent her roses on her birthday every single year since we parted.”
Do you still see her?
“I do,” he said. “I saw her last when she received the George Gershwin award (the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song) in D.C. about four months ago. It’s always beautiful. Never painful. And my friend Cameron Crowe is doing the movie of Joni and that’s going to be exciting.”
Who will play her?
“I think Joni as an older person is going to be played by Meryl Streep.”
I couldn’t think of a better person.
“Yes, I think it’ll be great.”
His time with Mitchell birthed some great music for both of them.
In Mitchell’s 1970 song “Willy” (from Ladies of the Canyon), she sings: “Willy is my joy, he is my sorrow/Now he wants to run away and hide/He says our love cannot be real/He cannot hear the chapel’s pealing silver bells/But you know it’s hard to tell when you’re in the spell if it’s wrong or if it’s real.”
In my prior interview, I asked Nash (whose nickname is Willy, since his middle name is William) how he felt when he heard that song.
“I think we may have made a mistake by not getting married,” he said. “I think Joni thought I would want her to stay home and cook and clean and do everything a wife is supposed to do, in the stupid thinking of males over the centuries. But the truth is I never would have wanted her to stop writing or performing. But I believe at that point she was thinking of her grandmother, who wanted to break out of that wife syndrome.” (Mitchell’s grandmother wanted to be an artist, Nash recalls.)
The cover of David Crosby and Graham Nash’s “Wind on the Water” album.
I also asked him how he has been dealing with the loss of Crosby.
“Terribly,” he said. “I was terribly sad when David passed. I — and his wife Jan and son Django — was terribly shocked. David thought he would die decades ago. I talk about him every night on my show when we do ‘Critical Mass’ into ‘Wind on the Water’ like it was on the album we made (1975’s Wind on the Water).
“He was an incredibly unique musician and thankfully we were beginning to get back together towards the end of his life. We were emailing each other and voice mailing each other and set up a time to FaceTime with each other, but unfortunately, he died before that could go on.”
It must be difficult not to have resolved some of your issues before his passing.
“Yes, but the truth is I really only want to think about the good things about David and our relationship … there was a tremendous amount of what I consider to be excellent music that we made together. I want to remember the good things, rather that the bad things.”
I hope his memory brings you comfort. You were best friends, after all.
“Yes, we were the best of friends for many, many years.”
Are you in touch with Stills and Neil Young?
“Oh yes, both of them. I talk to them probably once a month and we have a new album (Live at the Fillmore East, 1969) coming out. It’s going to be released towards the end of October. … A lot of people are going to really love this record. It really shows how much we loved each other. We’re singing very well. We did great with the acoustic part. We are laughing in the middle of a song if we hit a note that was off to all three of us. And then when you add Neil playing electric guitar, it’s really well done. No one has heard this music before.”
Graham Nash, second from left, with The Hollies.
Nash got great satisfaction from working on Hollies co-founder Allan Clarke’s album I’ll Never Forget (2023) on the song “Buddy’s Back,” and on Nash’s version of the song that appears on Now. (listen below) These two childhood friends from Manchester wrote this song as a tribute to Buddy Holly, whom The Hollies were named for in 1962.
Nash expressed gratitude for his longevity as an artist, but also concern that his political songs remain useful today.
In “Stars and Stripes,” he sings: “the stars and stripes are waving, but they’re waving goodbye to the truth.” In “Golden Idols,” he criticizes the divisiveness and deceit of MAGA loyalists and sings:
I know they’re lying
‘Cause their lips are moving and the truth in their soul fades away
They’re just like children who can’t stand losing and the truth is getting in their way
They’re trying to re-write recent history
When the MAGA tourists took the hill
They will not stand up ‘cause they’re bought and paid for
Golden idols control them still
When we last spoke, you were concerned about this country’s future. Are you optimistic now?
“I feel very good,” he said. “Certainly, after the last three weeks when Joe Biden quit the race and passed the torch to Kamala. I feel very good about the future.”
Did you think about your song “Chicago” during the DNC’s 2024 convention in Chicago?
“I did,” he said. “I actually wondered why they didn’t use it, particularly the ‘we can change the world’ part, because I think they are changing the world. I think that if Kamala (Harris) wins, which I hope she does, the world will be a much better place without Trump.”
AMY GRANTHAM
GRAHAM NASH
Your Now song “Stand Up” (in which he sings “Rise up into the future/Rise up and you’ll feel alive/Rise up, take a stand”) could be a good rallying anthem for the campaign. (listen below)
“Absolutely,” he said. ” ‘Stand Up’ is a really good example of what we can do. We need to stand up for our friends. We need to stand up for our loved ones, our beliefs and our choices. I really appreciate the fact that they are trying to entice younger voters. Younger voters were not in favor of Biden, but they certainly are in favor of Kamala.”
Do you think “Military Madness” remains relevant?
“Absolutely,” he said. “I talk about just how relevant it is in my shows. Once again, Kamala will be able to change all that, particularly in Gaza. If she comes out for a ceasefire, she will bring younger people to the polls.
“In Gaza, thousands of innocent civilians, many of them children and women, have been killed. And I understand that Israel needs to defend itself, but holy Toledo, enough. I wish that Kamala would use the word ‘genocide’ because I think that’s what’s going on.”
Once many of us hit 50 and beyond, we have to recover from loss and often need to reinvent ourselves. Nash has done so, musically and personally.
Do you think your spirit of renewal is reflected in the songs on your new album?
“I certainly do agree,” he said. “Now was a real reflection of what was happening to me in my personal life, which is what happens a lot with my songs. And I’m the same as you. I wear my tux the same way you do.
“I’ve just done something a little different with my life and I’ve been looking at my life because, with all due respect, at 82, I know that I’m coming to the end. I certainly hope to be around for a few more years. But I’ve been thinking about my life and I really understand the choices I’ve made and I’m very glad about the choices I’ve made.”
That’s the most peace you can have in your life. I’m really happy for you.
“Thank you, luv,” he said with a big sigh, signing off to get a ride to the next concert on his tour.
Graham Nash and Judy Collins will perform at The Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. and Sept. 29 at 7 p.m.; visit scottishriteauditorium.com. They will also be at Carnegie Hall in New York, Oct. 1 at 8 p.m.; visit carnegiehall.org.
For more about Nash, visit grahamnash.com.
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