“I knew that I would have to spend years with these guys” — Graham Nash

With the release of Reflections, a triple-CD anthology of music ranging from the ridiculously famous to the never-before-released, Graham Nash is a satisfied man.

“I’ve had an incredible life,” says the 66-year-old singer, songwriter and longtime least-likely-to-implode member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. “I’m probably one of the luckiest people you’ll ever know. And the soundtrack to that life is on this box set.”

At 64 tracks, Reflections spans over 40 years of music — from The Hollies, started in 1963 by Nash and his boyhood chum Allan Clarke, to the big Crosby, Stills & Nash (and occasionally Young) tunes, the duo work with David Crosby, and from Nash’s stop-and-start solo career.

Over the years, Nash has become the official keeper of the key to the vast CSNY archive; he’s currently assembling five other CD projects, including a Stephen Stills box set, a Crosby, Stills & Nash demo collection and — at the specific request of Neil Young — a live album from CSNY’s 1974 “reunion” tour.

Professionally and personally, it’s been quite the tug-of-war, with Nash often the referee in a game of cocaine-fueled cross-purposes and bullying self-interest.

“Money, stardom and ego are a deadly combination if not handled well,” he says, and he should know.
Older and wiser — well, certainly older — Crosby, Stills and Nash have just begun a series of studio sessions for their first album in 15 years. Teaming with ace producer Rick Rubin, they’re working on an album of songs from their favorite songwriters. It’s an all-acoustic project, with the focus back where it was in the beginning — on the amazing harmonic blend of their three voices.

They made a wish list of 20 or 30 songs. “My criteria was this: ‘It has to have a great melody, and it has to say something great’,” Nash explains. “And most importantly, we have to own that song — we have to make it feel like we’d written it, and that’s us singing it.”

 For this interview, we told Nash we wanted to avoid re-hashing stuff everybody knows already — about Woodstock and “Wooden Ships,” pot-smoking and politics — and pull questions from somewhere deeper. Things the serious fan might have always wondered about.

“Go ahead,” he responded. “Ask whatever the f**k you want.”

So we did.

I’ve always wondered about the culture shock that you, a hard-working British pop star, must have experienced when you fell in with those California hippie musicians.

Graham Nash: The Hollies were five kids from the North of England who managed to escape doing what their dad did, and what their grandfather did. Which was expected of us: ‘Go down to the mine, or go to the mill — if it was good enough for your dad, it’s good enough for you, lad.’ Music was the escape mechanism. We were in a certain kind of culture there.

When we moved to London and started making records — hit records — that was another, incredible, culture. By the time I got to the end of my time with The Hollies, when they refused to record some of my songs, and I’d kind of lost my grip on the reins of that horse, I’d met Cass Elliot, and she’d introduced me to Crosby. He’d been in England with the Byrds. The promoter there was touting them as ‘America’s Answer to the Beatles,’ which pissed off a lot of people in England, so it was kind of a funky tour.

But Crosby came and stayed with me

Released in the spring of 1971, Graham Nash’s emotionally charged solo debut followed in the wake of a temporary split with his bandmates, David Crosby and Stephen Stills, and a permanent break with his love, Joni Mitchell.

The album was a decisive hit, peaking at #15 on Billboard and spawning the Top 40 hit “Chicago.”

Rhino has remasteredthis legendary musician’s first album for a landmark CD/DVD reissue that features 5.1 Surround Sound and High Resolution mixes of the original, along with a 2008 interview with Nash, photos and lyrics. Songs for Beginners is available now from Rhino Records at a suggested list price of $24.98. Click here for more details!

With no plans to record an album, Nash says his debut was an unexpected gift. After writing several poignant songs about his break up with Mitchell (“Better Days,” “Simple Man” and “I Used To Be King”) and Still’s rocky relationship with Judy Collins (“Wounded Bird”), Nash was inspired to keep writing.

“I realized I could craft something special that you could listen to and could help you in your own life,” he says. “At the time I wrote those songs, they were very hopeful. There was bleakness, but I tried to put an opening of light at the end.”

The story behind “Simple Man” is a classic. Nash wrote the song about the dissolution of his affair with Mitchell in June 1970 just a few hours before he was to take to the stage with Crosby, Stills and Young for the group’s opening-night show at the Fillmore East in New York. That evening, Nash debuted the song alone at the piano with Mitchell sitting in front of him in the audience.

Despite the gentle tone, Songs for Beginners is book-ended by two protest songs, the opening memoir “Military Madness” and “Chicago,” a piano-driven march on behalf of the Chicago 7, then on trial for conspiracy and inciting to riot during the violent protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Recorded in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Nash made Songs for Beginners with a combination of kindred souls from both cities, including Crosby, CSNY touring drummer Johnny Barbata, original Flying Burrito Brothers bassist Chris Ethridge, singer Rita Coolidge, fiddler David Lindley, the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh, and Neil Young, who is credited on the album as “Joe Yankee.”

Songs for Beginners is written and performed in a conversational tone of voice, often just above a whisper. It is tender in its honesty, warm and calm in its pace and determination. “Yes, it was quiet,” Nash admits. “But I wanted it to be straight from my heart to whoever listened to it. What I’m saying has survived pretty well.”