Background

Graham William Nash was born on February 2, 1942, in Blackpool, United Kingdom, his mother having been evacuated there from the Nashes' home town of Salford, Lancashire, because of the Second World War. The family subsequently returned to Salford, where Nash grew up.

Career

In the early 1960s, Graham Nash co-founded the Hollies, one of the UK's most successful pop groups, with school friend Allan Clarke, and was credited as the group's leader on their first album. He 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 onward.

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

Graham 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. He 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).

In 1972, during CSNY's first hiatus, Graham Nash teamed with Crosby, forming a successful duo. They have worked in this configuration on and off ever since, producing four studio albums and a few live and compilation albums. 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 1979, Graham 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".

Graham Nash briefly rejoined the Hollies in 1983 (to mark their 20th anniversary) to record two albums, What Goes Around and Reunion. In 1993, he again reunited with the Hollies to record a new version of "Peggy Sue Got Married".

In 2005, Graham 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, he 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".

On 22 January 2016, Graham Nash announced the forthcoming release on 15 April 2016 of his new studio album entitled This Path Tonight and shared the title track from it through MOJO magazine's website. On 4 February 2016, Rolling Stone magazine unveiled a new song from the new album, the reflective "Encore," the tender tune that wraps up Nash's new album. Upon the upcoming release of his new studio album in April 2016, Graham Nash planned a solo tour from 25 March 2016 at Bluesfest in Byron Bay, Australia, continuing the United States on 22 April 2016. Graham Nash was still touring in the fall of 2017, performing in New Jersey and New York in September.

On 29 June 2018, Rhino Records released the two-disc box set Over The Years, a 30-track collection of Nash's demos made from 1968 to 1980, featuring highlights from the CSN debut album Crosby, Stills & Nash ("Marrakesh Express"), CSNY follow-up Déjà Vu ("Our House", "Teach Your Children"), song selections from subsequent CSN albums, four tracks from Nash's 1971 solo album Songs For Beginners, with "Better Days" and "I Used To Be King" presented as unreleased mixes. The most recent recording on the compilation is "Myself at Last" from Nash's 2016 solo album This Path Tonight. The second disc in this set features 15 demo recordings, 12 of which have never been released.

Achievements

• Graham Nash is known for his light tenor voice and for his songwriting contributions as a member of the English pop/rock group the Hollies and the folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash.
  
  Graham Nash was inducted into 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.
  
  Graham Nash holds four honorary doctorates, including one from New York Institute of Technology, one in Music from the University of Salford in 2011, and his latest Doctorate in Fine Arts from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Works

More photos

• album

  • Earth & Sky 1980

• book

  • Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life

    (From Graham Nash - the legendary musician and founding me...)

    2014
  • Classic Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young 1993
  • Graham Nash/David Crosby 1972

• Compilation

  • Reflections 2009

• single

  • This Path Tonight 2016

• solo album

  • Songs For Beginners 1971

• two-disk box set

  • Over The Years (2CD) 2018

• video

  • Graham Nash: A Rock & Roll Life

    (Legendary musician Graham Nash, a founding member of the ...)

  • Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Fifty By Four

    (The incredible story of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, fea...)

    2014

Politics

Graham Nash became politically active after moving to California, as reflected in his anti-Vietnam War songs "Military Madness" and "Chicago / We Can Change the World" (about the trial of the Chicago Eight).

Personality

Interested in photography as a child, Graham Nash began to collect photographs in the early 1970s. Having acquired more than a thousand prints by 1976, he 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. Graham 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.

Connections

Graham Nash was married to his first wife, Rose Eccles from 1964 until 1966. He was married to Susan Sennett for 38 years until 2016 when he divorced and moved to New York. He has three adult children. In April 2019, Graham Nash married artist Amy Grantham.

Spouse:

Rose Eccles

(m. 1964-1966)

Spouse:

Susan Sennett

Spouse:

Amy Grantham

Friend:

Allan Clarke

colleague:

Tony Hicks

Friend:

Cass Elliott

colleague:

David Gilmour

colleague:

David Crosby

References

• Graham Nash: Eye To Eye Eye to Eye gathers for the first time more than 150 photographs by rock musician Graham Nash. While best known as a founding member of the rock band Crosby, Stills, Nash, and (sometimes) Young, Nash also developed a parallel career as a photographer, collector, and pioneer of digital imaging. Shot between 1969 and 2003, Nash's photographs include revealing portraits of family and friends, images of life on the road, still lifes and landscapes, street photographs, and a unique series of self-portraits which often shows him reflected in windows and mirrors. Eye to Eye establishes Nash as a masterful visual artist with a keen eye for moments and scenes not immediately available to the common eye.
  2004