Graham Nash
Encyclopedia
Graham William Nash, OBE
(born 2 February 1942) is an English singer-songwriter
known for his light tenor vocals and for his songwriting contributions with the British pop group The Hollies
, and with the folk-rock
band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
. Nash is a photography collector and a published photographer. Nash was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
as a member of Crosby, Stills & Nash and as a member of The Hollies
in 2010.
Nash was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours for services to music and to charity.
, England, in 1942, 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 Graham grew up. In the early 1960s he was co-founder with schoolfriend Allan Clarke of The Hollies. Nash was a leading 'group figurehead' member of The Hollies
, one of the UK's most successful pop
and "British Invasion" groups. Credited on the first album as 'Group Leader' and Recognised as a key member of the group, plus their public spokesman, 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' 1965, 'Pay You Back With Interest' 1966 etc, also by 1966 Nash was providing a few solo lead vocals on Hollies albums & then from 1967 'B' sides to singles.
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 after Nash's exit from the group).
Nash led the vocals on Hollies hits such as "On A Carousel" (1966), then was both a featured lead vocal verse singer (along with Allan Clarke & Tony Hicks) and took all three chorus harmony vocal parts on "Carrie Anne" (1967). From 1963 he had instigated The Hollies writing their own songs - initallly with Clarke (Nash's first written song with Clarke being the Everlys-inspired "Whole World Over"), then from 1964 to mid-1966 Clarke-Hicks-Nash wrote as 'L.Ransford', before their own names were credited on songs from "Stop Stop Stop" (October 1966) onwards. Nash wrote or co-wrote many of the band's original songs, most often early on in collaboration with Allan Clarke
and also then together with Tony Hicks up to Nash's departure from the band in December 1968.
Nash was pivotal in the forging of a sound and lyrics, often chiefly writing the verses on original team composed Hollies songs showing an obvious hippie influence on The Hollies' albums. However, Nash also wrote solo under the 'team banner' (like Lennon & McCartney), his songs such as "Fifi The Flea" (1966, featuring just Nash's voice and an acoustic guitar), "Clown" (1966), "Stop Right There", "Everything is Sunshine" (1967) and several of his lead vocal songs on the Butterfly album carried little or no trademark harmonies (sometimes just his own harmonies), sometimes scant group accompaniment - "Sunshine", "Relax", etc' - and reflected a singer/songwriter approach, later with songs of an 'escapist' nature ("Away Away Away", "Postcard" etc.). He was disappointed when his transition in sound did not register with the audience that the Hollies played to, including when "King Midas In Reverse
" did not gain the popularity he expected it to (Nash had clashed with longtime Hollies producer Ron Richards over this, Richards believing the song was 'too complex' to work as a hit single). Nash greatly influenced the direction of Evolution
, and Butterfly
, a collection that brought differing opinions on the band's musical direction to the fore.
Nash initallly met both David Crosby and Steve Stills in 1966 among a group of USA musician friends during a Hollies USA tour. In 1968, after a further visit to the US
during which he met David Crosby
in Laurel Canyon
and began recreational drug use
, Nash left The Hollies to form a new group with Crosby and Stephen Stills
. A threesome at first, Crosby, Stills & Nash
later became a foursome with Neil Young
: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
(CSNY). With them, Nash went on to even greater worldwide success, penning many of CSN's most commercial hit singles such as; "Marrakesh Express" (1969 - written earlier & initially cut in unfinished form by The Hollies back in 1968), "Just A Song Before I Go" (1977) and later "Wasted on the Way" (1982). Both Nash's "Our House" and "Teach Your Children" (CSNY recordings from the album Deja Vu in 1970) have become well known items used in both TV commercials and films. Nash, nicknamed "Willy" by his band mates in CSNY, has been described as the glue that keeps their often fragile alliances together. A mark of this is the loyalty and support Nash showed to his best friend, Crosby, during Crosby's well-documented period of drug addiction ending in the mid 1980s. Nash's solo career has often been shelved in favour of reunions on stage and in the studio with either Crosby and Stills or Crosby, Stills and Young. In addition, Nash briefly rejoined the Hollies in 1983 (to mark their 20th anniversary) to record two albums, "What Goes Around" and Reunion. His own solo work shows a love of melody and ballads. His solo recordings have experimented with jazz and electronic percussion but tend not to stray too far from a pop format with well-defined hook lines.
Nash became very politically active after moving to California to join with David Crosby and Stephen Stills, as reflected in Nash's songs "Military Madness" and "Chicago (We Can Change the World)". His song "Immigration Man
", Crosby and Nash's biggest hit as a duo (see below), arose from a tiff he had with a US Customs official while trying to enter the country. Nash became an American citizen on August 14, 1978.
Starting in 1972, Nash teamed with Crosby, the two continuing as a successful recording and performing duo until the more or less permanent reformation with Stills for the CSN
album of 1977. The pair reunited for another Crosby & Nash
studio album in 2004, and a legitimate release of music from a 1970s Crosby-Nash tour as on a widely circulated bootleg
appeared in 1998.
In 1979, Nash co-founded Musicians United for Safe Energy
.
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.
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 #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 is part of the No Nukes group which is against the expansion of nuclear power
. In 2007 the group recorded a music video
of a new version of the Buffalo Springfield
song "For What It's Worth".
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" as far back as 1967 - 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 Saturday, June 12, 2010. Nash received the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar at the George Eastman House
on January 22, 2011, in Rochester, NY.
Nash contributed a cover of "Raining in My Heart
" to the 2011 tribute album Rave On Buddy Holly
.
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 world wide. 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.
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 computer
s 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 center. 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. Through IRIS Graphics national sales rep Steve Boulter, Nash also met programmer David Coons
, a color 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 produced large images of 16 of Nash's photographic portraits on arches watercolor paper
using Disney’s in-house model 3024 IRIS printer for an April 24, 1990 show at Simon Lowinsky gallery. 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.
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. Subsequently, Nash exhibited his photographs at the Museum of Photographic Arts
in San Diego and elsewhere.
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 short longevity 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 machines warranty). Nash and Holbert decided to call their fine art prints "digigraph" although Jack Duganne coined the name "Giclée
" for these type of prints. 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
.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 2 February 1942) is an English singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
known for his light tenor vocals and for his songwriting contributions with the British pop group The Hollies
The Hollies
The Hollies are an English pop and rock group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s, though most of the band members are from throughout East Lancashire. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and 1970s...
, and with the folk-rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young)
Crosby, Stills & Nash is a folk rock supergroup made up of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, also known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when joined by occasional fourth member Neil Young...
. Nash is a photography collector and a published photographer. Nash was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
as a member of Crosby, Stills & Nash and as a member of The Hollies
The Hollies
The Hollies are an English pop and rock group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s, though most of the band members are from throughout East Lancashire. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and 1970s...
in 2010.
Nash was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours for services to music and to charity.
Music career
Nash was born in Blackpool, LancashireLancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, England, in 1942, his mother having been evacuated
Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II
Evacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to save the population of urban or military areas in the United Kingdom from aerial bombing of cities and military targets such as docks. Civilians, particularly children, were moved to areas thought to be less at risk....
there from the Nashes' hometown of Salford
City of Salford
The City of Salford is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Salford, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Eccles, Swinton-Pendlebury, Walkden and Irlam which apart from Irlam each have a population of over...
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
because of the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The family subsequently returned to Salford, where Graham grew up. In the early 1960s he was co-founder with schoolfriend Allan Clarke of The Hollies. Nash was a leading 'group figurehead' member of The Hollies
The Hollies
The Hollies are an English pop and rock group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s, though most of the band members are from throughout East Lancashire. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and 1970s...
, one of the UK's most successful pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
and "British Invasion" groups. Credited on the first album as 'Group Leader' and Recognised as a key member of the group, plus their public spokesman, 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' 1965, 'Pay You Back With Interest' 1966 etc, also by 1966 Nash was providing a few solo lead vocals on Hollies albums & then from 1967 'B' sides to singles.
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 after Nash's exit from the group).
Nash led the vocals on Hollies hits such as "On A Carousel" (1966), then was both a featured lead vocal verse singer (along with Allan Clarke & Tony Hicks) and took all three chorus harmony vocal parts on "Carrie Anne" (1967). From 1963 he had instigated The Hollies writing their own songs - initallly with Clarke (Nash's first written song with Clarke being the Everlys-inspired "Whole World Over"), then from 1964 to mid-1966 Clarke-Hicks-Nash wrote as 'L.Ransford', before their own names were credited on songs from "Stop Stop Stop" (October 1966) onwards. Nash wrote or co-wrote many of the band's original songs, most often early on in collaboration with Allan Clarke
Allan Clarke (singer)
Allan Clarke is a retired British singer who was one of the founding members of The Hollies. He retired in 1999.-Career:...
and also then together with Tony Hicks up to Nash's departure from the band in December 1968.
Nash was pivotal in the forging of a sound and lyrics, often chiefly writing the verses on original team composed Hollies songs showing an obvious hippie influence on The Hollies' albums. However, Nash also wrote solo under the 'team banner' (like Lennon & McCartney), his songs such as "Fifi The Flea" (1966, featuring just Nash's voice and an acoustic guitar), "Clown" (1966), "Stop Right There", "Everything is Sunshine" (1967) and several of his lead vocal songs on the Butterfly album carried little or no trademark harmonies (sometimes just his own harmonies), sometimes scant group accompaniment - "Sunshine", "Relax", etc' - and reflected a singer/songwriter approach, later with songs of an 'escapist' nature ("Away Away Away", "Postcard" etc.). He was disappointed when his transition in sound did not register with the audience that the Hollies played to, including when "King Midas In Reverse
King Midas In Reverse
King Midas In Reverse is a song by British pop group The Hollies written by members Allan Clarke, Graham Nash and Tony Hicks. It was released by The Hollies as single in September 1967 in anticipation of their album Butterfly. It was released in the UK on the Parlophone label and in the US on the...
" did not gain the popularity he expected it to (Nash had clashed with longtime Hollies producer Ron Richards over this, Richards believing the song was 'too complex' to work as a hit single). Nash greatly influenced the direction of Evolution
Evolution (Hollies album)
The cover shown is the Sundazed 1998 rerelease, which differs from the original by having a small black rectanglular Sundazed logo present in the lower right....
, and Butterfly
Butterfly (Hollies album)
Butterfly is the second studio album released by British band The Hollies in 1967, their seventh in England overall. It was also the last new Hollies album to feature Graham Nash until 1983's What Goes Around...
, a collection that brought differing opinions on the band's musical direction to the fore.
Nash initallly met both David Crosby and Steve Stills in 1966 among a group of USA musician friends during a Hollies USA tour. In 1968, after a further visit to the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during which he met David Crosby
David Crosby
David Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...
in Laurel Canyon
Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, California
Laurel Canyon is a canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was first developed in the 1910s, and became a part of the city of Los Angeles in 1923 ....
and began recreational drug use
Recreational drug use
Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...
, Nash left The Hollies to form a new group with Crosby and Stephen Stills
Stephen Stills
Stephen Arthur Stills is an American guitarist and singer/songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash . He has performed on a professional level in several other bands as well as maintaining a solo career at the same time...
. A threesome at first, Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young)
Crosby, Stills & Nash is a folk rock supergroup made up of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, also known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when joined by occasional fourth member Neil Young...
later became a foursome with Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young)
Crosby, Stills & Nash is a folk rock supergroup made up of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, also known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when joined by occasional fourth member Neil Young...
(CSNY). With them, Nash went on to even greater worldwide success, penning many of CSN's most commercial hit singles such as; "Marrakesh Express" (1969 - written earlier & initially cut in unfinished form by The Hollies back in 1968), "Just A Song Before I Go" (1977) and later "Wasted on the Way" (1982). Both Nash's "Our House" and "Teach Your Children" (CSNY recordings from the album Deja Vu in 1970) have become well known items used in both TV commercials and films. Nash, nicknamed "Willy" by his band mates in CSNY, has been described as the glue that keeps their often fragile alliances together. A mark of this is the loyalty and support Nash showed to his best friend, Crosby, during Crosby's well-documented period of drug addiction ending in the mid 1980s. Nash's solo career has often been shelved in favour of reunions on stage and in the studio with either Crosby and Stills or Crosby, Stills and Young. In addition, Nash briefly rejoined the Hollies in 1983 (to mark their 20th anniversary) to record two albums, "What Goes Around" and Reunion. His own solo work shows a love of melody and ballads. His solo recordings have experimented with jazz and electronic percussion but tend not to stray too far from a pop format with well-defined hook lines.
Nash became very politically active after moving to California to join with David Crosby and Stephen Stills, as reflected in Nash's songs "Military Madness" and "Chicago (We Can Change the World)". His song "Immigration Man
Immigration Man
"Immigration Man" is a song recorded by David Crosby and Graham Nash as a duo, from 1972. It was released as a single and was also the closing track on Crosby and Nash's first duo album, Graham Nash David Crosby....
", Crosby and Nash's biggest hit as a duo (see below), arose from a tiff he had with a US Customs official while trying to enter the country. Nash became an American citizen on August 14, 1978.
Starting in 1972, Nash teamed with Crosby, the two continuing as a successful recording and performing duo until the more or less permanent reformation with Stills for the CSN
CSN (album)
CSN is a Crosby, Stills & Nash album released in 1977, the fifth album by the group, and the first without Neil Young since his entry into the band...
album of 1977. The pair reunited for another Crosby & Nash
Crosby & Nash
In addition to solo careers and within the larger aggregate of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the musical team of David Crosby and Graham Nash have performed and recorded regularly as a duo, mostly during the 1970s and the 2000s.-History:...
studio album in 2004, and a legitimate release of music from a 1970s Crosby-Nash tour as on a widely circulated bootleg
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
appeared in 1998.
In 1979, Nash co-founded Musicians United for Safe Energy
Musicians United for Safe Energy
Musicians United for Safe Energy, or MUSE, is an activist group founded in 1979 by Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt, and John Hall. The group advocates against the use of nuclear energy, forming shortly after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in March 1979...
.
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.
In 2005, Nash collaborated with Norwegian musicians a-ha
A-ha
A-ha were a Norwegian pop band formed in Oslo in 1982. The band was founded by Morten Harket , Magne Furuholmen , and Pål Waaktaar...
on the songs "Over the Treetops" (penned by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy
Paul Waaktaar-Savoy
Paul Waaktaar-Savoy is a Norwegian musician and songwriter. He is best known for his work as guitarist in the Norwegian pop band A-ha...
) and "Cosy Prisons" (penned by Magne Furuholmen
Magne Furuholmen
Magne 'Mags' Furuholmen is a Norwegian musician. He is best known as the guitarist and keyboardist of the pop band A-ha.-A-ha:Furuholmen has been the keyboardist with A-ha since their formation in 1982, though he also plays guitar...
) for the Analogue
Analogue (album)
Analogue is the eighth studio album by the Norwegian band A-ha, released in 2005.-Track listing:#"Celice" – 3:41#"Don't Do Me Any Favours" – 3:51...
recording. In 2006, Nash worked with David Gilmour
David Gilmour
David Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of...
and David Crosby
David Crosby
David Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...
on the title track of David Gilmour's third solo album, On an Island
On an Island
On an Island is the third solo album by David Gilmour, best known as vocalist and lead guitarist for Pink Floyd. It was released in the UK on 6 March 2006, Gilmour's 60th birthday, and in the United States the following day. It was Gilmour's first new solo album in 22 years...
. In March 2006, the album was released and quickly reached #1 on the UK charts. Nash and Crosby subsequently toured the UK with Gilmour, singing backup on "On an Island
On an Island (song)
"On an Island" is the second song and title track from David Gilmour's third solo album, On an Island. It segues from the previous track, Castellorizon, and is very placid in nature. It was released as a preview of the album some weeks prior to the album's official release...
", "The Blue", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a nine-part Pink Floyd composition written by Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour. The song is a tribute to former band member Syd Barrett, although it was not originally explicitly written with him in mind. It was first performed on their 1974 French...
", and "Find the Cost of Freedom".
Nash is part of the No Nukes group which is against the expansion of nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
. In 2007 the group recorded a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
of a new version of the Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield is a North American folk rock band renown both for its music and as a springboard for the careers of Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Jim Messina. Among the first wave of North American bands to become popular in the wake of the British invasion, the group combined...
song "For What It's Worth".
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" as far back as 1967 - 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
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
singing "Teach Your Children
Teach Your Children
"Teach Your Children" is a song by Graham Nash. Although it was written when Nash was a member of The Hollies, it was never recorded by that group, and first appeared on the album Déjà Vu by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released in 1970. The recording features Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar...
" with Brooke White
Brooke White
Brooke Elizabeth White is an American indie pop/folk-pop singer-songwriter and actress from Mesa, Arizona who was the fifth place finalist on the seventh season of American Idol. In 2005, White released her first studio album, called Songs from the Attic.White's first post-Idol album High Hopes &...
.
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 Saturday, June 12, 2010. Nash received the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar at the George Eastman House
George Eastman House
The George Eastman House is the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester, New York, USA. World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the museum is also a leader in film preservation and...
on January 22, 2011, in Rochester, NY.
Nash contributed a cover of "Raining in My Heart
Raining in My Heart
"Raining in My Heart" is a popular rock and roll ballad recorded by Buddy Holly with the orchestral backing by Dick Jacobs. The music and lyrics are written by the songwriting team of Felice Bryant and Boudleaux Bryant. It was released as a single on Coral Records in 1959, peaking at #88 on the...
" to the 2011 tribute album Rave On Buddy Holly
Rave on Buddy Holly
Rave On Buddy Holly is a compilation album by various artists released on June 28, 2011 through Fantasy Records/Concord Music Group and Hear Music. The title of the tribute album to musician Buddy Holly, who died in a plane crash in 1959 at age 22, refers to the song "Rave On", one of his biggest...
.
Photography career
Interested in photographyPhotography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
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
Graham Howe
Graham Howe is a curator, photo-historian, and artist. Born in Sydney, Australia, in 1950, and residing in Los Angeles, California, since 1976, Howe was one of the first employees of the Photographers' Gallery, London, a research assistant at The Royal Photographic Society, London, the founding...
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 world wide. Nash decided to sell his 2,000 print collection through Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
auction house in 1990 where it set an auction record for the highest grossing sale of a single private collection of photography.
Early digital fine art printing
In the late 1980s Nash began to experiment with digital images of his photography on MacintoshMacintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
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 computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s running graphics software
Graphics software
In computer graphics, graphics software or image editing software is a program or collection of programs that enable a person to manipulate visual images on a computer....
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 center. When Fuji decided to stop supporting the printers, John Bilotta, who was running JetGraphix, recommended that Nash and Holbert look into the IRIS printer
Iris printer
An IRIS printer is a large-format color inkjet printer introduced in 1987 by IRIS Graphics of Bedford, Massachusetts and currently manufactured by the Graphic Communications Group of Eastman Kodak, designed for prepress proofing...
, a new large format continuous-tone inkjet printer
Inkjet printer
An inkjet printer is a type of computer printer that creates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer and range from small inexpensive consumer models to very large professional machines that can cost up to thousands of...
built for prepress proofing
Prepress proofing
A Contract Proof usually serves as an agreement between customer and printer and as a color reference guide for adjusting the press before the final press run. Most contract proofs are a Prepress Proof....
by IRIS Graphics, Inc. Through IRIS Graphics national sales rep Steve Boulter, Nash also met programmer David Coons
David Coons
David B. Coons is an Academy Award-winning computer graphics professional who is perhaps best known as the inspiration for the title of Po Bronson's The Nudist on the Late Shift, but is also a longtime CGI expert of near-"Pioneer" status.-Biogrphy:...
, a color 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 produced large images of 16 of Nash's photographic portraits on arches watercolor paper
Arches paper
Arches paper is a type of air-dried paper that is preferred amongst printers and watercolorists. It has a warm-white colour and can be found in hot-pressed, cold-pressed, and rough varieties. Arches paper is valued for its durability, and is still made today at the Arches paper mill in Lorraine,...
using Disney’s in-house model 3024 IRIS printer for an April 24, 1990 show at Simon Lowinsky gallery. 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.
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
Manhattan Beach, California
Manhattan Beach is the wealthiest beachfront city located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, USA. The city is on the Pacific coast, south of El Segundo, and north of Hermosa Beach. Manhattan Beach is the home of both beach and indoor volleyball, and surfing. During the winter, the...
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. Subsequently, Nash exhibited his photographs at the Museum of Photographic Arts
Museum of Photographic Arts
The Museum of Photographic Arts or MoPA is a museum in San Diego’s Balboa Park. First founded in 1974, MoPA opened in 1983. MoPA is one of three museums in the US dedicated exclusively to the collection and preservation of photography, with a mission to inspire, educate and engage the broadest...
in San Diego and elsewhere.
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 July 1, 1991 with the name of Nash Editions Ltd. Early employees included David Coons, John Bilotta, and a serigraphicScreen-printing
Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate...
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 short longevity 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 machines warranty). Nash and Holbert decided to call their fine art prints "digigraph" although Jack Duganne coined the name "Giclée
Giclée
Giclée , is a neologism coined in 1991 by printmaker Jack Duganne for fine art digital prints made on ink-jet printers. The name originally applied to fine art prints created on IRIS printers in a process invented in the late 1980s but has since come to mean any high quality ink-jet print and is...
" for these type of prints. 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
National Museum of American History
The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific and military history. Among the items on display are the original Star-Spangled Banner and Archie Bunker's...
, a Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
.
Discography
-
- See also discographies for Crosby Stills Nash & YoungCrosby, Stills, Nash & Young discographyThe discography of American/British/Canadian supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is composed of 8 studio albums, 3 live albums, 5 compilation albums, 4 video albums, one music video, 19 singles, 1 guest single, and 1 soundtrack appearance....
, The HolliesThe Hollies discographyThe discography of Manchester pop group The Hollies consists of 19 studio albums, 22 compilation albums, 2 tribute/covers albums, 7 extended plays, and 67 singles....
, and Crosby & Nash.Date of release Title Peak Billboard chart position RIAA Certifications Label Information May 28, 1971 Songs for Beginners Songs for BeginnersSongs for Beginners is Graham Nash's first solo album, released in May 1971, and one of four high-profile albums released by each partner of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the wake of their chart-topping Déjà Vu album of 1970...#15 Gold Atlantic Records Atlantic RecordsAtlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...Studio December 1973 Wild Tales Wild TalesWild Tales is a 1973 album by Graham Nash. All songs that appear on this album were written by Graham Nash.-Track listing:All tracks composed by Graham Nash#"Wild Tales" – 2:18#"Hey You " – 2:14#"Prison Song" – 3:10...#34 Atlantic Studio February 15, 1980 Earth & Sky Earth & Sky (album)-Track listing:All tracks composed by Graham Nash; except where indicated#"Earth & Sky" – 3:35#"Love Has Come" – 3:27#"Out of the Island" – 4:20#"Skychild" – 3:55#"Helicopter Song" – 2:47#"Barrel of Pain" – 5:16#"TV Guide" – 1:54...#117 EMI Records EMI RecordsEMI Records is the flagship record label founded by the EMI company in 1972 and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia label. The EMI label was launched worldwide...Studio March 27, 1986 Innocent Eyes #136 Atlantic Studio April 30, 2002 Songs for Survivors Songs for Survivors-Track listing:#"Dirty Little Secret" – 4:22#"Blizzard of Lies" – 4:08#"Lost Another One" – 3:21#"The Chelsea Hotel" – 3:55#"I'll Be There for You" – 3:43...Artemis Records Studio February 3, 2009 Reflections Reflections (Box Set)Reflections is a career-spanning 3-CD Graham Nash box with groups including The Hollies, CSN plus previously unreleased material.-Track listing:Disc One:#On A Carousel - The Hollies#Carrie Anne - The Hollies...Rhino Records Compilation
- See also discographies for Crosby Stills Nash & Young