“He’s like Neil”: Graham Nash on the “tastiest” guitar player he knows
Very seldom does a supergroup become greater than the sum of its parts. Although the Traveling Wilburys successfully celebrated a classic folk-rock style in the late 1980s, eclipsing the respective careers of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne would have been mission impossible. However, in the unique case of Crosby, Stills and Nash, each member, including Graham Nash, achieved more success together than in their prior outfits.
David Crosby joined the band following a formative stint with The Byrds. Although the band became exceedingly popular in the mid-1960s, thanks to several prominent Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan covers, his creativity and, thus, personal merits truly blossomed in CSN. Similarly, Graham Nash had climbed to the heights of British pop appeal with The Hollies but found his true artistic calling across the Atlantic.
Meanwhile, Stephen Stills and frequent CSN collaborator Neil Young achieved formative success in Buffalo Springfield. The former found a more stable career in CSN, and the latter proved himself to be a man of many flavours through a successful solo career in the 1970s. Not only did Young explore compelling balladry as an acoustic singer-songwriter, but as the figurehead of Crazy Horse, he invented grunge in classic albums like Zuma and Rust Never Sleeps.
Nash’s migration from The Hollies to CSN saw the singer-songwriter embrace popular trends under a new guise. If the Hollies were a little more rock ‘n’ roll inclined, CSN embraced American country and folk trends in a primarily acoustic formation. With his beautiful tenor voice, Nash joined his bandmates in resonant harmonies and provided instrumental support as a guitarist and keyboardist.
While folk rock artists of CSN’s ilk proved crucial on the road to psychedelic rock in the mid-to-late-1960s, the subgenre soon fell behind the musical vanguard. Groups like The Beatles, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream and Led Zeppelin pushed rock music to its limits, with virtuosic musicians like Ginger Baker, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Jimi Page setting impossibly high bars for the imminent prog-rock wave.
As the 1970s dawned, Nash and CSN became increasingly associated with the singer-songwriter wave, as defined by artists like Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens and Nash’s then-girlfriend, Joni Mitchell. However, they all paid due attention to the dramatic scenes unfolding at the vanguard of rock music. Nash was particularly inspired by the progressive musings of Pink Floyd, a band that had jumped on the early psych-rock train in the late 1960s and evolved impressively since.
After a diverse transitional period featuring albums like Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother and Meddle, Pink Floyd found a powerful sonic identity in the 1973 masterpiece, The Dark Side of the Moon. The album was the first of Roger Waters’ compelling concepts and featured spacious, emotive instrumental work from keyboardist Richard Wright and guitarist David Gilmour. Nash had followed Pink Floyd’s arc since the Syd Barrett years but was mostly impressed with what the early leader’s replacement, Gilmour, brought to the table.
“I’ve been a fan of Pink Floyd since the mid-to-late ‘60s,” Nash said in a conversation with Relix. Supposedly, the former Hollies singer first caught wind of Pink Floyd in 1967 or ‘68, when they released their first two albums and only to feature Barrett, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets. The latter of these records featured Gilmour, who initially replicated Barrett’s style. Over the subsequent years, he would establish a style of his own.
Continuing in his praise, Nash noted the merits of Gilmour’s associative style, which favours accuracy, emotion and tone over speed. “Gilmour’s a brilliant musician,” he said. “He is one of the tastiest guitar players I know. He can make one note last for bars and bars and bars and bars.” Following early successes like ‘Echoes’ and ‘Breathe (In The Air)’, Gilmour blew fans away with towering solos in ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ and ‘Comfortably Numb’.
Intriguingly, Nash compared Gilmour’s electric style to that of his frequent collaborator and friend Neil Young. “He’s like Neil in that way, although Neil is much more rugged,” he said. Clearly, Young’s proto-grunge work is difficult to compare to Gilmour’s crystalline approach. However, listening to songs like ‘Cortez the Killer’, you can understand what Nash means. Concluding his praise, Nash reiterated, “I have great respect for David Gilmour and any time he wants me to sing with him, I am right there.”
