The “strange way” Graham Nash ended up on a Jimi Hendrix album
The 1960s is famed for its experimental spirit, which kicked back against tradition and rewrote standards for the new world. Creativity abounded, from architecture to fashion, with music one area where immense innovation occurred. While The Beatles and Bob Dylan were the poster boys of this cultural revolution, many other musicians also had a significant hand, including Graham Nash and Jimi Hendrix.
Not only was the decade a consequential one in birthing many forms and standards that are still in place today but it was also characterised by something that wouldn’t go amiss in front of the contemporary era’s bleak geopolitical backdrop: collaboration. Every musician developed from the same context – blues, R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, and folk – had the same influences and wanted to change the world in line with their progressive attitudes, meaning collaboration was only natural. It was a collective effort.
Save for the odd spat here and there, nearly every artist wanted to help each other succeed. That’s why the stories of many of the era’s most essential artists feature their peers. Whether it be Joni Mitchell introducing David Crosby and Neil Young to each other in 1967 and setting the scene for CSNY, the intertwined story of the three guitar heroes of The Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, or The Rolling Stones writing ‘As Tears Go By’ for Marianne Faithfull.
Both Nash and Hendrix would benefit from this spirit. The former would find that he, Stephen Stills and David Crosby had a personal and musical connection one night over dinner in the summer of 1968, the moment CSN was born, and together, they would musically capture the essence of the era. As for Hendrix, he was given his big break by soul legends The Isley Brothers before being whisked to England by former Animals bassist Chas Chandler, who helped make him a star and founded The Jimi Hendrix Experience, his vehicle for success.
Nash and Hendrix would also collaborate in a little-known tale. While Hendrix was American, his talent was incubated in Britain, and he would record much of his music in the English capital, London, the vibrant epicentre of creativity that he would become a part of and rub shoulders with all of its most important figures, including Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, and Pete Townshend. Another of the pivotal artists he came to know was Graham Nash, who would feature on his 1967 classic album, Axis: Bold as Love, in one of the strangest guest appearances of its day.
While the track ‘If 6 Was 9’ is one of Hendrix’s ultimate anthems, explicitly characterising the counterculture’s rebellion against authority, it also boasts some pretty kooky audio features. One is Hendrix playing the recorder, and another is that Nash and The Walker Brothers drummer Gary Leeds stamped their feet on a drum riser for an extra percussive effect, which can be heard in the second half.
When speaking to Acoustic Sounds Kansas in 2024, Nash explained the “strange way” he ended up on the Hendrix staple: “You know I’m on Axis? But in a really strange way. Me and Gary Leeds, the drummer from The Walker Brothers, we went down to Olympic, where he was recording, and he said ‘You can walk, right?’ I said, ‘Jimi, of course, I can fucking walk, what do you mean?’ He says, ‘Well, okay, you put a piece of plywood down’, and me and Gary Leeds walked. And that became the track of ‘If 6 Was 9’. There you go, I walked all over it.”
Not only was the 1960s a time of great collaboration but also one of ad hoc innovation. These two simple aspects produced many moments that helped improve music and culture moving forward. Things don’t have to be complex all the time.
