The musician Graham Nash called “the most intelligent”
The biggest aspect of any Graham Nash song usually centres around the harmonies.
Crosby, Stills and Nash were trying to make some of the most beautiful harmony lines that anyone had ever heard, and when you listen to Nash’s solo work, he was still trying to make music that had a bit more nuance than what the average pop-rock song was supposed to have. But it does take a small army for anyone to create something that lasts, and Nash knew that better than most whenever he worked with his friends.
Because even though Crosby, Stills and Nash were perfect for each other, Neil Young was the one bringing something new to the equation. Nash was the first one to admit that he wasn’t in love with the idea of bringing in another member, but listening to what he was doing on songs like ‘Helpless’, he didn’t exactly need to be convinced that he was the right guy for them every single time he performed or anything.
Young was the major shot in the arm, but a lot of the greatest members of any band usually come from the background. These are the people trying to prop up the main guy out front and make sure that nothing sounds too bizarre, and that’s why the Scotty Moores of the world deserve just as much attention as the Elvis Presleys when it comes to pure musical craftsmanship whenever they played.
But when Nash played, he knew that he needed someone better than the typical rock and roll player. A lot of their songs used abnormal harmonies, and if they were going to be stretching their voices to the max, they needed that foundation to build everything around. That could easily happen with a decent drummer, but nothing could have prepared Nash for what it would be like working with Lee Sklar when he walked into the room.
The bassist might not be the most coveted role in a rock and roll band, but you have to remember that the bassist has all the power. He’s the one who makes the band sound perfect whenever they move between chords, and if he decides to stray away from the path for even a second, every other melodic instrument is going to be zeroed in on what he’s doing, so Sklar took that opportunity to play exactly what every song needed whenever he made a record.
His track record of working with people like James Taylor and Phil Collins was good enough, but Nash didn’t realise what he had on his hands until he heard Sklar play, saying, “Lee Sklar is without question, in my mind, one of the most musical, most intelligent bass players on the face of the earth. His earliest instrument, which he was extremely good at, was classical piano. He turned to the bass, mastered the bass, and as well as keeping an incredibly great groove, he is lyrically unbelievable in his bass playing.”
And that all comes from years of Sklar listening to every band that he worked with as closely as possible. He knew where the song was going before his bandmates did a lot of the time, and even if he needed to do nothing else but hang back, he knew how to keep a mix breathing and when there needed to be an occasional lift in the track whenever he played an unusual bass lick.
Anyone else would have needed to go through intense training to reach that kind of level, but what Sklar does is always based on feel more than anything. He knew that he needed to play what came natural to him, and the melodies that he put together on record are as important as any of the main melody lines from Nash.
