Why Graham Nash was against Neil Young joining his band: “I didn’t want to disturb that vocal sound”
Every band usually has that one moment where everything seems to be going exactly right. Don Henley will probably always remember where he was when he got the lyrics to ‘Hotel California,’ and Paul McCartney has detailed on numerous occasions the power that came from him and John Lennon hitting the line about loving to turn on the listener in ‘A Day in the Life’. While everything might be firing on all cylinders, Graham Nash knew that it only took one bad idea for everything to come crumbling down as well.
Before he even became known as one-third of the greatest vocal group of all time, Nash knew a thing or two about what made every act work. The whole was always greater than the sum of its parts, and while Nash could claim to have written some impressive moments in The Hollies’ career, there was no way that he was going to stick around to watch them become a nostalgia act in real-time.
So, while Crosby, Stills, and Nash were intended to be a stopgap for all three musicians, no one could have imagined what it sounded like when they harmonised together. ‘Marrakesh Express’ was already being worked on when Nash was still with The Hollies, but it wouldn’t have sounded the same without Stephen Stills adding his guitars into the mix or hearing all of their vocals blend.
That kind of magic only happens once, but Stills knew there was still room to grow. They had made a colossal step forward on their debut, but if they wanted some rock and roll credibility, they needed someone who could really play, and Neil Young couldn’t have been a better fit for them. He may not have played well with others all the time, but that signature guitar in Buffalo Springfield would have balanced the band out perfectly.
Then again, why would anyone want to disrupt the formula? Nash had finally found a home in this group, and bringing in someone as brazen as Young had the potential to either be great or throw everything out of whack before they properly got off the ground. So, while it seems insane today for someone to reject Young’s talents, Nash nearly put his foot down when they asked him to join.
Young was still a musical tour de force, but Nash’s reasoning for not wanting him to join was all about being realistic, saying, “We had just discovered this vocal sound, and just made this great record. After many discussions, after it was decided that Neil should be invited to join, I didn’t like the idea at first because I didn’t want to disturb that vocal sound. We were intimately linked, and we knew where we had to go with any particular piece of music. And that would all have to change with the addition of another voice.”
But Young’s sound helped give the band the edge that they needed. It would have been easy for any of their songs to get a little bit cluttered with four voices, but listening to the way that Young approaches tunes like ‘Ohio’ or ‘Helpless,’ he was more than capable of toning things down when he needed to and knew when to send things into the stratosphere.
While any chance of CSNY staying around for too long was practically a pipedream, given Young’s habit of dropping bands at the drop of a hat, an album like Deja Vu is still one of his crowning achievements for a reason. He was always destined to be a solo star, but his rough voice combined with Nash’s soaring register was a match made in rock and roll heaven.
