Title: Wild Tales
Author: Nash, Graham
Published by: Penguin Books
Year: 2014
First published: Viking, 2013 (in GB)
Date reviewed: 11.25
ISBN: 978-0-241-96804-8

“A rock and roll life” it says on the cover. That’s a bit punchier than “sex, drugs and close-harmony falsetto”, though the longer version is probably a better summary as there’s a lot of all three in the book.

This is the autobiography of Graham Nash; working class lad from a poor area of Manchester, founder member of The Hollies – probably the second most successful British pop group of the sixties after the Beatles – friend of Cass Elliot, lover of Joni Mitchell, the N of CSN and CSNY^*, two-times inductee in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and later in life a political and environmental activist, founder of a successful high-quality art-printing business, and photographer whose work is widely exhibited and collected.

Without reworking Nash’s entire life trajectory in this review, the elements in his story that stand out for me are his break with the Hollies, his lifelong friendship with Dave Crosby, and the fundamental importance of music to him as expressed particularly in his talent for vocal harmony.

The teenage Nash grew up listening to pop music dominated by Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and other Americans. But as the fifties turned into the sixties British artists started to establish themselves – Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, Billy Fury, Tommy Steele, The Shadows. And then in 1962 The Beatles and ‘Merseybeat’ exploded onto the scene.The Hollies had their first UK Top 10 hit Stay in 1963. At the same time and from a different direction The Rolling Stones, The Animals and other blues and R&B acts were making their mark with British re-working of American black music.

As the sixties progressed a clear change became apparent. The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper, and later The White Album, showed that pop music could be more than yeah-yeah-yeah. In America country music and pop was also changing, with bands like The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and The Beach Boys moving into fuller. more personal and meaningful compositions. Bob Dylan famously went electric. Joni Mitchell was writing songs like Clouds and Chelsea Morning (though her commercial success was still a few years away).

British bands started going to America. The Hollies toured with reasonable success but Nash was becoming frustrated with their output, which he felt was just offering more of the same.  And in 1967 in Los Angeles he met Stephen Stills, Dave Crosby and Joni Mitchell, and was smitten! Joni – a beautiful woman and talented musician; Stills and Crosby equally talented and glorious close harmony singers. Unable to persuade his good friends and bandmates to change direction and experiment with new material, the following year Nash packed his guitar, broke with the Hollies, and flew to Los Angeles to work with his new friends and become Joni Mitchell’s lover.

Of the other two in CSN – soon with Neil Young making an intermittent and unpredictable third – David Crosby was the one who Nash was always closest to. Throughout the book Crosby is there: Nash writes frankly about their friendship and their fallings-out; Crosby’s excesses with drugs which became so bad that they could hardly perform or record with him; how at one point a group of friends held Crosby hostage while they told him how his addiction was destroying him; his failed efforts at rehab; arrests for posession; physical and mental breakdown. Miraculously Crosby survived and though never clear of drugs at least managed to keep his addiction under control. Nash’s enduring friendship for Crosby pervades the narrative.

And then the singing, which is what it’s all about. Nash and his mates in The Hollies listened to and did their best to emulate the Everly Brothers; Nash clearly has a natural talent for close harmony singing. He describes a night in 1957 at The Odeon, Manchester, when at the age of fifteen he heard the Everly’s record Bye Bye Love for the first time:

I’d never heard anything like it before. … Barre chords layered on top of each other. Two twangy voices harmonising seamlessly as one. … That moment was … one of the turning points in my life. … I knew I wanted to make music that affected people the way the Everlys affected me.

A few years later the Everlys were on tour and played in Manchester at the Free Trade Hall. After the concert Nash and his Hollies bandmate Clarkie (Allan Clarke) tracked down the Everlys’ hotel and doorstepped them at the entrance. To their amazement Don and Phil stopped to have a few words with them.

“We sing like you”, I said. “We copy your style.”
“Are you any good?”, asked Don.
“We think we are”, Clarkie told him.
“Hey, Graham and Allan, keep doing it. Things’ll happen”, Phil said.
It was Allan and me and Phil and Don standing on the steps of the Midland Hotel talking music.

That particular circle finally closed in 1992 when the Everlys invited Nash to sing with them at a concert they were giving in Toledo, Ohio. The three of them performed So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad); Nash says his tape of that session is something he treasures to this day.

There’s much more in the book of course: the other women in Nash’s life; stadium concerts; global music stars; the commercial music business with its promoters, financiers and lawyers; the technical aspects of playing, performing and recording. It’s an autobiography with no ghost writer credited, so of course you wonder how much is true and really happened, and how much is gloss or false memories. But I think there’s enough that is corroborated by other accounts to put those thoughts aside and just enjoy the ride. Unlike too many of his contemporaries in the business, Graham Nash OBE survived. He’s lived the rock ‘n roll life.

* If you really don’t know, that’s Crosby, Stills and Nash – and Young