Graham Nash

Infobox musical artist
Name = Graham Nash


Img_capt = Graham Nash live at the Moondance Jam on July 10, 2008
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Landscape =
Background = solo_singer
Birth_name = Graham William Nash
Alias =
Born = Birth date and age|1942|2|2|df=y
Died =
Origin = Blackpool, Lancashire, England
Instrument = Guitar, vocal harmonies
Voice_type =
Genre = Pop music,folk rock
Occupation = Singer-songwriter
Years_active = 1960s- present
Label = Atlantic Records ABC Records MCA Records EMI Reprise Records Artemis Records
Associated_acts = The Hollies, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Crosby & Nash
URL = [http://www.grahamnash.com/ grahamnash.com]
Notable_instruments =

Graham William Nash (born 2 February 1942) is an British-American singer-songwriter known for his light tenor vocals and for his songwriting contributions with the British pop group The Hollies, and with the American folk-rock band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Nash is a photography collector and a published photographer.

Music career

*1942: Graham Nash was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. He spent his childhood in Salford, a working class town nearby Manchester, where he attended state schools.

*1960s: Nash became a founding member of "The Hollies", one of the pop groups from the UK associated with the "British Invasion". Using his keen sense of social poetry, often writing in collaboration with Allan Clarke, Nash contributed to many of the band's songs. He shaped the group's artistic direction on the albums "Evolution", and "Butterfly". Nash endeavoured to bring the then nascent hippie aesthetic to "The Hollies" sound. However, it failed to register with the group's traditional audience in England and throughout the rest of Europe.

*1968: During a visit to the US Nash finds himself in Laurel Canyon with Mama Cass Elliot, David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Nash begins to explore recreational drug use and soon leaves "The Hollies" to form a new group with David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Crosby, Stills & Nash are quickly joined by Neil Young to form Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY).

*1969: August, CSNY play the Woodstock Festival.

*1970: CSNY define the Woodstock era as part of the TV documentary on the Woodstock festival with their rendition of Woodstock written by Joni Mitchell.

Nash becomes politically active after moving to San Francisco. Along with others like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan, Nash presses for social change with his "lyrics of outrage": "Military Madness" and "Chicago (We Can Change the World)". His songs resonate because they derive from shared experience: "Immigration Man".

*1971: Nash teams with Crosby as a recording and performing duo.

*1977: Nash and Crosby reunite with Stills as CSN.

*1978: Nash becomes a citizen of the United States of America on August 14.

*1979: Nash co-founds Musicians United for Safe Energy.

*2005: Nash collaborates with Norwegian musicians a-ha on the songs "Over the Treetop" (penned by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy) and "Cosy Prisons" (penned by Magne Furuholmen) for the Analogue recording.

*2006: Nash works with David Gilmour and David Crosby on the title track of David Gilmour's third solo album, On an Island. In March 2006, the album is released and quickly reaches #1 on the UK charts. Nash and Crosby subsequently tour the UK with Gilmour, singing backup on "On an Island", "The Blue", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", and "Find the Cost of Freedom".

*2007: Nash works with No Nukes group against the expansion of nuclear power. Nash and partners contribute a new music video version of the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth". [ [http://www.nukefree.org/node/96 "For What It’s Worth," No Nukes Reunite After Thirty Years] ] [ [http://www.nirs.org/home.htm Musicians Act to Stop New Atomic Reactors] ]

*2008: Nash appears on the season 7 finale of American Idol singing "Teach Your Children" with Brooke White.

Photography career

Interested in photography as a child, Nash begins to collect photographs in the 1970s. He searches for images that reveal the human condition. The sale of his massive collection in 1990 by Sotheby's becomes a milestone in the auction market for fine-art photography. [Beth Gates-Warren, editor, "Photographs from the Collection of Graham Nash", Sotheby's, New York, 25 April 1990] Proceeds of the auction sale provide the financial means to found "Nash Editions", the first ever digital fine-art printing atelier.

In the late 1980s, Nash begins to experiment with the early digital printers then becoming available through commercial printing bureaus in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Creating a true black and white print proves difficult. None of the printers are very successful although the "IRIS Graphics 3047" printer shows promise because it can print on fine art papers. Nash meets programmer David Coons through friend Steve Boulter of IRIS Graphics. With image management software written by David Coons and using a custom scanner designed and assembled by David Coons, David Coons and Graham Nash develop methods to adapt the IRIS printer for the fine-arts printing of black-and-white photographs on archival-paper substrates. [Harald Johnson, "Mastering Digital Printing", Thompson Course Technology, 2002, ISBN 1929685653]

1989: The system that was to form the basis of Nash Editions was first tested in 1989 by Sally Larsen to produced her "Transformer" ink jet print series, one of which is now in the permanent collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. These very first IRIS prints made with David Coons' software were printed by him on one of Walt Disney Studio's "IRIS Graphics" IRIS 3047 printers.

1990: Graham Nash shows his own photography at Parco Stores in Tokyo. The Parco show entitled "Sunlight on Silver" is a series of celebrity portraits by Nash which are reconstructed by David Coons from a proof sheet. This Parco show is the first exhibition ever of digitally produced fine art. The show travelled throughout Japan and was seen by thousands. [Masayoshi Yamada, "Graham Nash Photographs: Sunlight on Silver", Parco Co. Ltd, Tokyo, 1990] . Subsequently, Nash has exhibited his photographs at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego and elsewhere. [Garrat White, "Eye to Eye: Photographs by Graham Nash", Steidl, 2004 ISBN 3882439602]

In 2005, Nash donates an "IRIS Graphics 3047" printer and Nash Editions ephemera to the National Museum of American History, a Smithsonian Institution.

Discography

"Please also see discographies for The Hollies, Crosby & Nash, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young"
* "Songs for Beginners", Atlantic 1971
* "Wild Tales", Atlantic 1974
* "Earth & Sky", EMI 1980
* "Innocent Eyes", Atlantic 1986
* "Songs for Survivors", Artemis 2002

Bibliography

* "Eye to Eye: Photographs by Graham Nash" by Nash and Garrett White (2004)
* "Off The Record: Songwriters on Songwriting" (2002)

References

External links

* [http://grahamnash.com/ Graham Nash official website]
* [http://www.nasheditions.com/ Nash Editions official website]
* [http://www.crosbynash.com/ Crosby-Nash official website]
* [http://www.crosbystillsnash.com/ CSN Official website]
* [http://www.csny.com/ CSNY Official website]
* [http://home.online.no/~kskyberg/musikk.cfm Graham Nash Scandinavian website]