Graham Nash on David Crosby, Joni Mitchell and His New Album

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: Now, we turn to some music history, legendary singer Graham Nash has return to the studio. Once part of the Woodstock era supergroup, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, he helped define a generation with hits like “Our House.”

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our house is a very, very, very fine house. With two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy because of you.

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AMANPOUR: Now, is his first album in seven years. And Walter Isaacson reflects on an outstanding career.

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WALTER ISAACSON, HOST: Graham Nash, welcome to the show.

GRAHAM NASH, MUSICIAN: You are very welcome. How are you doing today?

ISAACSON: Fine, thanks. I was listening to your new album, “Now,” last night, and you said it is your most personal album. Why is it so personal?

NASH: I’m wearing my heart on both sleeves. I started the album with the sentence that, I used to think that I would never love again. And when I really realize that I was coming to the end of my life, and that indeed, I might not ever love again, and then I met Amy Grantham. Amy Grantham is a wonderful woman. We have been together for nine years. We’ve been married for four years, and I love her dearly. And I wish I would have met her many years ago.

ISAACSON: Well, you’ve done a lot of love songs in your career. It’s great to have this one be a love song. It’s also political though, because you’ve done politics throughout your career. There’s a real political edge to this album. Describe why you did that.

NASH: When I see something that I have to speak about, I have to intensify my research and make sure that every single word that I say is what I mean. There are two very political songs on this record. One of them is “Golden Idols,” which is a song I wrote when I saw an Instagram image of Donald Trump in solid gold.

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NASH: And I realized that there are many golden idols in this country. Now, speaker of the house, the new speaker, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, people like Ted Cruz, there are many golden idols in this country that need to be addressed.

ISAACSON: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, more than 50 years ago, it became the soundtrack of politics in the United States, of the protest movement in the United States.

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ISAACSON: Tell me how things have changed in those 50 years in the politics and protests.

NASH: We thought that Richard Nixon was crazy, but Donald Trump is way crazier than Richard Nixon would ever be. I have seen the rise of the right-wing in this country and the extremists. I have seen the rise of autocrats throughout the world, which is very disturbing. In a way, when I study history and I realize that empires are created and empires fall, and maybe, just maybe the American empire is spiraling  downwards and it’s very disturbing.

ISAACSON: Your relationship with Joni Mitchell was tumultuous, it was pretty epic, it was the stuff of song, in fact, “Our House,” as the song, I think, you wrote about it. I was just watching her, just recently, and a few days ago at the Gorge in this comeback concert. Tell me about your relationship with her and did you watch that concert and what are you thinking?

NASH: I did watch the concert. I am very pleased that Joni is still alive. I have been her friend since we parted as a couple. For all these years, I have sent flowers on her birthday every single year since we parted. I saw the show, we nearly lost her. I mean, she was in a coma for three days on her kitchen floor before anybody found her. I am glad that she’s alive, and I am so glad that she is now making music. The last time I saw Joan, which was at the Gershwin Prize that she received recently in Washington D.C., and I asked her. I said, Joan, anything coming? Any ideas for new songs? Any ideas for a new painting? And she looked at me and she said, no, not yet. And I loved not yet, because I know that she has been thinking about what happened to her, she has been thinking about her music, and I think that at the end of the Gershwin Prize Award show, I think that Joni really realized how much she was loved worldwide. For many years, I — Joan did not think that she was appreciated enough. She didn’t think that a lot of people understood what she was doing. But at the end of that concert, I think she really understood how much she is loved.

ISAACSON: Do you think you might ever play with her again?

NASH: I’ll never say no.

ISAACSON: Yes. You wrote in your autobiography that she was the whole package. She had an elusive quality that seemed to lit from within. Tell me how that relationship started. It was like more than 50 years ago, right?

NASH: Yes. 1967, actually. The Hollies were playing a show in Ottawa, in Canada. And after the show, there was a small party thrown by the promoter. So, we’re all standing there with a plastic glass of cheap waiting for the promoter to come, you know, after the show. And our manager, Robin Britten, kept talking in my ear and I said, Robin, please stop talking to me. I’m looking at this beautiful woman across the hall. He said, well, if you’d only listen, that’s Joni Mitchell, and she wants to meet you. And she said, her friend, David Crosby, said that if I ever was around the same time, that we should talk. And so, I went over to Joni. She had on a pale blue silk dress and she had what I thought was a bible in her lap, but it was actually a music box. And it had one note that was not right. It had gone wrong in the 50 or 60 years that it existed. And so, we were laughing about it. And we became good friends. And she invited me to a hotel room. We were staying in the same hotel, in the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, and she played me probably 18 of the most beautiful songs I had ever heard in my life. And I knew that she was the full package. Not only was she a great songwriter, not only was she an interesting musician, and not only was she an interesting painter, but she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life at that time. And I’ve always been friends with Joni and I will until the day I die.

ISAACSON: You mentioned David Crosby, of course, your former bandmate. Your relationship with him has been — had been rather tumultuous. He died, you know, within the past year. Tell me about your relationship with him and did you ever reconcile and what thoughts do you have on him?

NASH: Crosby was my best friend for over 50 years. We had a certain relationship that was very much like, you know, Laurel and Hardy in a way. We liked each other. We loved each other’s music. We could harmonize together. I met David through Cass Elliot, who was the singer from The Mamas and the Papas. She introduced me to Crosby and he introduced me to Stephen. And when David and Stephen and I first sang together in Joni’s living room, she was the only witness to the birth of the vocal sound of Crosby, Stills and Nash. That sound that we created was born in 45 seconds. We did not have to rehearse for months. I was visiting Joan. I had come from England. When I got to the driveway of Joan’s house, there were other people there and that kind of upset me. I just wanted to spend time with Joni. But it was David and Stephen, and they were having dinner with Joan. So, I went in. And at the end of dinner, Crosby said to Stephen, hey, play, “Willie” that song that we were just singing. So, obviously, David had been thrown out of The Birds. Obviously, the Buffalos Winfield (ph) had broken up and David and Stephen wanting to get together and create kind of a Everly Brothers duo kind of thing. And they had this song that they worked out called, “You Don’t Have to Cry,” which is the song of the first Crosby, Stills and Nash record. They sang it, they got to the end, I said, Stephen, that’s an unbelievably beautiful song. Do me a favor, sing it again. They looked at each other, they shrugged, they sang it again. When they got to the end of it, I said, all right, I’m a harmony singer and I’m pretty good at what I do. I had learned the words, I had watched the body language of David, I was watching how Stephen started a phrase and how he finished a phrase, and I said, look, do me a favor, sing it for the third time. I added my harmony, and in 45 seconds, we had to stop and laugh because even though The Birds and the Springfield, and the Hollies were very decent harmony bands, we had never heard anything like this. When David and Stephen and I sang around one microphone, it was a sound that change our lives. I realized I would have to go back to England, I would have to leave the Hollies and leave all of my equipment, and just come to America and follow that sound. I’m a musician and I am not crazy. When I heard that sound that we created, I knew that my life had changed.

ISAACSON: That song, that song you sang together, the three of you in front of the microphone, can you sing a few bars? Can you remind us of that song?

NASH: Sure. In the morning, when you rise, do you think of me and how you left me crying? And that’s the first verse.

ISAACSON: What memories of David Crosby, you say we were really close to him for 50 years, you have your falling out. Did you reconcile? Are there any memories that you shared near the end?

NASH: Yes. About eight days before David passed away, he sent me an e-mail and he said, I want to talk to you. I know that I haven’t not spoken to you in two years, but we need to talk. I need to apologize. And so, I set up a time to use Facetime, where we could see each other, and I set it up for 2:00 my time in New York, which would’ve been 11:00 a.m. in California. And I waited, and I waited for the call, and the call never came. But we were talking towards the end there. And I realized that he had to apologize for shooting his mouth off, particularly about Neil and his wife, Daryl Hannah, and me, and I’m incredibly grateful that he wanted to straighten things out between us, because we had been friends for so long and we had been through many, many things together. But David Crosby was an incredible musician. He tuned his guitar in many, many different ways. He was jazz influenced. He was Everly Brothers influenced. David Crosby was a great musician. And I will miss him, and I will think about him every day for the rest of my life.

ISAACSON: What’s your favorite song from all your years?

NASH: That’s an interesting question. Probably “Teach Your Children” or “Our House.” I think that they will last longer than — and certainly than I will. I mean, at 81, I realized I’m coming to the end of my life, but I will be kicking and screaming as they put me in my coffin. I want to be making music every single day for the rest of my life.

ISAACSON: “Teach Your Children,” I mean, an awesome song.

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ISAACSON: It’s both personal and it is political. And you’ve had some rocky relationship with your children too, I think. How was that informed and how does that resonate with a song like “Teach Your Children”? And I think you have one similar, if I’m right, called, “A Better Life” that’s on the new album.

NASH: We have to make this world a better place than we left it. I love Willie Nelson’s quote, when he says, if you want to change the world, sort out your immediate surroundings. Pick up a piece of litter, pat a child on the head, encourage him to learn. We can leave this place a better place for our children. And in “Teach Your Children,” we have a lot to learn from our kids and they have a lot to learn from us. And “Better Life” is, in a way, an extension of that thought process. I wrote “Better Life” with my friend, George Merrill, wrote the number one hits for Whitney Houston, and we made a really fine record of our song.

ISAACSON: Can you leave us with just a few — singing a few bars of “A Better Life”?

NASH: Sure. Let’s make it a better life, and leave it for the kids. It’s a lovely place. A welcome home to the human race. Let’s make it a better life, one we can be proud of, so at the end of the day, I hope we hear them say that we left them a better life.

ISAACSON: Graham Nash, thank you so much for joining us.

NASH: You’re very, very welcome.

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