STILL IN HARMONY

Music icon Graham Nash reflects on songwriting, love, and the enduring joy of performing before his July 26 Ravinia appearance.

It’s still early, but Graham Nash is already at work.

“I’m finishing writing a new song,” the 84-year-old says in the morning hours of a Tuesday. “I’ve also been answering email and checking on stock market results. But I haven’t had any breakfast.”

In fact, he hasn’t partaken in breakfast for the past six years.

“I am a one meal a day person,” the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee says quietly, his famous tenor tones hiding behind his spoken word.

And perhaps it’s fitting that the man who has spent a lifetime doing things his own way approaches mornings in Manhattan in the very same way. The founding member of both the Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash, he doesn’t care much for breakfast—or looking in the rearview mirror.

“I take it a day at a time,” he says. “I don’t really think about the past too much because, well, there’s nothing you can do about it anyway.”

But make no mistake—what a view that rearview mirror holds.

A two-time inductee to the Songwriters Hall of Fame—as a solo artist and with CSN—Nash helped write the soundtrack to generations, courtesy of songs such as “Teach Your Children,” “Our House” and “Marrakesh Express.” And those harmonies on the 1982 chart-topper “Southern Cross,” when that pristine voice of his arrives in the second verse?

Perfection.

Beyond music, he’s also become a bestselling author and an acclaimed photographer whose work has appeared in galleries around the world.

Multiple careers in one lifetime, one might say.

“I love what I do, and I think that keeps me young,” he says. “I certainly don’t have a vocal coach, and I don’t do vocal lessons. I just sing and it seems to be working out very well.”

When Nash arrives at Ravinia for a co-headlining evening with Emmylou Harris on July 26, he’ll also bring with him a longtime affection for Chicago.

“I believe our show at the Auditorium Theatre in 1969 was the very first Crosby Stills & Nash show,” he recalls. “I’ve always just looked forward to the show I’m going to do or the song I’m going to write or the photograph I’m going to make. When I find something I want to write about, I have to indulge myself in reviewing everything. I want to get every single word right.”

It’s a devotion that was put in practice years ago, when Nash spent nearly four years writing the deeply personal “Cathedral” that ultimately appeared on Crosby Stills and Nash’s 1977 album CSN.

“That’s why it took me several years to finish that song,” he says. “Even though I pray to a different God than most people, I realize that religion is very important to many people and I just wanted to get every word right.”

That devotion to craftsmanship feels increasingly rare in an era dominated by artificial intelligence—something that scares Nash a bit.

“I realize that to use AI and talk about climate change is pretty hypocritical because of the amount of energy they use and the amount of water that they use,” he says. “So, I don’t use AI. I do realize that you can’t push the toothpaste back into the tube and it’s going to be with us for a while, but I’m not crazy about it.”

What he is crazy about these days is his wife Amy Grantham––a constant muse for Nash and the subject of many of the songs that lived on his 2023 critically acclaimed album Now.

“I used to think the romantic side of my life was over, and then I met my wife and it changed my life completely,” Nash says. “I realized that I could fall in love again.”

There’s a beautiful line in his song “When It Comes to You” where he writes—’You’re the very best thing that’s happened to me, And at this point in my life, that’s something to say.’ “It’s the truth,” Nash says. “The music moved my heart, and then I just put words to it.”

One of the mainstays of his current set list is a song called “Love of Mine,” a melody with meaning that means much to Nash at this point of his life.

“It goes down very well when I play it live because the truth is that I’m the same as everybody else,” he says. “I’m the same as you. I’m just an ordinary person. I realize that I’ve done some very interesting things with my life over the last eight decades.”

He chuckles at the idea of “eight decades,” and then continues.

“There is still more I want to do,” he says. “I want to sing with just Paul McCartney and his guitar, and I want both of us to sing ‘Yesterday.’ I’ve always had a beautiful harmony line for it that stays out of its way but adds to the tune—if I could at all.”

Does he have McCartney’s number?

“I do,” he says. “We’re going to try.”