That fact makes the title of the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s most recent studio album, Now, particularly apt.
“You can’t really do much about the past,” Nash says from his New York City home. “You can’t go in and remix a record in people’s homes. You just can’t do that. So, what’s the point in thinking about any of that? I’m much more interested in the song I’m writing now, and the show I’m going to do tomorrow and the future.”
Such equanimity has likely served the now 83-year-old Blackpool native well over the course of his 67-year career, a sweep of time so littered with achievement, glory and bold-faced names he’s authored no fewer than four books chronicling his various exploits.
To say nothing of the singer-songwriter’s prodigious catalog of recorded music: nine studio albums as a founding member of Merseybeat pop-rock band the Hollies; nine studio albums as a founding member of folk-rock powerhouse Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; four studio albums in a duo with David Crosby, and seven solo studio albums, including Now, which arrived in 2023 as his first such project in seven years.
Nash is touring behind Now, and bringing what’s billed as “More Evenings of Songs and Stories” to the Longhorn Ballroom on April 12. He’ll be backed by a trio of musicians (Todd Caldwell, Adam Minkoff and Zach Djanikian) for his first North Texas show in seven years, and his first headlining appearance in Dallas in nine years.
An officer of the order of the British Empire since 2010, Nash has won a lone Grammy, holds four honorary doctorates, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two different times (in 1997 as part of Crosby, Stills & Nash, and as a member of the Hollies in 2010).
Consider the multitude of artists with whom Nash has collaborated as a guest musician, above and beyond his enduring bond with Crosby, Dallas native Stephen Stills and Neil Young: Jackson Browne, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, David Gilmour, James Taylor, Carole King, Kenny Loggins, Donovan and John Mayer.
But before his exquisite light tenor ever entered a microphone, Nash was enamored of capturing moments in a different way — through the lens of a camera.
“My father turned me on to the magic of photography,” Nash says. “I’ll just never ever forget that moment when he put a blank piece of paper into a colorless liquid and said, ‘Wait ... wait ... wait.’ Then all of a sudden, this giraffe that I saw my father take [a picture of] at a zoo that morning came fading into view, and that magic has never left me.”
Indeed, that passion has been omnipresent throughout Nash’s life and work to date, so much so that the musician was at the forefront of digital photography in its infancy nearly four decades ago.
Nash experimented with graphic software and helped refine inkjet printing for photography in the early 1990s. Without his efforts, photographers wouldn’t have access to the now-common “giclee” print capabilities.
In some sense, the pursuit of making music, which first came to Nash in his teenage years, and the art of capturing still images are similar, especially considering both endeavors begin with the wide-open possibilities of a blank canvas.
“Absolutely,” Nash says about whether his interests were analogous. “A lot of people have no idea what it’s like to write. And, with all due respect, I’m not sure myself, but I just have to keep open 365 days a year, and be open as much as possible.
“When you’re taking photographs, it’s like a 30th of a second or whatever the exposure is. ... There’s definitely a difference in time.”
That temporal shift also allows for a different perspective, not only on his own life’s trajectory but also on the wider world, contending with its myriad triumphs and turbulences.
His attunement to these elements is evident throughout Now, a record that had its genesis in the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Songs such as “Stars and Stripes” (with its unsettlingly direct lyrics: “I always thought that we would make it in the end/But my optimism’s out of sight”) or the grimly prescient “Golden Idols” (“They’re just like children who can’t stand losing/And the truth is getting in their way”) resonate even more deeply in the fraught current moment.
Given Nash’s long, passionate history of social and environmental justice and the current administration’s penchant for dismantling not only the humanities but seemingly every other facet of American life, it is unsurprising to hear his voice quicken when the subject turns to the value of art in capturing the complexities of life.
“I really enjoyed what Nina Simone said,” Nash says. “She said that any artist, no matter if you’re painting or writing or playing piano or whatever it is that you’re doing as an artist, you have to reflect the times in which we live. I’ve always known that’s exactly what we should be doing. So obviously, I’m talking about what’s going on in my life, but through that, I’m reflecting the times in which I live.
“It does feel like [we’ve gone backward], and that famous saying that if we don’t learn from history, we’ll have to repeat it, you know? We thought Nixon was mad, right? Nothing compared with what we have now. It’s insane what is going on politically in this country and throughout the world. I travel the world, and I see the rise of the right-wing all over the place, all the rising of the autocrats and tyrants. It’s very disturbing.”
Nash’s sensibility about politics takes a decidedly unexpected turn as he answers which fond memories he has of Dallas or time spent here. After all, his long-time collaborator Stills hails from the area, and Nash had just appeared on stage with him for the first time in nearly a decade a few weeks prior. Regardless, the question elicited a surprising response.
Straight Shooter
“Well, obviously, you know Dallas, Texas, has only been really known for the assassination of JFK,” Nash says. “I’ve stood at that [Texas School Book Depository Building] window, and there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that there was more than one shooter, and that [Lee Harvey] Oswald was a patsy.”It takes a moment to reconcile the gently incisive, socially progressive, artistically fertile mind responsible for classics like “Teach Your Children” and “Woodstock” subscribing to the theory of multiple gunmen on the grassy knoll. (That thought is followed closely by squashing the impulse to tell Nash that the Longhorn Ballroom, where he’ll be playing this trip through town, was once managed by Jack Ruby.)
“Even when you stand and look at the window, and you look through it, and you see that the motorcade is coming along, and it makes a left-hand turn to come down towards the book depository, and for at least 30 or 40 seconds, there’s a clear shot, why would you wait for it to make a right turn towards the Stemmons Freeway, and try and shoot through trees, right?” Nash continues. “If you look at the basic facts, there’s no doubt about it, and I don’t think we’ll ever know the truth.”
Perhaps, but let us not lose ourselves in the bloody mysteries of Dallas’ past.
Let us instead do as Nash does — look forward — and consider what he hopes those who gather to hear him sing songs from across his career's vast expanse will feel as they absorb his art in the dark.
“I think that my shows are a really nice thing to be able to witness, considering all the madness that’s going on in people’s lives right now,” he says. “So, I want them to understand that it will be a peaceful concert. There will be songs that they know and love. There will be songs that they haven’t heard yet. I just hope they leave my shows feeling better about themselves. I’m feeling hopeful, too.”
Graham Nash doesn’t dwell.
If our conversation had not made that fact apparent, his art would.
It’s plainly evident in “Right Now,” the lead-off track from Nash’s new album, and its ability to succinctly sum up the state of his life and career in four lines: “Now that I realize just who I am/When all is said and done, what a life I’ve led/Trying my best to be the man I know I am/I’ll try to take it easy, moving right ahead.”
Graham Nash performs on Saturday, April 12, at the Longhorn Ballroom, 216 Corinth St. Tickets start at $48.
