Graham Nash on Neil Young + Groupies, Feuds, Divorce and Ego | The Guardian
A rather provocative and semi-controversial interview with Graham Nash on groupies, feuds, divorce and ego from The Guardian | ‘There was an enormous amount of drugs being taken’ by Simon Hattenstone. (thanks Thos!)
But the real story isn't the published headline but what was the original draft headline which you can find by hovering over the URL.
We will not attempt to unpack Nash's semi-controversial comments here. But we'll just highlight this section on Neil Young for now:
Often Stills and Young competed over guitar solos, I say.
Nash corrects me. “Actually, it wasn’t quite that way. I’ve stood in the middle of Stephen and Neil countless times, with these two stags talking to each other through guitar riffs.” If Stills and Young were stags, what were he and Crosby? “We were the grass that kept the two stags alive.”
He then pays Young the ultimate backhanded compliment.
“I’ve got utmost respect for him. You can put a European tour together with a crew of 25 people and then a week before he says: ‘Nah, I don’t feel like it’, so all those people are now out of a job. Things like that with Neil I don’t agree with, but I understand his strength and I applaud him for it.” (To be fair to Young, he cancelled tours in 1997 after he sliced the top off his finger while making a sandwich, and in 2013 after Crazy Horse guitarist Frank Sampedro broke his hand.)
Does Young know he’s selfish? “Neil knows what is best for Neil.” As for Stills, he has nothing but warmth for him now. “I love Stephen. Stephen Stills has got a big heart in that chest of his.” He says he prefers CSN to CSNY and regards Stills as the greatest of the four writers.
Full interview at The Guardian | ‘There was an enormous amount of drugs being taken’ by Simon Hattenstone.
More on Graham Nash, Neil Young and CSNY.
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Labels: Crosby Stills Nash Young, csny, graham nash, neil young
by thrasher@PermaLink: 5/21/2022 04:50:00 PM
8 comments
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8 Comments:
How can anyone really hold the view that Stills is "the better writer"? The list of great Neil songs goes on forever. Perhaps Stills had the skill and other capacities to write more great songs but that never happened. And what about when we compare the best Neil songs to the best Stills songs? I always loved Stills but Graham Nash's brains have perhaps turned into a soggy graham cracker.
that was meant as humor by the way. Nash is a good guy
European tour plans for CSNY are a great "might have been"- issue. Sometimes I think, that Neil Young did not want to compromise his standing with (continental) European audiences by appearing as a fifth wheel of an hippie nostalgia act. I saw CSN in 1983 as headliner of a larger tour package and it was just that, a rare highlight not to be missed for the glorious past they had.
And then there are also commercial interests behind the decisions not to tour as CSNY. While the four of them would have drawn quite a crowd in Europe, the revenue would have gone to all four in equal shares, I guess. Why going through the ordeal of touring with colleagues with various severe health issues over the years if Neil Young could have a piece of the cake twice as large going solo or with interesting bands as dependent employees?
I think that Graham Nash foremostly wanted to say something nice about Stephen Stills, now that David Crosby became a persona non grata thanks to his own idiocy. Also Graham Nash played the role of a CSNY curator and I can imagine that this is not an easy task when you are stuck with an highly ambitious Neil Young curating his own legacy, pushing his archives concept to heights yet unseen in the digital music world. Compare this to the usual standard box-set format, that's as far as CSN or CSNY will ever get.
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I cannot bring myself to read or listen to anything that Crosby says or writes.
WOW! Reading that article from The Guardian and what Nash had to say....I thought years ago he was sensible and the level headed portion of CSN/CSNY. I'm convinced the only stand up person is STILLS. And I base this on forty years of following every combination of CSN/CSNY but particularly a huge NY fan. Right now...I think they are all full of sh!t-except Stills.
Dionys- interesting thoughts as usual. I get giving Stills some creds but "the best writer"?
Unknown, can you be more specific about "full of shit"? This is not exactly clear! what the hell are you talking about? Clear it up or you don't really have a point, an idea or an argument.
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