Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Graham Nash, Part 2

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Graham Nash, Part 2 · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. I want to let you know that Rick has
0:21
Speaker 1: a new podcast called Tetragrammaton. After about four to five
0:25
Speaker 1: years of recording Broken Record, Rick decided he wanted to
0:28
Speaker 1: talk to more than just musicians, So on his new podcast,
0:31
Speaker 1: he'll be talking to actors, directors, wrestlers, business people, anyone
0:37
Speaker 1: that Rick finds interesting. So make sure to subscribe to
0:40
Speaker 1: Tetragrammaton wherever you listen to podcasts. Today we have the
0:45
Speaker 1: second part of Rick Rubin's conversation with legendary singer songwriter
0:49
Speaker 1: Graham Nash. We drop part one a couple of weeks ago,
0:53
Speaker 1: so definitely go check that out if you haven't already.
0:56
Speaker 1: On today's episode, Graham tells Rick about the time The
0:59
Speaker 1: Grateful Dead we're recording next to Csen and how Jerry
1:02
Speaker 1: Garcia improvised a near perfect pedal steel solo on Teacher Children.
1:08
Speaker 1: Graham also describes a bizarre encounter with the judge who
1:11
Speaker 1: sentenced his father to prison, and shares the inspiration behind
1:15
Speaker 1: his upcoming solo album. Now this is Broken Record Line
1:22
Speaker 1: of notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Michman. Here's
1:26
Speaker 1: part two of Rick Rubin's conversation with Graham Nash. They
1:29
Speaker 1: start off with Graham talking about how the Classics CSN
1:32
Speaker 1: song Our House came to be. Can we talk about
1:36
Speaker 1: some of the other songs that you've written, just to
1:38
Speaker 1: talk about how they how they came to pass Our House.
1:42
Speaker 1: I'd taken Joani to breakfast Arts Delhi Unventura Boulevard in
1:47
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. It's a famous deli, and because the food's
1:51
Speaker 1: great and we had a nice breakfast. It was a
1:55
Speaker 1: tail end of winter. It was a shitty day. It
1:58
Speaker 1: was miserable and it was cold and just not not
2:02
Speaker 1: a nice day. So we finished breakfast and we leave
2:05
Speaker 1: Arts Deli and we're walking towards the park lot where
2:09
Speaker 1: Joan had parked her car, and we saw an antique store,
2:12
Speaker 1: and of course we're looking in the window. I like
2:15
Speaker 1: to I like to see stuff that people have made
2:19
Speaker 1: and said, you know, isn't this fantastic? And one hundred
2:22
Speaker 1: years later it's covered in dusting. Some weird store. Anyway,
2:26
Speaker 1: Jonnie saw a vase that she liked, very simple, about
2:31
Speaker 1: ten inches high, had some hand painted flowers around the
2:35
Speaker 1: top edge. It was beautiful and it was reasonably priced,
2:37
Speaker 1: so she bought it. And as I said, it was
2:40
Speaker 1: a miserable day. So we get in John's car and
2:43
Speaker 1: we drive down to the house in Laura Canyon and
2:46
Speaker 1: go through the front door, and I said, hey, John,
2:49
Speaker 1: why don't I light a fire and you put some
2:51
Speaker 1: flowers in that vase that you just bought today. I'm
2:55
Speaker 1: a musician. How can I not follow that? How can
2:57
Speaker 1: I not go away a second? That's an interesting phrase.
3:02
Speaker 1: I've finished this and it only took a maybe an
3:07
Speaker 1: hour and twenty minutes to finish. Unbelievable. Yeah, it speaks
3:12
Speaker 1: to the as an artist, you being aware at all times,
3:20
Speaker 1: looking for opportunities to turn real life into the art
3:27
Speaker 1: that you make. That's what I'm trying to do. Yeah,
3:29
Speaker 1: you didn't sit down to write a song. You said
3:33
Speaker 1: something offhanded, recognize hmm, that sounds like something right, and
3:39
Speaker 1: you followed up, which is another part of it, because
3:41
Speaker 1: both you have to have the the awareness to recognize
3:45
Speaker 1: it and then the discipline to not do what you
3:50
Speaker 1: were planning to do, but sit down and play and
3:53
Speaker 1: commit to doing this thing and don't forget. You have
3:57
Speaker 1: to add something to that. Yes, I'm living in a
4:00
Speaker 1: house with a brilliant writer, Yes, who normally is at
4:04
Speaker 1: the piano, and I always gave her the space to
4:09
Speaker 1: to write, always always encouraged to write. I would go
4:13
Speaker 1: on long walks and she'd write, you know, but this
4:16
Speaker 1: time she wasn't at the piano. She was actually in
4:18
Speaker 1: the garden looking for flowers to put in the varse.
4:21
Speaker 1: So I had an hour to write it. Amazing. Is
4:25
Speaker 1: that the only time you've been in a relationship with
4:28
Speaker 1: another writer? Not quite. I spent a couple of years
4:34
Speaker 1: with Reader Coolidge, how beautiful and reader. It was the
4:37
Speaker 1: writer and she actually wrote that strange piano change in Layla. Wow.
4:44
Speaker 1: And unfortunately her boyfriend Jim Gordon said he'd written it Wow.
4:50
Speaker 1: Can you imagine how much money that reader could have made? Yeah?
4:54
Speaker 1: From Layla. I'm just curious about this. Was there any
4:57
Speaker 1: sense of competition living with a great artist, Not at all.
5:03
Speaker 1: There was no way I recognized the genius of Johnny
5:07
Speaker 1: in those days, and I would never get in the way. Yeah,
5:12
Speaker 1: it's just a fan. You were a fan, and she
5:14
Speaker 1: hopefully she was a fan of yours. I don't know that,
5:16
Speaker 1: but she was at least a fan of yours. As
5:18
Speaker 1: a human, I don't think that we could have spent
5:21
Speaker 1: the time that we did together, and she not at
5:23
Speaker 1: least recognized that I was a decent writer, you know. Okay,
5:30
Speaker 1: how about carry Anne? Ah? Carry Anne was a Holly
5:34
Speaker 1: song that started out by Tony Hicks, I think, and
5:39
Speaker 1: it turned into a song that we had written about
5:41
Speaker 1: Maryanne Faithful, and we didn't have the balls to call it,
5:47
Speaker 1: Hey mary Anne, And we were trying to come up
5:50
Speaker 1: with a girl's name that would disguise the fact that
5:54
Speaker 1: it was about Mary Unfaithful, and we came up with
5:56
Speaker 1: the with the title carry Anne. Had it been called
6:01
Speaker 1: mary Anne in that moment in time, would everyone have said, oh,
6:07
Speaker 1: that's Marion Faithful or not? Necessarily, they would have known.
6:10
Speaker 1: She was quite famous at that point because she was
6:12
Speaker 1: with Mick and Keith, you know, and had done all
6:17
Speaker 1: the being busted naked, you know, a lot all the
6:20
Speaker 1: stuff that unfortunately Marianne went in her life. But she
6:25
Speaker 1: is a brilliant writer, Marianne. She really is. Marrakesh Express.
6:30
Speaker 1: I'd taken a vacation from the Hollies in nineteen sixty six,
6:36
Speaker 1: and I'd heard stories of the American beat poets going
6:40
Speaker 1: down to this place called Marrakesh and smoking a lot
6:43
Speaker 1: of dope and writing poetry and all the stuff they
6:46
Speaker 1: got up to, and I kind of I thought it's
6:50
Speaker 1: an interesting idea. And so because I had a vacation,
6:54
Speaker 1: my wife and I at the time, flew to Casablanca
6:59
Speaker 1: and walked around Casablanca. It was a phenomenal place. And
7:03
Speaker 1: then we took a train going south to Marrakesh. I
7:08
Speaker 1: was in a first class compartment with two older American
7:12
Speaker 1: leaders who had their gray hair dyed blue, which was
7:16
Speaker 1: kind of shocking to me at that time. And I
7:20
Speaker 1: left the first class compartment and I go to the
7:24
Speaker 1: third class compartment and that's where that's where almost it
7:29
Speaker 1: was like Snoop Dog was having a party there, you know,
7:32
Speaker 1: you know, there was dogs and pigs and chickens all
7:36
Speaker 1: walking around and people pouring mint tea from like four
7:41
Speaker 1: feet in the air into the small coupe and not
7:43
Speaker 1: spilling a drawer. It was amazing. But that's where mark
7:46
Speaker 1: Express was born. And I just found my original lyrics,
7:50
Speaker 1: which which I'm happy about. Fantastic. So did it start?
7:56
Speaker 1: Do you remember if it started with lyrics first or
7:58
Speaker 1: just the title. I didn't get to the title until
8:01
Speaker 1: once again, at the end of the first chorus. My
8:05
Speaker 1: memory of it is that it all happened at the
8:07
Speaker 1: same time, me trying to translate my feelings of having
8:13
Speaker 1: just come back from the third class compartment party, and
8:17
Speaker 1: it all came out at the same time. The rhythm,
8:20
Speaker 1: the chords on the guitar, and the lyrics, it all
8:23
Speaker 1: came out at the same time. That one beautiful. It's
8:26
Speaker 1: beautiful when it happens. Yeah, amazing, Yeah, yeah, it feels
8:29
Speaker 1: it feels like magic when it happens. I thought it
8:31
Speaker 1: was pretty good, but that once again, at that time,
8:34
Speaker 1: it was one of the reasons why I felt that
8:36
Speaker 1: I had to leave the Hollies because they didn't like
8:38
Speaker 1: Marrakesh Express. Wow. Somewhere in the bowels of Emi, there's
8:43
Speaker 1: a tape of just the track of the Hollies doing
8:47
Speaker 1: Marrakesh Express, but there's no there's no train in there.
8:52
Speaker 1: I want I wanted. I wanted that kind of a
8:57
Speaker 1: rhythm train, which Stephen brilliantly did on the record when
9:01
Speaker 1: he put those uh what sound like trumpets in harmony there,
9:06
Speaker 1: you know, But that's Stephen beautiful because it was David
9:10
Speaker 1: once again saved my life in a way, because the
9:15
Speaker 1: worst thing you can do to a rider is give
9:17
Speaker 1: himself doubt when you say something that questions his veracity.
9:23
Speaker 1: That's awful to do to a rider. But it was
9:26
Speaker 1: Krasban and said, wait a second, let me tell you
9:28
Speaker 1: something that's a fine song. They're the crazy ones, and
9:33
Speaker 1: it was once again another reason why I had to
9:36
Speaker 1: leave the Hollies. Wow on a carousel On a carousel
9:43
Speaker 1: is one of those songs that is completely made up
9:46
Speaker 1: and completely made up from something that we had experienced
9:51
Speaker 1: when we were children, on actual riding on a carousel,
9:56
Speaker 1: and how all the horses are trying to catch up
9:58
Speaker 1: with each other, but they're stationary, of course because they're
10:01
Speaker 1: locked into the carousel. But it was basically a song
10:05
Speaker 1: totally made up from nothing. It's a beauty and teacher children. Well,
10:13
Speaker 1: i'd started teaching children in my last days in England.
10:17
Speaker 1: Basically when I came to America. One of the things
10:21
Speaker 1: that I was able to do, because I was earning
10:25
Speaker 1: a great deal of money at that point, was to
10:27
Speaker 1: collect photography. And I had I think about one hundred
10:32
Speaker 1: and fifty of the images to a show in Santa
10:35
Speaker 1: Clara in California. And I've never told any gallery owner
10:41
Speaker 1: how to hang my stuff. I'm very interested in how
10:44
Speaker 1: they would hang it, because when you have a picture
10:47
Speaker 1: on a wall, it affects the way you see the
10:50
Speaker 1: next picture on the wall. And one of the images
10:52
Speaker 1: that I bought by Arnold Newman was a portrait of Krupp,
10:58
Speaker 1: who was a family member of the Krupp family that
11:02
Speaker 1: manufactured all the armaments for both World Wars in Germany.
11:08
Speaker 1: And I realized that if we didn't teach our children
11:11
Speaker 1: a better way of dealing with each other, that humanity
11:14
Speaker 1: itself was in deep trouble. And that's when I got
11:18
Speaker 1: to finish teach your children. The recording of it was
11:21
Speaker 1: pretty simple. It was me and Stephen on acoustic guitars
11:24
Speaker 1: and Dallas Taylor, our drummer, on tambourine, and we have
11:27
Speaker 1: made the track and we realized that it needed a solo,
11:32
Speaker 1: and Steven said, you know, forgive me, but I'm kind
11:35
Speaker 1: of tired of doing solos. I've done. I've done a
11:38
Speaker 1: lot of solos, you know, is there any other thing
11:41
Speaker 1: that we can figure out? And Crosby said, hey, wait
11:44
Speaker 1: a second. Jerry Garcia has been learning pedal steel for
11:48
Speaker 1: the last three months. Maybe Jerry can put pedal steel
11:52
Speaker 1: on it. So we made a demo, a rough mix
11:55
Speaker 1: of the track. I told David to go over to Jerry,
11:58
Speaker 1: who was in the next studio with the Dead in
12:00
Speaker 1: Wally Hiders in San Francisco, and see if Jerry likes
12:04
Speaker 1: the song, and if he likes the song, does he
12:07
Speaker 1: want to put the pedal steel. He loved the song.
12:10
Speaker 1: He came in, he brought his pedal steel in the studio.
12:13
Speaker 1: I played it. He played the first take. I said, fantastic, unbelievable,
12:20
Speaker 1: that's exactly what this song needed. And Jerry said, and
12:23
Speaker 1: you know, I made a couple of mistakes. Do you
12:25
Speaker 1: mind if I do a second track? And I said, absolutely,
12:28
Speaker 1: you can do a second track, but I gotta tell
12:30
Speaker 1: you I'm not going to use it. What you just
12:33
Speaker 1: did when you were learning the song was so perfect.
12:38
Speaker 1: We did take the two notes that were out slightly
12:42
Speaker 1: wrong out of his second track, but I used that
12:45
Speaker 1: first track because it was beautiful, and I think it
12:48
Speaker 1: was a great deal of the reason why it became
12:52
Speaker 1: such a big hit. Two things interesting about that story.
12:55
Speaker 1: The first one is a photograph, so another form of
12:59
Speaker 1: art that you're interested in inspires the lyric. Yes, and
13:04
Speaker 1: then the happenstance of Jerry Garcia happened to be in
13:09
Speaker 1: the next studio, happened to be learning this new instrument,
13:12
Speaker 1: David happened to know that. It's like, there's so much
13:16
Speaker 1: that just and you say that might that's part of
13:20
Speaker 1: why the song is the song. Yeah, it's an amazing
13:24
Speaker 1: confluence of events, so many of which that are out
13:28
Speaker 1: of our control when we're making something great that it's
13:32
Speaker 1: a marvel and to witness it happen again and again,
13:35
Speaker 1: because we've got to see this over the course of
13:37
Speaker 1: our lives, over and over again. It's a true mystical
13:42
Speaker 1: experience when you see these elements come together in a
13:47
Speaker 1: way that it seems almost random, but through the recognition
13:53
Speaker 1: of oh maybe maybe if this with that right, maybe
13:57
Speaker 1: that'll work. It's amazing. Yeah, amazing, because you know, we
14:01
Speaker 1: wouldn't finding our way through music, but always keeping in
14:06
Speaker 1: mind what is right for the track. And Jerry's solo
14:10
Speaker 1: at the beginning and the solo in the middle, of course,
14:13
Speaker 1: was just perfect for the track, and he'd done it
14:16
Speaker 1: in one take and amazing. I love one takes. I'm
14:21
Speaker 1: I'm with Neil on that thing. I love when you've
14:25
Speaker 1: done a song in the studio you know, twenty times
14:28
Speaker 1: it loses something, you know, and I've been lucky enough
14:31
Speaker 1: to recognize when it's right, agree under and to argue
14:38
Speaker 1: the opposite point. Beatles did a lot of takes, and
14:41
Speaker 1: I really like those records. Yes, yes, that's true. So yeah,
14:46
Speaker 1: but you know there's probably Beatles songs that were done
14:50
Speaker 1: in one take too. Oh, absolutely absolutely. But I think
14:53
Speaker 1: if we listened to him, we wouldn't say the one
14:55
Speaker 1: take songs are necessarily better than the ones that know
14:58
Speaker 1: more effort. It's like whatever is right for like you're
15:02
Speaker 1: taking care of each song in the way that's best
15:05
Speaker 1: for that song, whatever that is. If it's one take, great,
15:08
Speaker 1: and if it's trying it many times until you find
15:12
Speaker 1: the way, it's like, we don't know, we can't know, no,
15:14
Speaker 1: but we know when it's right, absolutely, and that's the
15:17
Speaker 1: best and it's the best feeling because until it's right,
15:21
Speaker 1: I always have the feeling we don't have a we
15:24
Speaker 1: don't have a way to make it right until you
15:28
Speaker 1: do it, until we happen to recognize that it's already right. Yes,
15:32
Speaker 1: you can't do it in advance, that's right, and it
15:34
Speaker 1: takes courage to do that, you know, it takes courage
15:37
Speaker 1: to tell Jerry Garcia, you know, you know, sure you
15:40
Speaker 1: can do a second track, but I'm never gonna Okay,
15:43
Speaker 1: they had the song that had very CSN like harmony
15:48
Speaker 1: Uncle John's band. Was the fact that you guys were
15:51
Speaker 1: recording next to them, that have any impact on that
15:54
Speaker 1: song coming into existence, do you know? Undoubtedly they would
15:57
Speaker 1: come into the studio and watch what we did and
16:00
Speaker 1: how we did it. Yeah, and then they started to
16:03
Speaker 1: do that because they like harmonies too, you know. Yeah,
16:07
Speaker 1: but it's such a specific thing what Crusby, Stills and
16:10
Speaker 1: Nash does, and that's one of the few songs, a
16:14
Speaker 1: NANCSN song that has the makings of a CSN like
16:20
Speaker 1: blend right. They started to do what we did, which
16:23
Speaker 1: was we'd put up an eighty seven and we'd open
16:26
Speaker 1: it up all the way around and we'd just stand
16:28
Speaker 1: the three of us and I would stand further away
16:32
Speaker 1: from the microphone than David did, because I have this
16:35
Speaker 1: voice that cuts through everything. It's just the way my
16:38
Speaker 1: voice is. And when they saw that that we were
16:43
Speaker 1: position in ourselves around an open microphone, they took that
16:47
Speaker 1: and did that and that's how they started to record
16:50
Speaker 1: because normally they would put Jerry would put his part on,
16:53
Speaker 1: and then Phil would put his part on, and then twhoever.
16:56
Speaker 1: You know, right, in general, is there a difference between
17:00
Speaker 1: singing together versus stacking tracks? Absolutely? That example, absolutely, Tell
17:06
Speaker 1: me about it. Tell me about what happens different What
17:09
Speaker 1: happens differently is vibration when the three of us are
17:13
Speaker 1: singing around a microphone, knowing which distance each one of
17:17
Speaker 1: us needs to be to get the blend correct. It
17:21
Speaker 1: takes work to do that, but we managed to do
17:25
Speaker 1: that totally naturally, because there is a difference between when
17:30
Speaker 1: you put on a melody and then you double that,
17:32
Speaker 1: and you put on a harmony and then you do that.
17:34
Speaker 1: But with individual takes, there isn't the DNA blend of
17:41
Speaker 1: three voices hitting the air at the same time. It's
17:45
Speaker 1: a different sound if it's only one voice after another voice.
17:51
Speaker 1: It's fascinating because so few artists do it that way
17:54
Speaker 1: as well, so few we could do it though. Yeah,
17:57
Speaker 1: do you remember did you all wear headphones when you
17:59
Speaker 1: were doing it or were you singing with your no headphones?
18:02
Speaker 1: Do you remember? Yeah? I do remember. We always use
18:05
Speaker 1: headphones with just one with one right, so that we
18:09
Speaker 1: had the other ear free to be able to listen
18:12
Speaker 1: to what the other guys were doing. We wouldn't put
18:15
Speaker 1: both headphones on. We would only put one side on.
18:19
Speaker 1: Understood for the blend part of it of knowing where
18:23
Speaker 1: you were standing. That was more based on what you
18:26
Speaker 1: were hearing in the phone, I imagine, because you couldn't
18:28
Speaker 1: tell how it was affecting the mic just looking at it, right,
18:33
Speaker 1: But then the other ear was for the true mingling
18:38
Speaker 1: of the frequencies. Yes, exactly in real life, exactly right.
18:42
Speaker 1: Because it is different. It's hard to explain how when
18:46
Speaker 1: you put on headphones it's just different. Yes, it is.
18:50
Speaker 1: Then you have to deal with it. But we knew,
18:52
Speaker 1: we knew how to do our voices. Like I said,
18:55
Speaker 1: that sound csn hand vocally. It was done in forty
18:59
Speaker 1: five seconds. It was not saying it just bloody happened,
19:04
Speaker 1: and it happened so beautifully that I then made I
19:08
Speaker 1: have to go to England and undo my life. I
19:11
Speaker 1: want to follow this sound. This sound is amazing. I mean, yes,
19:15
Speaker 1: anyone can sing the same notes that we can. You
19:17
Speaker 1: can't sound like us. Yeah, we'll be back after a
19:21
Speaker 1: quick break with more from Rick Rubin and Graham Nash.
19:28
Speaker 1: We're back with Rick Rubin's conversation with Graham Nash. Coming
19:33
Speaker 1: from England, did you have any sense of feeling like
19:37
Speaker 1: an outsider when you came absolutely different than the other people. Yeah,
19:41
Speaker 1: but I was an outsider that I had a history
19:44
Speaker 1: of knowing how to make hit records because I'd been
19:47
Speaker 1: in the Hollies for seven years and like I said,
19:50
Speaker 1: we had fifteen or so top ten records. So I
19:54
Speaker 1: wasn't outsider, but I came with a certain weight. Yes,
19:58
Speaker 1: And you came post British invasion, where basically all of
20:04
Speaker 1: the music being made in California at that time, in
20:07
Speaker 1: what's one form or another, seemed to be influenced by
20:10
Speaker 1: what was going on in England. Yeah. We were amazed
20:13
Speaker 1: in England that we would take American songs and sing
20:16
Speaker 1: them with a kind of a British accent and sell
20:19
Speaker 1: them back to the Americans. That was weird to us,
20:23
Speaker 1: but it's what we did, you know, Because you'd have
20:26
Speaker 1: somebody that was in the Merchant Navy. You'd have a
20:29
Speaker 1: brother or a cousin or somebody, and they would go
20:31
Speaker 1: to America and they were musicians, so they would bring
20:35
Speaker 1: records back. So we were hearing all the Miracles and
20:40
Speaker 1: Barrett Strong and all these really strange rhythm and blues
20:45
Speaker 1: things that hadn't hit the charts in England. And yeah,
20:51
Speaker 1: the British Invasion. What a strange theme that was. Yeah,
20:54
Speaker 1: we're making all this American music and singing it with
20:57
Speaker 1: a British accent and selling it right back to the Americans.
21:00
Speaker 1: This is amazing. Yeah, I think there's something about I
21:04
Speaker 1: think it's more than just singing it with a British accent.
21:07
Speaker 1: I think the romantic view from a distance allows a
21:15
Speaker 1: different interpretation, not even just in the accents, but even
21:19
Speaker 1: in the way the music's approached. It's like, we can
21:23
Speaker 1: use the example of led Zeppelin and the American blues
21:27
Speaker 1: that it's based on. No American blues man would take
21:35
Speaker 1: it to such bombastic. It would be unseemly to do
21:40
Speaker 1: what led Zeppelin did from the blues master perspective. Yet
21:45
Speaker 1: they were taking this fantasy from a distance in the
21:49
Speaker 1: same way that Sergio Leone made the Spaghetti Westerns that
21:52
Speaker 1: were different than the Western Westerns. It's like seeing it
21:56
Speaker 1: from a distance can give you a romantic vision of
21:59
Speaker 1: it that's bigger than the reality of the situation. Yeah,
22:04
Speaker 1: it feels like the Hollies had that. It's like, yes,
22:07
Speaker 1: there was the influence of the American music, but it
22:10
Speaker 1: didn't sound like the American music because you guys were
22:14
Speaker 1: different and your life experience was different, right, And we'd
22:17
Speaker 1: all we'd all learned, you know, from skiffle. You know,
22:21
Speaker 1: we'd all learned from from early folk music. And we
22:25
Speaker 1: started out in dance halls, and we wanted to make
22:28
Speaker 1: music that people could dance too, and we wanted to
22:31
Speaker 1: make them think too, and why not do both things
22:34
Speaker 1: at the same time. But yeah, the Hollies did have
22:38
Speaker 1: a certain sound that was different than American bands, that's
22:41
Speaker 1: for sure. And let's talk about skiffle a little bit,
22:44
Speaker 1: because that was not something that happened in the United States, no,
22:47
Speaker 1: or at least it didn't happen as being called skiffle.
22:51
Speaker 1: Tell me about skiffle. There was an Irish folk singer
22:55
Speaker 1: called Lonnie Donegan, and he went to America and he
23:00
Speaker 1: witnessed Lad Belly and he witnessed all these blues people
23:05
Speaker 1: and how simple it was. Big Bill runs just on
23:09
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar, and he brought that music back with him
23:14
Speaker 1: from America. So now you have to think of Okay,
23:20
Speaker 1: in the late fifties, it was only ten years since
23:22
Speaker 1: World War two happened, and there was nothing that fifteen
23:26
Speaker 1: and sixteen year old kids could do, particularly where I lived,
23:31
Speaker 1: there was nothing to do. Really. You had a ball
23:34
Speaker 1: you could kick around or play cricket with, you know,
23:36
Speaker 1: but there was no There was no music because we
23:39
Speaker 1: couldn't afford it. And then skiffle came along, where if
23:43
Speaker 1: you had a cheap acoustic guitar and you created a
23:47
Speaker 1: bass from a t chest box with a pole and
23:50
Speaker 1: a string that you could play the bass, and for
23:55
Speaker 1: the drums you would put thimbles on your right hand
23:58
Speaker 1: if you right handed, and we had a washboard, which
24:02
Speaker 1: is an instrument that your grandmother used to wash clothes
24:05
Speaker 1: with and go stop, and so it was simple, it
24:10
Speaker 1: was cheap. We could afford to do that, and we
24:13
Speaker 1: all of a sudden we had something to do and
24:16
Speaker 1: we followed it directly. We loved skiffle and it started
24:22
Speaker 1: the background of our musical journey. And Lonnie Dogan is
24:27
Speaker 1: very famous in England. I mean, ask anybody, they all
24:31
Speaker 1: know who Lonnie Donigan was because he was very important
24:34
Speaker 1: in the creation of music in England. I guess the
24:37
Speaker 1: closest approximation we had in the United States would have
24:42
Speaker 1: been jug band music, which wasn't particularly popular. It was
24:45
Speaker 1: more of an a tiny regional fringe movement. Yes, so
24:50
Speaker 1: Lonnie Donigan must have seen that. I had no idea
24:54
Speaker 1: that the roots of skiffle were rooted in American music.
24:56
Speaker 1: I never would have guessed that. They never would have
24:58
Speaker 1: guessed that directly. Fascinating. Yeah, I have one more song
25:01
Speaker 1: to ask about, so I'll ask about it before I
25:03
Speaker 1: go on. Okay, the next song to ask about is
25:07
Speaker 1: just a Song before I Go, which was the biggest
25:10
Speaker 1: hit of the band. Yeah. If I knew it was
25:13
Speaker 1: going to be such a big hit, i'd written a
25:15
Speaker 1: better song. Just A song started very simply. It was
25:21
Speaker 1: me on piano. I've been to England to visit my
25:24
Speaker 1: mother who wasn't feeling too well and she was in hospital.
25:28
Speaker 1: And during that visit I stood on the steps of
25:31
Speaker 1: the Midland Hotel in Manchester. That was the same steps
25:36
Speaker 1: that Alan and I had met the Evely brothers in
25:39
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two. And I was standing on the steps
25:44
Speaker 1: of the Middleland Hotel and I was watching people come
25:47
Speaker 1: and go. I realized that half of them didn't like
25:50
Speaker 1: their job, didn't like their boss, hated work, but had
25:56
Speaker 1: to do it, digging graves, doing whatever is they had
25:59
Speaker 1: to do. And I realized that why me? Why did
26:03
Speaker 1: I leave and become famous when I knew a lot
26:07
Speaker 1: of musicians that were better than me, that weren't famous.
26:10
Speaker 1: You know, it was really strange. Anyway, I took a
26:13
Speaker 1: small vacation. Me and David and Stephen were in a
26:16
Speaker 1: studio in Los Angeles making a record. We decided to
26:19
Speaker 1: take a small break from each other. I went to
26:22
Speaker 1: Hawaii and I went to the home of a friend
26:24
Speaker 1: of mine, acquaintance really named Spider, and he was a
26:28
Speaker 1: drug dealer, just marijuana. And I had, you know, about
26:32
Speaker 1: an hour and a half, two hours before I had
26:34
Speaker 1: to catch a plane back to the studio. And as
26:37
Speaker 1: I got up to leave, he said, wait a second,
26:39
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be some big shot songwriter. I bet
26:41
Speaker 1: you can't write a song just before you go. I
26:44
Speaker 1: said what he said, I'll bet you can't write a
26:46
Speaker 1: song just before you go right now? I said how much?
26:51
Speaker 1: He said, five hundred dollars. I said five hundred dollars.
26:55
Speaker 1: I sat down and I wrote just a song before
26:57
Speaker 1: I go in an hour and twenty minutes. It was
27:01
Speaker 1: amazing and in terms of an incredible circle. On my
27:06
Speaker 1: last tour, at the end of a show leaving and
27:10
Speaker 1: a lady gives me a small envelope, I put it
27:13
Speaker 1: in my back pocket and I forgot about that I
27:15
Speaker 1: had it there. I'm getting dressed the next morning and
27:18
Speaker 1: I realized, I have an envelope that I haven't opened.
27:21
Speaker 1: And I opened it up and guess what was inside?
27:24
Speaker 1: A check for five hundred dollars from the family of
27:27
Speaker 1: the kid that made me write the song in the
27:30
Speaker 1: first place. They realized that he was a dealer, that
27:34
Speaker 1: he probably hadn't paid me, and they were going to
27:36
Speaker 1: pay me and they did. Wow, I didn't. I just
27:41
Speaker 1: cashed the check, of course. No. It's an incredible story, yeah, amazing. Yeah,
27:47
Speaker 1: and what a great song. So that's a song that
27:50
Speaker 1: you wrote on a challenge, Yes, a total challenge. Yeah.
27:55
Speaker 1: So it shows it can come from anywhere. It doesn't.
27:59
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be because it wasn't some lightning
28:03
Speaker 1: bolt hit you and this magic song came out. No,
28:05
Speaker 1: it was a five hundred dollar bet before you were
28:08
Speaker 1: flying off. Yeah, this kid's not going to beat me
28:11
Speaker 1: for five hundred dollars, that's for sure. Unbelievable. And he
28:15
Speaker 1: sent me the original lyrics, actually the original piece of
28:18
Speaker 1: paper that I wrote it on, which I have fantastic.
28:22
Speaker 1: Tell me about Nash editions. Okay, I'd gotten a Mac
28:27
Speaker 1: computer in nineteen eighty two or something very early. You
28:32
Speaker 1: could actually scan things. It was called a thunderscan and
28:35
Speaker 1: it moved across the image and it transferred all the
28:39
Speaker 1: information into the computer. And I was getting interesting images
28:42
Speaker 1: on the screen. I couldn't get him off the screen
28:46
Speaker 1: in a way that satisfied me. I tried photographing them.
28:50
Speaker 1: I tried inkjet prints, I tried thermal prints, and I
28:54
Speaker 1: couldn't get them off the screen. So this friend of mine,
28:58
Speaker 1: Charles Wirremberg in San Francisco, who is a scientist, called
29:02
Speaker 1: me one day and he said, hey, have you have
29:03
Speaker 1: you seen this printer that Fuji are putting out? And
29:07
Speaker 1: I said no, and I he gave me the name
29:10
Speaker 1: of the master printer in Los Angeles that was working
29:13
Speaker 1: the machine. I went to see it check it out.
29:16
Speaker 1: It was incredible. You know that when you're standing waiting
29:20
Speaker 1: to go into the cinema and you see those posters
29:23
Speaker 1: for the upcoming shows. Well, this machine was made to
29:28
Speaker 1: do that. Cheap paper but great color. So I found
29:33
Speaker 1: out someone who was using the machine and went down
29:35
Speaker 1: to check it out with my friend Mac, and I
29:37
Speaker 1: saw this machine, which looks like a small refrigerator, but
29:41
Speaker 1: it has a hood that you lift it up in.
29:43
Speaker 1: It has a drum that you attached the paper too,
29:46
Speaker 1: and it spins a million miles an hour, and these
29:49
Speaker 1: four print heads are spraying ink at it as it's
29:52
Speaker 1: going round. That sounds weird. And it's going round at
29:56
Speaker 1: twelve miles an hour and you're spraying ink on it
29:59
Speaker 1: and it's turning out like this. It was one hundred
30:03
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars for the printer. I bought it immediately,
30:08
Speaker 1: and I wanted the machine to do what I wanted
30:11
Speaker 1: it to do. I want a thicker paper. I had
30:14
Speaker 1: to move the print heads a little further away because
30:19
Speaker 1: of the thickness of the paper, so I had to
30:21
Speaker 1: avoid the warranty within the first ten minutes. And I
30:23
Speaker 1: didn't care because I was forcing this machine that I
30:27
Speaker 1: had seen make this photograph looking print. I wanted it
30:32
Speaker 1: to do black and white and fantastic stuff purely for me. Yes,
30:37
Speaker 1: And then we decided that in eighty nine that we
30:41
Speaker 1: would open this up as Nash Editions and be the
30:44
Speaker 1: first portfolio maker in the world to do black and
30:49
Speaker 1: white inkjet prints. And not only that, but we got
30:53
Speaker 1: a beautiful medal from the Smithsonian Institution and my first
30:58
Speaker 1: printer is in the Smithsonian Museum in the American History Museum. Incredible.
31:04
Speaker 1: It was funny. I was a mean sushi in Boston
31:06
Speaker 1: once and a couple of people recognize me, and I
31:10
Speaker 1: took no notice of that. And as I'm leaving this
31:13
Speaker 1: lady shouts out, hey, Graham, and I'm expecting, where's Neil,
31:18
Speaker 1: you know, who did you screw last night? And what
31:20
Speaker 1: call the sults you have on? And all she said
31:22
Speaker 1: was great, Prince, And I went, wow, Okay, you've made it.
31:27
Speaker 1: I've made it. It's another beautiful story where you're making
31:32
Speaker 1: something for yourself and it's so good that you open
31:36
Speaker 1: it up to the world to participate, because that's how
31:39
Speaker 1: good it is. It's the same with all my songs.
31:41
Speaker 1: I only write songs for me. I don't write for
31:43
Speaker 1: anybody else, just me. But if you like the song
31:46
Speaker 1: and you want to do it fantastic. Now it's to
31:48
Speaker 1: see us and song. We have to take another quick
31:51
Speaker 1: break and then we'll be back with more from Graham Nash.
31:58
Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of Rick Rubbins conversation with
32:01
Speaker 1: Graham Nash. I read a story, I don't know if
32:04
Speaker 1: this is true, maybe apocrypha, that there was a cs
32:08
Speaker 1: AND reunion in Sauceldo in nineteen seventy four and the
32:14
Speaker 1: band ended up breaking up during those sessions over an
32:18
Speaker 1: argument over a harmony note choice. Does that ring true? Yep?
32:24
Speaker 1: Do you mind talking about it? Yeah, there were two
32:27
Speaker 1: times it happened. Once in my house in San Francisco.
32:32
Speaker 1: Stephen had this song that I was putting my harmony
32:35
Speaker 1: on and he wanted me to sing a minor set
32:39
Speaker 1: of changes through a major chord on the track. And
32:46
Speaker 1: I have to admit, I think I'm pretty good at
32:49
Speaker 1: what I do as a harmony singer, and my body
32:52
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. I could not every time I came
32:55
Speaker 1: to the chorus. Whether you wanted me to sing in
32:58
Speaker 1: minor thing through a major set of changes, I couldn't.
33:01
Speaker 1: My body couldn't do it. And Stephen got so angry
33:05
Speaker 1: that he We had just mixed my song win on
33:09
Speaker 1: the Water and gotten a master two track of it,
33:12
Speaker 1: and he sliced it up with a race of blade. Yeah.
33:17
Speaker 1: And another time it happened, and I think it's this
33:19
Speaker 1: ALSOLDO one that you're referring to. We were playing a
33:23
Speaker 1: song of David's called Homeward through the Haze, very beautiful song,
33:28
Speaker 1: and for some reason one of the bass parts was
33:32
Speaker 1: not quite right, and we began arguing about whether it
33:37
Speaker 1: was right or whether it was not, And all of
33:40
Speaker 1: a sudden I look over to where Neil was sitting
33:43
Speaker 1: and Neil wasn't there. He just left. He just gone. Amazing.
33:49
Speaker 1: The same happened when we were making the record in
33:53
Speaker 1: Fort Lauderdale. I'd have been having breakfast with Neil every
33:57
Speaker 1: day at the hotel, right, and for some reason, he's
33:59
Speaker 1: not there at ten o'clock and I call the front desk,
34:01
Speaker 1: I said, as mister Young been around. They said, yeah,
34:05
Speaker 1: he left this morning for San Francisco. I said, we're wait,
34:09
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of it's Neil amazing. He was gone.
34:14
Speaker 1: And that's why not robing a song called Mutiny. It's
34:20
Speaker 1: funny in the different examples, it was always a Crosby song. Yeah, Yeah,
34:27
Speaker 1: beautiful song though. Yeah, an amazing writer. David was an
34:31
Speaker 1: amazing writer. I mean his sense of combining these strange
34:37
Speaker 1: guitar tunings with the jazz feel made him a completely
34:42
Speaker 1: unique musician. I don't know anybody that writes music like Crosby.
34:47
Speaker 1: It's interesting hearing you tell the story of Marrakesh Express
34:51
Speaker 1: and it being inspired by the beat poets and essentially
34:58
Speaker 1: the drug culture. And while there's a tremendous emphasis on
35:03
Speaker 1: drug use in Crosby, Tilson Nash, you're usually viewed as
35:07
Speaker 1: the grounded, straight person, or that's the perception in the
35:10
Speaker 1: outside world, is that the other two guys are off
35:14
Speaker 1: the rails. So it's interesting to hear that you were
35:17
Speaker 1: also a participant. Yeah, with Crosby, I mean I tried everything.
35:22
Speaker 1: I tried not taking any drugs. I tried taking more
35:26
Speaker 1: drugs than he was taking. I tried everything. But you know,
35:32
Speaker 1: having been in the Hollies and had all these success
35:35
Speaker 1: I was kind of stable and I knew what was
35:39
Speaker 1: best for us. And I've always kept the music in
35:43
Speaker 1: the forefront of my mind, and I've always been the
35:47
Speaker 1: one that says no wait a second. If something's wrong,
35:50
Speaker 1: let's figure out a way where we can all win.
35:52
Speaker 1: And I've always been that kind of person since I
35:54
Speaker 1: was a kid. Tell me about one of my favorite
35:58
Speaker 1: vocal performances is not on one of your albums, and
36:03
Speaker 1: I only recently found out that it's you singing, and
36:06
Speaker 1: that's on Donovan's song Happiness Run. Yes, I love the song,
36:12
Speaker 1: and I used that outro as a reference for musicians
36:16
Speaker 1: all the time, talking about what interesting arrangements you could
36:19
Speaker 1: do vocally. Don't think of it just as the lead voice. Right,
36:22
Speaker 1: here's an example of the vocals are the whole thing
36:25
Speaker 1: and the relationship between the different vocals. Tell me how
36:29
Speaker 1: that came about and the writing of it and everything
36:32
Speaker 1: about it. Donovan was the man that taught me how
36:35
Speaker 1: to play finger pick a guitar. I couldn't do it
36:39
Speaker 1: before he showed me how to do it. And he
36:41
Speaker 1: was a big fan of mine, and he knew that
36:43
Speaker 1: the Hollies were not happening in my mind anyway. He
36:48
Speaker 1: played me this song, Happiness Runs, and I realized that
36:51
Speaker 1: it was a perfect example of a round meaning you
36:55
Speaker 1: could go happiness runs in a happiness runs in all
36:58
Speaker 1: happiness runs. You know you can make a round of it, yes,
37:02
Speaker 1: like row row row your boat, exact famous round that
37:04
Speaker 1: most people knew, right, And yeah, it was very easy
37:07
Speaker 1: to do. We did it in ten minutes, really easy
37:12
Speaker 1: because it was the song was there. We just had
37:15
Speaker 1: to make it sound more interesting than it was. It's
37:18
Speaker 1: great and that the interaction of the vocals at the
37:21
Speaker 1: end make the whole thing. I absolutely love it great. Oh,
37:26
Speaker 1: this is interesting. I've seen footage of Crosby Stills in
37:30
Speaker 1: Nash playing at Esselyn in Big Sir, and Esselyn was
37:34
Speaker 1: sort of a hippie capital and the birth of the
37:38
Speaker 1: Human Potential movement took place there. So it was forward
37:41
Speaker 1: thinking place, lots of young people, naked, hot springs. Yes,
37:46
Speaker 1: And interestingly, Crosby, Sials and Nash show up with these
37:52
Speaker 1: D forty five very expensive guitar, the most expensive guitar
37:57
Speaker 1: you could buy from Martin and wearing fur coats into
38:02
Speaker 1: this piece and love hippie world. And it's a wild juxtaposition.
38:10
Speaker 1: And just wanted to ask you what do you remember
38:12
Speaker 1: about that? Did thought go into it? Tell me everything?
38:17
Speaker 1: Esseelin was exactly how you described, particularly the hot tubs
38:22
Speaker 1: and the naked Ladies. Joanie was there at that time,
38:26
Speaker 1: and she had a song that she used to end
38:30
Speaker 1: her shows with called get Together, and we would casually
38:34
Speaker 1: get up there and sing. And she didn't mind, you know,
38:37
Speaker 1: at all, because she knew how good we were, and
38:40
Speaker 1: so if we got up there to sing, it was
38:43
Speaker 1: going to be okay. And it was like a gang
38:44
Speaker 1: sing at the end, you know. But what I remember
38:47
Speaker 1: most about Esseelin is that Johnie and I were growing
38:50
Speaker 1: more apart by the minute. And there's a photograph of
38:54
Speaker 1: me and Joanie explaining each other to each other that
38:58
Speaker 1: somebody took. That is a perfect example of what it
39:01
Speaker 1: was that I was feeling during that Eselent thing because
39:05
Speaker 1: Johnie and I were breaking up. Basically, tell me about
39:11
Speaker 1: David Blue. It's all over now. David Blue was a
39:16
Speaker 1: fine songwriter in New York City at the same time
39:20
Speaker 1: that Dylan was upcoming, David Blue was upcoming. I liked
39:25
Speaker 1: his songs. I brought him to my studio in San
39:29
Speaker 1: Francisco and recorded a great album with him called Nice
39:32
Speaker 1: Baby in the Angel. In my book of photographs that
39:35
Speaker 1: I put out recently, there's a photograph of David Blue
39:38
Speaker 1: and he's smoking a cigarette but he has a cigarette
39:41
Speaker 1: in each hand. And that was David Blue. He was
39:45
Speaker 1: a man that felt that he didn't get enough dues
39:49
Speaker 1: because this other guy, Bob Dylan, was taking most of
39:52
Speaker 1: the headlines, even though David felt that he was already.
39:57
Speaker 1: Maybe Dylan took his name and it's all over now,
40:02
Speaker 1: baby Blue. You know who knows. But David David was
40:07
Speaker 1: a nice man. Do you know anything about Leonard Khne's
40:11
Speaker 1: relationship with David Blue? No, interesting that Leonard Khne always
40:17
Speaker 1: had a feeling the way that David Blue felt as
40:24
Speaker 1: it related to Bob. Leonard had some feeling that the
40:30
Speaker 1: relationship between him and David Blue, like maybe why isn't
40:35
Speaker 1: it David Blue? And why is it me? You know,
40:37
Speaker 1: like like he he didn't understand there was the opposite
40:42
Speaker 1: side of the David Blue story of why do I
40:44
Speaker 1: have the success versus David Blue? Like almost like imposter syndrome. Yeah,
40:51
Speaker 1: And then David was very cognizant of that. He understood
40:56
Speaker 1: that he was being completely shadowed. But he was a
41:00
Speaker 1: decent songwriter and I enjoyed that album that I made
41:04
Speaker 1: with him, Beautiful. In one of the stories I read
41:07
Speaker 1: about Crosbie Silson, Nash reunion attempts. It happened in the
41:13
Speaker 1: famous studio in Miami. Oh yeah, Criteria, Yeah, Criteria. What
41:17
Speaker 1: was it about Criteria in the seventies that drew so
41:21
Speaker 1: many artists. First of all, it's a great studio. There's
41:26
Speaker 1: a great sound in the studio, and that's why a
41:29
Speaker 1: lot of artists got there. But also there were two
41:32
Speaker 1: ladies that provided a service that was great. You could
41:35
Speaker 1: rent a house and they would do all the cooking
41:39
Speaker 1: and they would clean all the beds and do all
41:41
Speaker 1: that stuff. And that's exactly what we did. That's what
41:44
Speaker 1: Eric had done previously one on his album. And so
41:48
Speaker 1: that combination of not being in Hollywood and being in
41:53
Speaker 1: a sunny being in a sunny place with the same
41:56
Speaker 1: kind of freedoms and Criteria had a great sound and
42:01
Speaker 1: we took advantage of it. For sure. Beautiful because I
42:04
Speaker 1: always wondered because Miami was not really a hot spot
42:07
Speaker 1: at that point in time, but so many great artists
42:10
Speaker 1: all were traveling there and I never really knew what
42:13
Speaker 1: the draw was. But that's interesting that there was like
42:15
Speaker 1: a live in situation, yes, that you could go off
42:20
Speaker 1: and make a record and everything would be taken care
42:22
Speaker 1: of besides you being in the studio making the music right.
42:26
Speaker 1: And as you say, it was out of the way.
42:27
Speaker 1: It wasn't Hollywood. Yeah, you know, it wasn't New York.
42:30
Speaker 1: It was completely out of the way in terms of
42:34
Speaker 1: why Miami. But it was the combination of a sound
42:38
Speaker 1: of the studio itself and the availability of being able
42:42
Speaker 1: to rent a house away. You didn't have to think.
42:45
Speaker 1: Tell me about Judy sil Judy was a very interesting woman.
42:50
Speaker 1: I think she was a brilliant composer. I think that
42:55
Speaker 1: she wasn't pretty enough to be a Joni Mitchell kind
43:00
Speaker 1: of long blonde hair, folksinging kind of thing. She opened
43:06
Speaker 1: up on a tour that David and I did for
43:08
Speaker 1: about two or three weeks. She would often drive in
43:11
Speaker 1: the car with David and I. She was darkly funny,
43:16
Speaker 1: and the more she told us about her life, the
43:19
Speaker 1: more amazing she got. She told us she used to
43:22
Speaker 1: you know, she was a hooker at one point, but
43:25
Speaker 1: her love of music was undeniable, and she loved a
43:31
Speaker 1: particular guitar that I had. It was a Martin D
43:34
Speaker 1: twenty eight, and at the end of the tour I
43:36
Speaker 1: gave it to her. But Judy was a really interesting woman,
43:42
Speaker 1: and I think that a lot of people I'm now
43:44
Speaker 1: being turned onto her music. I recorded a song with
43:49
Speaker 1: her called Jesus was a Crossmaker. I thought that that
43:52
Speaker 1: might be a radio hit. But that's the only track
43:56
Speaker 1: that I ever produced for Judy. But it was a
43:58
Speaker 1: good creative experience. Yes, very much so. I only got
44:03
Speaker 1: turned onto her recently and find the music very, very beautiful. Yes,
44:08
Speaker 1: she was a I'm profound songwriter. How do you think
44:13
Speaker 1: the last chapter of your father's life impacted your choices
44:21
Speaker 1: going forward in life? A great deal. My father went
44:25
Speaker 1: to jail for about a year for a camera that
44:28
Speaker 1: he had bought from a friend of his at work,
44:29
Speaker 1: and the police came to the door and wanting to
44:31
Speaker 1: know who it was, and sold it to him. My
44:33
Speaker 1: father wouldn't tell them, and he ended up in a
44:36
Speaker 1: jail for a year, and he died at forty six.
44:40
Speaker 1: It affects my life in the following way. I always
44:44
Speaker 1: cheer for the underdog. I'm always championing the team that's
44:49
Speaker 1: not supposed to win. And a very interesting thing happened
44:53
Speaker 1: to me. I'd written a song called the Prison Song,
44:56
Speaker 1: and the first verses about my father, I was in
45:00
Speaker 1: Granada Television in Manchester. I was doing a show and
45:04
Speaker 1: I was singing that song. Also on the show tape
45:10
Speaker 1: was the judge that sentenced my father to prison. You
45:13
Speaker 1: must believe that I was in a very strange state
45:18
Speaker 1: of mind. Nobody else knew except me. Nobody knew. I
45:24
Speaker 1: don't even know how to process it. What tell me?
45:29
Speaker 1: Did you want to leave? Did you want Yeah? I
45:32
Speaker 1: wanted to get to him and you know, tell him
45:35
Speaker 1: off for doing that. I mean, I wrote every ridiculous
45:38
Speaker 1: thing to even think of doing. But he was on
45:40
Speaker 1: tape and he wasn't available for me to converse with him.
45:44
Speaker 1: But what a strange event, me singing the song about
45:48
Speaker 1: my father in prison with the judge that put him
45:51
Speaker 1: in prison. Unbelievable. Did you grow up in Manchester or Blackpool?
45:55
Speaker 1: I was born in Blackpool. I lived I lived in Salford,
46:00
Speaker 1: which was one of the slums of England, which is
46:04
Speaker 1: a suburb of Manchester. But during the World War Two,
46:08
Speaker 1: they would evacuate all the pregnant ladies outside the bombing
46:12
Speaker 1: area to have their children in peace. And that's that's
46:15
Speaker 1: why I ended up being born in Blackpool, which I
46:18
Speaker 1: never lived there. I was just born there. I actually,
46:22
Speaker 1: quite a few years ago, took two of my sons
46:27
Speaker 1: into that room and I ended up. I started. I
46:31
Speaker 1: went into the hotel, which is on the front in Blackpool,
46:35
Speaker 1: and I looked at the guy that was in the
46:38
Speaker 1: front desk and I said, I have a really strange question.
46:42
Speaker 1: He said, it's you go around, Dane. It's down right
46:45
Speaker 1: down the stairs. I said, how did you know that?
46:49
Speaker 1: He said, listen, a lot of you've come here and
46:52
Speaker 1: you wanted anyway. He pointed me to the room and
46:54
Speaker 1: there was the room. And I'm breathing in the room
46:58
Speaker 1: in which I took my first breath. Wow, and maybe
47:01
Speaker 1: see so cool? I know my life is full of this. Yeah, magic,
47:08
Speaker 1: We're black, we are blessed, indeed we are. We'll tell
47:11
Speaker 1: me about living in New York. Is this the first
47:13
Speaker 1: time you've ever lived in New York? Yes? I'd been
47:16
Speaker 1: to New York many times, you know, sometimes for a
47:19
Speaker 1: couple of days, sometimes for a couple of weeks. And
47:21
Speaker 1: I couldn't wait to get out of here. What changed?
47:25
Speaker 1: What changed is I divorced my wife, Susan, after thirty
47:30
Speaker 1: seven years of marriage. We were not in love. It
47:33
Speaker 1: was totally over we divorced. I'm playing a show with
47:39
Speaker 1: David and Stephen at the Beacon here in New York City,
47:43
Speaker 1: and Amy and I shook hands, and I believe at
47:48
Speaker 1: that point I knew what I needed to do. I
47:52
Speaker 1: needed to find out more about this woman, find out
47:57
Speaker 1: who she is, what she does, and every question. And
48:00
Speaker 1: I asked myself, she answered in total brilliant. She's a
48:05
Speaker 1: brilliant artist. And I wish now that I had been
48:12
Speaker 1: strong enough to realize earlier that my marriage to Susan
48:16
Speaker 1: was over and I should have been living in New
48:18
Speaker 1: York for twenty years. And this is an incredible city.
48:22
Speaker 1: I've said it before, but I one of the things
48:25
Speaker 1: that I love about it is hearing five different accents
48:29
Speaker 1: on the way to get a cup of coffee, you know,
48:31
Speaker 1: and then when you add the galleries, and you know,
48:35
Speaker 1: this is a fantastic city. And I wish I'd have
48:38
Speaker 1: been here for many years, but I have been here
48:40
Speaker 1: for at least eight now. Amazing, amazing and beautiful that
48:44
Speaker 1: you got to meet your partner after all these years,
48:47
Speaker 1: and after being in an unhappy situation for a long time,
48:51
Speaker 1: It's again a blessing. Don't forget the opening line of
48:55
Speaker 1: my album, I used to think that I could never
48:58
Speaker 1: love again, but I did. I found it again. Don't
49:03
Speaker 1: screw it up. I'm trying my best. I really, I
49:07
Speaker 1: mean I am trying my best. I mean living with
49:09
Speaker 1: some with another person is difficult. It's full of compromises.
49:14
Speaker 1: But I'm learning every day and she's teaching me everything
49:18
Speaker 1: that I thought I knew. Beautiful, congratulations, Thank you, can't
49:22
Speaker 1: wait for the new album. Thank you so much for
49:24
Speaker 1: doing this. I loved talking to you, love seeing you,
49:27
Speaker 1: and can't wait till we get to hug in person.
49:30
Speaker 1: Thank you, Rich, thank you, You're welcome kid. Thanks again
49:36
Speaker 1: to Graham Nash for sharing stories from his magical life
49:39
Speaker 1: with us. His new album Now is out in May.
49:43
Speaker 1: In the meantime, you can hear all of our favorite Crosby,
49:45
Speaker 1: Stills and Nash and sometimes Why songs at Broken Record
49:49
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel
49:53
Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast. We can
49:56
Speaker 1: find all of our new episodes. You can follow us
49:59
Speaker 1: on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with
50:03
Speaker 1: help from me A Rose, Jason Gambrell, Ben Taliday, and
50:06
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler. Our editor is so Ukraine. Broken Record is
50:11
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show
50:13
Speaker 1: and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin
50:18
Speaker 1: Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and
50:21
Speaker 1: uninterrupted actually listening for four ninety nine a month. Look
50:25
Speaker 1: for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you
50:28
Speaker 1: like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review
50:31
Speaker 1: us on your podcast. A theme musics by Kenny Beats.
50:34
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond.