Graham Nash, of the legendary 70s group, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, returns with the album “Now”, “the most personal I have ever made”

When you’ve been a popular music legend for over 60 years, you might be tempted by nostalgia and constantly rest on your laurels. But that’s not the case with Graham Nash. The singer-songwriter who started with the Hollies in 1962 and gave his letters of nobility to folk-rock within the trio Crosby, Stills & Nash, sometimes a quartet with Neil Young, publishes at 81 an album soberly titled Now – “Now”, released on May 19 by BMG. And in the piece that opens the record Right Nowthe singer wonders about his life while choosing to take full advantage of the present.

“Now that I understood who I was
When it’s all said and done, on the life I’ve led
I try to do my best to be the man that I know to be
I’ll try to take it easy going forward.”

From this introduction, Nash seems to open up by putting aside his modesty, but always with sincerity. “I think my new album is the most personal I’ve ever done” admits the one who knew the great hours of Woodstock and sang with many celebrities, from the Rolling Stones to Joni Mitchell, via David Gilmour. Several intimate texts run through the album, recounting heartbreaks such as love of mineor on the contrary declarations of love full of poetry through the triptych In a dream, follow your heart And When it comes to you.

A personal and universal album

Even if now opens with a sort of introspection, “at this point in my life, that’s something to say” he says, Nash does not forget the more universal themes that are dear to him. From the second song A better lifethe songwriter makes a wish for a “better life” for future generations. An ecological and humanist manifesto in line with his hippie values ​​that he has always advocated through his great successes such as Our House, Teach your children Or To the Last Whale… Critical Mass / Wind on the Water.

That he castigates liars of all stripes in gold idols or admits a loss of optimism in Stars and StripesGraham Nash keeps the faith in the fights necessary and calls for “stand up for what you believe in, what you love, what you want and what you need” in the positive and energetic Stand-up. The instrumental Theme from pastoral recalls his attachment to nature and to this land that he observes so “fragile” In It feels like home, where he still has hope for the future “thanks to love”.

And the one who was undoubtedly the most pop of the trio formed with David Crosby and Stephen Stills keeps his adolescent candor with the light Buddy’s Back. In this ballad that sounds very sixties, Nash expresses his love of rock’n’roll of the 50s through the music of Buddy Holly, who inspired the name of his first band The Hollies in 1962.

More than 60 years later, the folk-rock troubadour continues to write, compose and perform on stage. He will be at the Casino de Paris in September during a European tour, to present this album now. Apart from the public recording of 2022 where he performed his first two solo opuses Songs For Beginners And wild talesGraham Nash had not released a new album since This path tonight in 2016.

now was released on May 19 (BMG)

Graham Nash will be in concert on September 26 at the Casino de Paris