{"id":26967,"date":"2024-03-16T05:30:01","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T09:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=26967"},"modified":"2024-02-01T09:10:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T14:10:33","slug":"take-five-early-graham-nash-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/16\/take-five-early-graham-nash-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Five: Early Graham Nash Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Though he\u2019s best known today as a revered solo artist (and former member of both Crosby Stills and Nash <em>and<\/em> Crosby Stills Nash and Young), Graham Nash found great success early in his career as a singer, guitarist and songwriter with the group he founded, The Hollies. During that period (1963-68) Nash and his band scored no less than 18 songs on the UK Top 40 singles chart. (The Hollies did well in the U.S. too, landing seven singles on the charts.)<\/p>\n<p>Nash\u2019s talents caught the attention of other artists as well; many would record songs he had written, sometimes enlisting him to play and\/or sing on the sessions as well as produce the recordings. Here are five comparatively unknown songs written or co-written by Graham Nash \u2013 whose second solo album <em>Wild Tales<\/em> was released 50 years ago this January \u2013 from the early years of his career before his celebrated Woodstock debut with CSN (and sometimes Y).<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Mirage \u2013 \u201cGo Away\u201d (1965)<\/strong><br \/>\nDee Murray (later to find fame as lead guitarist in the Elton John Band) fronted this pop group from Hertfordshire, just outside London. This bouncy pop tune was written and produced by one L. Ransford, a pseudonym for the team of Hollies members Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks and Graham Nash. Nash reputedly appears on the track as well. The Mirage found little commercial success in their four years together, though a cover of The Beatles\u2019 \u201cTomorrow Never Knows\u201d is a tasty slice of freakbeat.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eoPHJJ8QWII?si=Uvi5ZigxrDE2lxVd\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Matadorerne \u2013 \u201cLittle Lover\u201d (1965)<\/strong><br \/>\nReleasing records only in Denmark, homegrown rock group Matadorerne debuted in 1964 and put out nine singles and three albums by the end of 1967. The b-side of \u201cI Love Spring,\u201d their fourth single, was this song composed by Nash and Clarke; the tune had first appeared as a Hollies album track on 1964\u2019s <em>Stay with the Hollies<\/em> (released in the U.S. as <em>Here I Go Again<\/em>). The song would also be recorded and released that same year by a New Zealand band calling itself The Byrds (no relation to the U.S. group).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pRcRxFWjWwA?si=iErJegyI2V_l_fNX\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Everly Brothers \u2013 \u201cSo Lonely\u201d from <em>Two Yanks in England<\/em> (1966)<\/strong><br \/>\nAmerican hit making duo of brothers Phil and Don Everly traveled to London to record parts of their late 1966 LP. Eight of the ten songs on that album \u2013 including this one \u2013 were composed by \u201cRansford.\u201d As it happened, The Hollies had released (or would subsequently release) their own versions of every single one of those eight tunes, mostly as single b-sides or album tracks. Along with band mate Bernie Calvert, Hicks and Nash provided instrumentation on the album; those sessions also featured \u2013 as did countless UK sessions of the era \u2013 future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. (Reg Dwight \u2013 later known as Elton John \u2013 is rumored to have contributed as well.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NQMoq6p6akc?si=TjWDSs1_CGNNzF-7\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Searchers \u2013 \u201cHave You Ever Loved Somebody\u201d (1966)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe \u201cRansford\u201d songs on that Everlys record caught the attention of other artists as well; \u201cHave You Ever Loved Somebody\u201d would be cut yet again by Liverpool pop group The Searchers. It wouldn&#8217;t appear on any of their \u201860s LPs, but was released as a single near the end of their initial run. The jangling single was a minor hit in the UK, but the song\u2019s popularity (it was also released at the same time by yet another act, Paul and Barry Ryan), likely spoiled The Searchers\u2019 chance at bigger success with their recording.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UZiz3wU6VTo?si=CJTLcU8tXGBpIroJ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Sunshines \u2013 \u201cO Neg\u00f3cio \u00c9 N\u00e3o Dar Bola from <em>O \u00daltimo Trem<\/em> (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nNash\u2019s songwriting prowess impressed artists from non-English speaking countries as well. An aptly-named pop group from Brazil, The Sunshines released two LPs in 1966 and \u201867; their second and final release (translated as <em>The Last Train<\/em>) included a Portuguese-language reading of Nash\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s Wrong with the Way I Live.\u201d The track wasn\u2019t released as a single but featured on an album filled with covers of songs by English-language pop songwriters.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9tkJ1SZNvQ0?si=EO0pYmAhEmBbUqSd\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though he\u2019s best known today as a revered solo artist (and former member of both Crosby Stills and Nash and Crosby Stills Nash and Young), Graham Nash found great success [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4147],"class_list":["post-26967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-graham-nash","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26968,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26967\/revisions\/26968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}