by Graham Nash
Finally, in August, I went back to LA to visit Joni, which was the first time I sang with David and Stephen. And then I had to face the music with the Hollies
IT WAS HARD to hear what I heard that night and not start thinking about the future. There was no doubt in my mind that the Hollies and I were finished. They were my past. It was obvious that David and Stephen were my future. Not only were they writing great songs; they were great players, great singers, and they thought differently. On top of that, they recognized my talent.
Nothing concrete was discussed. There weren’t really any plans. Everything was kind of half-assed, up in the air. The Springfield had broken up. Neil had gotten a solo deal with Reprise Records; Richie Furay was making plans with Jimmy Messina to put Poco together. Stephen and David were just hanging out, writing and singing songs. They actually made demos of a few things—“Guinevere,” with Jack Casady on bass, “49 Reasons,” and Croz’s startling tribute to Bobby Kennedy, “Long Time Gone.” Los Angeles radio deejay B. Mitchell Reed played these demos on the air, referring to the two of them as “The Frozen Noses.” But that night at Joni’s gave everyone ideas. It was one of those moments when lights go on and everything begins to make sense. We had discovered something fantastic and were willing to let it speak for itself, to let it gestate a little. We knew we had to sing together in some way, but I was still with the Hollies. Even though I was unhappy, we had dates to do, records to make—but my heart wasn’t in it anymore.
On the way back to London, I tried working things out in my head. I didn’t have anything to keep me from cutting ties with the Hollies. There were no legal papers apart from our recording contract with EMI. Nothing internal with the boys themselves, other than a verbal agreement in which we shared songwriting credits and publishing equally. That was another bone of contention. Allan, Tony, and I had a long-standing deal that our names would all go on songs that we wrote, no matter how large or small the contribution. Credit where credit’s due. If you put two or three words in there—fine, we’ve written it together. But at some point that no longer made sense. “King Midas in Reverse” was a perfect example. Allan and Tony didn’t write any of it, but all three of us are credited on the record. That started to piss me off. I had several fine songs that the Hollies were reluctant to sing and I’d be damned if I’d share publishing with them. It was time to put things in order.
I made an appointment to see our publisher, Dick James. He was a character, an old music-hall soft-shoe guy who’d bullied his way into Tin Pan Alley. Everything about him was old school: navy-blue blazer with gold buttons, ascot at the neck, pompous schoolboy accent. In business, Dick had the reputation of being a first-class prick. John and Paul were less than thrilled with him because he had a standard fifty-fifty deal with them. That meant that every time a song of theirs got played or a record got sold, he put 50 percent of their publishing royalties in his pocket. It’s a terrible deal for songwriters, one notch above slavery. However, once artists got big enough they’d usually renegotiate the percentages down to something more equitable: say, 80 for them, 20 for the publisher, maybe less, depending on the artist. But not Dick, he wouldn’t budge, even with the Beatles. And he did the same thing later with Elton John. So I wasn’t expecting much when I went to see him because the Hollies had the same standard fifty-fifty deal.
But I’ll say this for Dick, he may have cracked the whip over his artists’ backside, but he was a man of his word. When we were in the throes of signing with him, and hesitated, he did a little grandstanding. “If there is ever a problem, just come and talk to me. We’ll work it out, and blah-blah-blah. Now sign right here.” His ability to sweet-talk us was one of the reasons we eventually signed. And I reminded him of that when I went back to see him.
Dick was shocked to hear that I was thinking of leaving the Hollies. He clearly thought I was another crazy kid on my way back to nowhere. Soon enough, I’d be working in the coal mines.
“No, I’ve found something else,” I assured him. “I’m probably going to America to sing with two men. Now, remember when I first signed with you? You said that if I was ever unhappy, we’d work it out.”
“Yes, I remember that,” he said.
“So, how are we going to work it out?”
“Like this,” he said. He picked up his phone, buzzed his secretary, and said, “Doris, bring in Graham Nash’s contract.” A few minutes later, the agreement landed on his desk. “So, you see your contract? This is what we’re going to do with it.” And Dick proceeded to rip it into shreds. “You’re free. Good luck to you, my boy.”
He didn’t try to talk me out of it or get a piece of my new music. He was a real mensch. I hate to think what that gesture cost him. I’ve made several million dollars from my post-Hollies publishing. But that wasn’t the point in 1968. It was only a step, a first step toward freeing up my obligations, but a step nonetheless in the right direction.
It was harder, however, to keep up pretenses with the Hollies. After our gigs, I would simply retreat, head back to a hotel room, and write songs. It was the only way I had of keeping my head together, reaching inside and expressing my emotions. In August, we were doing a residency at a nightclub in Leeds. At the Oulton Grove Motel, after one of the shows, I hit the trifecta. I had a chunk of hash that I was secretly smoking and wrote two songs that would take my writing to a different dimension: “Right Between the Eyes” and “Lady of the Island,” and the beginning of another, “Teach Your Children,” one right after the other.
“Right Between the Eyes” was about the wife of a friend of mine, a gorgeous White Russian woman I was attracted to from the moment we met. Beautiful women are hard for me to resist. We just fell for each other, simple as that. And during a period when she and her husband had separated, we ended up having a brief but torrid affair. I felt a little guilty, even though their relationship was over, so this song was kind of a confession. “And the pain that we could bring to him I don’t think I could beat / Please don’t ask me how I know, I’ve just been up that street.”
“Lady of the Island” was about two ladies: the woman from “Right Between the Eyes” and my wife, Rose, who’d moved to the island of Ibiza, in Spain. All the dreamy desires of my subconscious blended with the aching loss and I was inspired to write this heartfelt lyric.
Holding you close, undisturbed before a fire,
The pressure in my chest when you breathe in my ear;
We both knew this would happen when you first appeared,
My lady of the island.
The afterglow of those relationships left a deep-rooted impression on me, and I was caught up in memories that refused to let go. In my solitude, they haunted me. The images those lyrics create are forever etched in my soul. You can almost hear the effect the recollections are having on me. In any case, I thought both songs raised the bar on my writing abilities and I couldn’t wait to share them, although I wasn’t sure with whom—the Hollies or my new American friends.
As for “Teach Your Children,” the origin of the song came from my recent infatuation with art. I had begun collecting photographs around that time, powerful images that had an emotional effect on me. One, in particular, was a Diane Arbus image of a boy in Central Park. It spoke volumes to me. The kid was only about nine or ten years old, but his expression bristled with intense anger. He had a plastic hand grenade clenched in a fist, but it seemed to me that if it were real the kid would have thrown it. The consequences it implied startled me. I thought, “If we don’t start teaching our kids a better way of dealing with each other, humanity will never succeed.”
The song I wrote was slow and eerie, not at all like the recording that everyone is familiar with. The words and melody were pretty much intact, but the feel was all wrong. It was sluggish, too sluggish for the message I wanted to convey, so I put it aside until I could approach it with a fresh ear.
No matter; that night in Leeds was an artistic bonanza. Credit the mood or the hash or a combination of th
e two, but it was a blessing to get three great songs out of a sitting like that. Finally I was convinced I had songs the Hollies would love. Surely this would break through our differences. Certainly Allan would hear it right away. Maybe it would send us down a new and vital path.
Ah, no such luck. The Hollies weren’t interested in any of my new songs. Nothing was going to dissuade them from doing that album of Dylan covers. Crosby weighed in with valuable advice. He told me, “Those are pretty good songs you got there, Willy. You’ve got a nice wide palette. If someone listens to those songs and doesn’t appreciate the fact they’ve got a world-class writer in their midst, then the group is no longer seeing clearly.” He’d hit it right on the head. Seems as though I was at a complete loss with the band. That did it, I decided. We were through.
That September, we fulfilled some previously canceled shows, a short tour of Sweden, Finland, Holland, and Belgium. Then as soon as we got back, it was right into the studio, where we cut a new single, “Listen to Me,” but in my head, I’d already left the Hollies. Crosby and I kept in touch through the upheaval. He told me that he and Stephen were waiting to make music with me. In fact, Stephen had taken the demo they’d made to Ahmet Ertegun, the founder and president of Atlantic Records, and hyped him on the fantastic sound the three of us had come up with. Ahmet loved Stephen’s ass. Ever since the Springfield disbanded, they’d talked about doing something else together. I could tell Crosby was getting impatient—and nervous. No matter what I told him, he and Stephen had little faith that I’d ever leave the Hollies. They figured that my loyalty to and friendship with Allan would go a long way toward mucking things up.
“Hey, man, we don’t want to wait any longer,” Croz told me during a phone call at the end of October. They wanted to gauge my seriousness about putting something together with them. “Stephen and I are gonna come over to England as soon as we raise some cash.” Almost as soon as those words were out of his mouth, Stills walked into the room, pulled out his wallet, and fanned fifty one-hundred-dollar bills in front of Crosby’s eyes. “There should be enough for some airfare here,” he said, chucking the bills into the air like confetti. Ahmet had come across with a little seed money. David and Stephen decided to strike while the iron was hot. The next day, November 1, 1968, they were on a plane to London.
They came prepared and with plenty of artillery. They had guitars and enough money to rent a flat on Moscow Road with a little upstairs studio in it. I moved right in with them for three weeks. We went to local stores and stocked our refrigerator, we had ladies come by, plenty of dope. And we sang our asses off. It was a musical riot. Each of us came loaded with songs. David had “Guinevere,” “Long Time Gone,” “Almost Cut My Hair,” and “Wooden Ships.” Stephen brought “You Don’t Have to Cry,” “As I Come of Age,” “Helplessly Hoping,” “49 Reasons,” “My Love Is a Gentle Thing,” and fragments of a song he was working on about his relationship with Judy Collins. And I had “Marrakesh Express,” “Lady of the Island,” “King Midas in Reverse,” “Right Between the Eyes,” and some of “Teach Your Children.” Not a bad lot to start with—the songs, I mean, although I could say the same about the guys.
The three of us fell in love all over again. Our voices blended gorgeously on every song. It was as if they knew exactly where to go without having to be told. We didn’t have to break things down, work out harmonies or individual parts. We found the groove the moment we opened our mouths and those songs evolved organically, just like that.
We established a democracy early on that featured a reality rule: If I play you a song and you don’t react to it, you’ll never hear that song again; if you go, “Fuckin’ cool!” then I’ve got you. Simple as that. That meant we’d only do songs that the three of us really loved, and that was a good basis to start from. There were other rules, too, silly ones and send-ups. Of course, we were so high on hash half the time that I barely remember the specifics. It was a wild three or four weeks. We just didn’t want to stop singing, hearing that incredible sound. At some point, Rolling Stone asked Crosby to describe it for them. His answer paraphrased Jackson Pollock but was typical Croz: “There’s a whole bunch of it that just don’t make it with words—it’s like trying to describe fucking.”
We knew what we wanted: a record deal with a company that left us completely alone so there was no outside bullshit, no one who tried to mess with our sound. Sure Ahmet put up dough to get us moving, but that didn’t buy him a free pass. In fact, we really had our hearts set on Apple Records. It was a happening label. They had James Taylor, Jackie Lomax, Delaney & Bonnie, Billy Preston, the Iveys (who later became Badfinger), and Mary Hopkins. And, oh yeah, I almost forgot—they were the Beatles, no small fact. In the midst of our rehearsing, they’d put out The White Album, and when we heard “Blackbird” we jumped all over it with three-part harmony. It’s one of those tunes we’ve sung steadily over the years.
One day in early December, George Harrison and Peter Asher (then the head of A&R for the label) came by Moscow Road to hear what we were up to. By that time, we had nearly an album’s worth of material and ran down everything we knew on a couple of acoustic guitars. We really nailed it, we were on our game that afternoon. The music, sung in its entirety, sounded glorious. To say nothing of which, we had created a new sound. I could see on their faces the effect that we had. Or so I thought. A few days later we got a formal reply: “Not for us.” Turns out they just didn’t hear it at all. As a matter of fact, the same thing happened sometime later, when we played it for Simon and Garfunkel at Paul’s apartment in New York. We thought, “They understand this kind of sound. They’re going to love it.” But they didn’t love it, which was shocking at the time.
Hey, have it your way.
No matter, I knew we had something incredibly special and I was more than ready to make it official: The Hollies and I were parting company. Unfortunately, I handled it badly. I didn’t have the balls to tell Allan or the other guys. They were my mates; I’d grown up with them. I’d been joined at the hip with Allan for most of my life. We’d been best friends since we were six and we relied on that friendship. Both of us assumed we’d be involved with each other for the rest of our lives. So I knew how he’d take it. He’d be hurt, completely pissed, especially since I was moving on and, in effect, leaving him behind. So instead of settling things man-to-man with Clarkie, I turned chickenshit and just told Ron Richards. The Hollies got the news from him and the music press.
Obviously, things were a little, shall we say, awkward, but I agreed to finish my obligations with the Hollies, which amounted to a final charity gig, the Save Rave for the Invalid Children’s Aid Association at the London Palladium on December 8, 1968. The band still didn’t believe I was splitting from them. It didn’t seem real—that is, until Crosby showed up in our dressing room backstage. His presence made for a pretty tense scene. He was in his fuck-you dark green leather cape, Borsalino hat, twirling a cane like Bat Masterson, joints in his pocket. And there was that loaded Crosby swagger you couldn’t avoid. I can only imagine the effect it had on the other guys. Tony Hicks says he knew at that moment it was over between us. Allan … I’m not so sure. He took it really hard.
I didn’t stick around to soothe frayed nerves. Two days later, I was on a plane to Los Angeles. I was twenty-six years old and came with basically nothing, just my guitar, a small suitcase, and a few of my favorite things: an albino turtle shell and a mirror in the shape of a jester that I’d found on the King’s Road. I had no money to speak of. My financial people didn’t want me to be taxed by two governments, so for a few months I couldn’t touch my bank account. Crosby told me not to worry about a thing. “What do you need?” he asked me when I arrived at his house. I didn’t know. I had no idea what it cost to live in the States. He said, “Let me lend you a little dough just to tide you over,” and he wrote me a check for $80,000.
Ostensibly, I was going to crash with Croz. He’d moved into a house on Crater Lane in Beverly Glen. When
I arrived there just off the plane, a party was in full swing: Who knows, maybe it was an ongoing affair. Beautiful young women all over the place, some clothed, some not so clothed. Plenty of weed. Music pulsing through the place. I was in hippie heaven. After ten years of playing with a stick-straight band, I wind up in the middle of this blissed-out mayhem. It was insane, and I loved every minute of it. Too bad I couldn’t relax and enjoy it. I wasn’t feeling that well. I had jet lag and a nagging cold. Suddenly, like in an acid flash, Joni Mitchell appeared. Taking me by the arm, she said, “Come to my house and I’ll take care of you.”
America! What a country this was!
I MOVED INTO Joni’s and somehow never made my way back to David’s. Do I have to explain this? No, I didn’t think so.
She had a great little place, a quaint one-bedroom wooden cottage nearly as small as my Salford home but so incredibly charming. It was built in the 1930s by a black jazz musician, lots of knotty pine, creaky wooden floors, warped window sashes, mismatched carpentry. Crosby had brought Joan to Los Angeles to record a year and a half earlier, and she found the house, which cost about $40,000. She was not a rich girl at that point, so Joan used her artistic sensibility to dress that place in her inimitable style. She could transform a shack and make it look chic and gracious. The living room felt like a safe, snug refuge, welcoming, toasty, warmed by sunlight. There was some great furniture mixed with Craftsman pieces, a couple of cabinets full of beautifully colored glass objects, a stunning Tiffany lamp, Joan’s artwork leaning discreetly here and there. Against a wall beneath the ripple-paned windows were bookshelves with little vases and knickknacks, a wooden pig from a carousel. And, of course, a piano. Around the corner, a useless, simple kitchen. Joan wasn’t much of a cook. Soup and salad and that was it.