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Staff Picks - Part 2: Graham Nash in Salford
by Tom Rodgers
Here we review some of the best features of 2011 starting with our staff picks. As a music fan with no particular skills of my own, this is my favourite - an exclusive piece of music history settled with Graham Nash. In October the music legend - he of The Hollies and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fame - returned to his native Salford from Hawaii to pick up an honorary degree at Salford University. Graham has received an OBE for his work with music and charity and personally we believe he should be given the Freedom of Salford. Graham revealed that despite the honorary degree being conferred upon him, education was never his first love. He studied engineering at night school but his heart was in music. “Instead of doing school work I was drawing guitars, stage sets and practising my autograph,” he said. He exclaimed: "The things you do to pull yourself towards your dreams!" Amazingly, Graham was able to settle a long-standing argument in music history for SalfordOnline: music sites (and Wikipedia) often quote that Graham Nash first sang with Stephen Stills and Dave Crosby at Cass Elliot's [Mama Cass - from The Mamas and The Papas] house in Hollywood on the Stephen Stills song, You Don't Have To Cry. He kindly signed an autograph for a friend of ours which reads: "It was at Joni Mitchell's house that CSN [Crosby, Stills and Nash] first sang together". A musical scoop for SalfordOnline! Graham Nash grew up in Skinner Street, Ordsall and attended Ordsall Board school then Salford Grammar school. He freely admitted to us that his heart was in music and not studying for a career, and saw it as a way to meet girls. Nothing like being honest, I suppose. His life with the Hollies and Salford friend Alan Clarke is well documented, as is his career with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. What is probably not as well known is his love of photography which he inherited from his father. Graham has exhibited at the Richard Goodall Gallery in Manchester and many other prestigious galleries worldwide. His love of Salford shines through: he told us that he was astonished to read of Salford being a 'slum', he remembers differently saying that he had a ball to play with in the street, and that they were happy! Due to problems with spam only SalfordOnline members can now leave comments. Becoming a member of SalfordOnline only takes a minute, just hit the red Join Us button at the top right hand side of the page to create your Personal account. Got a news story? Need help with publicity for an event in Salford? Send it to newsdesk@salfordonline.com or call the SalfordOnline newsdesk on 0161 789 5377. |
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