(Credits: Far Out / Marsha Miller / LBJ Library)
Sun 28 December 2025 20:00, UK
No one can be Elvis Presley. Mind you, plenty have had a go. Austin Butler and Jacob Elordi both took a crack at capturing The King’s essence, with mixed results. But truthfully, it’s a near-impossible task. He was one of a kind. That said, Graham Nash once compared a legendary singer to Elvis, and to be fair, the comparison actually makes a lot of sense.
Graham Nash has never been shy about his love for Buddy Holly. The trailblazing rock and roll singer from Texas left behind a massive legacy, despite losing his life in a plane crash at just 22. Mixing country, R&B and gospel, and known for those unmistakable specs, Holly became a real icon – someone the greats themselves looked up to. Among his biggest admirers? Two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Nash.
Speaking with Music Radar in 2012, Nash explained exactly why he believed Nash to be such a special figurehead. It’s simple, really: “Buddy Holly was one of us. […] a fucking nerd with glasses.”
Interestingly, this marked the first time Nash would talk about the star in comparison to Presley, but he first positioned them on either end of an important spectrum: “He wasn’t Elvis Presley, he wasn’t James Dean, he didn’t have slicked-back hair, he didn’t swivel his hips,” Nash continued of Holly.
Nash’s adoration for Holly goes so far that it almost wanders into the realm of the supernatural. In the same interview, Nash gushed that he “sang with” Holly, though he was referring only to a posthumous recording of Holly’s famous song, Peggy Sue Got Married. Let’s set the scene: Holly originally recorded the iconic tune on his acoustic guitar in the comfy confines of his New York City apartment, nothing but his fingers, his voice, and a small Grundig tape recorder bearing witness to history.
This should have been a moment locked away forever, but Nash was allowed to revel in it when his movie-star friend, Francis Ford Coppola, shared that he’d gotten permission to use the song for his movie of the same name. This sparked an idea in the mind of the superfan: “I said, ‘Why don’t we put the two-track to a multi-track. We’ll get Paul on bass, Phil Collins on drums, George on guitar, and we’ll make a track out of the original?’”
It was a strong idea, but it never really went anywhere. The economic success of the endeavour wasn’t at the top of Nash’s priority list. Rather, the artist would forever be changed by the fact that he had been afforded the honour to create the tribute record, titled ‘Not Fade Away’, which he ended up recording with the rest of The Hollies. To describe the occasion, Nash grappled with the biggest of ideas, like Shakespeare using ekphrasis as a form of evocative, emotive rumination: he deemed it “Unbelievable,” before adding, “It would be like singing with Elvis. You know, I’m still a fan.”
The comparison is pertinent, given that both stars met in Texas in 1955, after which Holly opened for Presley. Despite their different styles, there’s only a handful of stars who still shine as bright as the rock and roll pioneers. Graham Nash could even be up there with them.
Related Topics