(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sat 22 November 2025 15:00, UK
Whatever project it is he’s contributing to, the work of Graham Nash has always been heavily informed by gorgeous melodies with layers of vocal harmonies that are to die for.
His earliest ventures in the 1960s as the guitarist and occasional lead vocalist with The Hollies were characterised by the close connection between him and fellow vocalist Allan Clarke, and the duo were consistently able to produce some of the most gorgeous pop music throughout the decade.
Despite having written some incredible material, the group never managed to achieve any consistency in charting on the other side of the Atlantic, with there being a much stronger constant following in the UK than in the US.
However, Nash’s sudden departure at the end of the ‘60s and his subsequent move to America to join forces with Stephen Stills and David Crosby led him to even greater notoriety. Today, he’s far more recognised for the role he played in this supergroup, but that shouldn’t detract from his earlier efforts.
Even though The Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash are distinctly different projects, they’ve still got the hallmarks of Nash’s work coursing through them at their core, and a lot of this all stems from how he managed to inject his earliest influences into his own output.
Vocal harmonies aren’t just a staple of Nash’s work, but a common feature within all pop music from the 1950s and ‘60s, and so growing up, he would have been exposed to many masterful examples of how to employ them in a song. When it came to writing his own material, it was clear that he was trying to emulate his favourite artists from this period, and one group in particular stood out to him as being the finest example.
Speaking to Classic Rock in 2022 about the records that changed his life and influenced him the most, he took the opportunity to highlight the brilliance of The Everly Brothers and their third album, It’s Everly Time, which was released right at the start of the ‘60s when he and Clarke had just left school.
“My absolute favourite harmonies came from the Everly Brothers, Don and Phil,” he claimed before recalling an early memory of seeing and meeting the duo. “I first saw them in Manchester in 1960. Allan and I were determined to meet them, so we waited outside the Midland Hotel until 1:20am. We had missed the last bus home but did not care. We met them, blubbering to them about how Allan and I would someday love to be making records. The lads were very accommodating to us. I have a cassette of the Evs’ singing ‘So Sad’ with me adding my harmony live on stage. What a memory for me.”
Even though their popularity would decline shortly after this release, with trends in pop music beginning to shift away from the style they had operated within, what Nash managed to do with The Hollies was borrow certain elements from the Everly Brothers and turn them into something more culturally relevant for the ‘60s. Don and Phil may have never made their grand return to the spotlight, but their influence remains strong for Nash.
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