Graham Nash live interview on CNN: ShowBiz Today, 1/28/99

[Video collage plays with the following voice-over]:
Gongs and guitars. Drum kits and clarinets. If it's makes music, it's probably here at the NAMM show in Los Angeles. This international music market gives musicians the chance to sample everything from traditional instruments to new and noteworthy high tech products. DJ's can take a digital approach to their grooves. And guitarists can now play both bass and guitar parts on the same instrument at the same time. Over the course of four days NAMM expects more than 65,000 people to come to play and peruse.
[Larry Linkin, President/CEO NAMM]: "Fortunately a lot of our exhibitors have some star types that come and everyone likes to see them 'cause they're generally really nice folks and they play very, very well."
[End video collage]

Jim Moret (live): Now the NAMM show runs through January 31st -- but if you're not in the trade, don't even bother coming down. But we want you to stick around because one of the music greats that we talked about - Graham Nash - will be here. He'll talk to us live, but first let's go back to New York...

[snip...]

[Jim Moret with Graham Nash, live]

Jim Moret: The interesting thing about the NAMM convention is it reduces "pro's" to kids as if they're in a candy store. Graham Nash.........

Graham Nash: Oh, that's right! You got that. (laughing)

JM: Graham, you've been - you've been in music - we've been talking - for, I don't want to say, for 40 years.........

GN: ...40 years, yes, I'm afraid so.

JM: .....and, when you started playing, you know, you play an instrument - you look at a guitar, just a wooden guitar - you are just - marveled - you marvel at the innovations and the electronics.....

GN: I - I just love new technology. You know, basically, you still have to start with a great song. But there's such an interesting technology being developed. Like, over at Trans Performance - they have, I have a Les Paul [guitar] with 350 tunings in it.

JM: Meaning, that instead of changing.....

GN: Instead of changing the peg-heads, [garbled], it's a computer inside. Unbelievable stuff! I mean, Martin Guitars has now brought out, you know on the more traditional level, the Stephen Stills model of Martin guitar. It's beautiful! I just went and saw it. I bought one immediately.

JM: Now, talking about music. You're known obviously for your work with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Neil Young......

GN: Yes.

JM: You've been in the studio. Tell us what's happening.

GN: Um....David and Stephen and I have been in the studio for about 6 months. And in the last 10 days Neil came down and we've been, uh, making a lot of music. He's on about 8 tracks right now. I'm taking it a song at a time - - a track at a time.

JM: So, you expect, there will be an album out. This is news.

GN: It is news.....I don't know. You know, I -- I've long since learned not to project and not to anticipate, you know. But it sounds great, and Neil's very happy and we're very happy, and it looks good.

JM: When you laid down these new tracks, is the old magic still there?

GN: I think it is. I don't think any of us are interested in, uh, inferior stuff. And I think the only way that you can keep your passion -- which is what you'll see around here from people who make picks to the most fantastic instrument -- it's the, the center, it's that passion to make music. And it's still there in the studio and we're still enjoying it.

JM: You're not trying to re-capture the past, you're moving forward. How is this music different?

GN: Um... it's, it's very varied this time. It's more varied than I ever thought it would be. There's Cajun music in there, there's country music in there, there's English kind of soft ballads from me, you know, there's Neil's hard edge. Um....we're looking at the tracks and listening to it and looking at each other and going, "This is pretty cool!"

JM: So, so you - you give guys like me hope, because I'm 42 and you said you're 57. And you're just now making a new record.

GN: Yes.

JM: So there's still hope for me!

GN: Absolutely, absolutely.

Rolf

Promoter Floats CSN&Y Tour
By STEVE HOCHMAN

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band may have company on the reunion circuit this summer. A proposal has been made for a tour putting Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on the road--which would mark Neil Young's first tour with his erstwhile folk-rock supergroup mates since 1974. Promoter Michael Cohl is said to have made an offer guaranteeing the foursome more than $500,000 per show, about double the standard fee for a name act at the arena level.

Gerry Tolman, manager of Crosby, Stills & Nash, says that Young -- whose on-again, off-again partnership with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash began shortly after the release of the trio's 1969 debut album -- will be guesting on a couple of songs on an upcoming CSN album, but "beyond that we have made no other plans." Young's management declined to comment on the reports.

Still, word of the proposal is spreading among promoters, who haven't forgotten the reunion successes in recent years of the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac.

"I think it would do phenomenal business," says John Sher, president of New York-based Metropolitan Entertainment. "We have a baby boomer generation that never stopped going to concerts--they might not go as often as they used to, but they go. That was proven by the wildly successful Fleetwood Mac tour. When you bring something back in its original form, they want to see it, plus it's an opportunity for a younger generation to see something they've heard about."

Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of concert business monthly Pollstar, says he doubts that CSN&Y would be as big as the Mac's tour, which averaged more than $900,000 per show and was 1997's third-biggest tour, behind the Rolling Stones' and U2's stadium ventures.

"It's hard to judge because there's been a Crosby, Stills & Nash out in the marketplace regularly through the years," he says. "But it could be a very solid amphitheater show."

There had previously been talk of a CSN 30th anniversary tour in 1999 that would have touched on the group's roots by bringing along Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn, who were in the Byrds with Crosby, and perhaps Alan Clarke, who was with Nash in the Hollies. Though it's not clear whether a tour including Young would still feature the other pre-CSN colleagues, he and Stills would be a tie to their previous band, Buffalo Springfield.

Young remains the wild card. He's been historically reluctant to re-form CSN&Y, having only teamed for occasional shows and for a 1988 album, American Dream. Young is planning his own solo acoustic tour for the spring.

From: The Lee-Shore mailing list
Date: Mon, February 1, 12:20:54
Posted by: David Crosby

  OK .....it's out so I can talk about it .......
  CSNY is in the studio and will be going on
  tour ........the music is really wonderful and
  we are having a great time with each other....
  ...so goood to play and sing with Neil again...
  ...more news soon

From: kokos@bc.edu
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 01:52:35 -0500

  Well, Graham Nash spilled the beans on Tom Snyder
  tonight.  While trying to pitch the soundtrack of
  The 60s (a made for TV movie) a Bob from Ontario
  made a reference to CSN and sometimes Y.  Me and
  my buddies while rolling a cannon begged of a little revelation
  about the rumors posted on the CPR site.

  Well, Graham talked not only about what a great career Neil has
  had over the years, but also confirmed that CSN&Y are
  currently recording a new record and that they are going to
  announce a 40 date tour soon.  As a younger aged Rustie,
  I can't wait to see Neil and Stephen Stills jammin' on stage.  

  Casey the Killer

Date: February 5, 1999

Elliot Roberts confirms CSNY Album and tour!

See SonicNet article.