Graham Nash will play a series of special shows in September that will feature complete performances of his 1971 debut solo LP Songs For Beginners and the 1974 follow-up Wild Tales. “People have been suggesting I do this it a long time,” Nash tells Rolling Stone. “But it was pressure from my wife that finally convinced me. She loves those two albums and she wanted to hear them, so I’m going to do them.”
Nash is on the road in America now with a show that mixes in songs from his whole career. Only guitarist Shane Fontayne and keyboardist/singer Todd Caldwell accompany him currently, but he plans on assembling a much larger band for these shows that will include a drummer, bassist, backup singers and a pedal steel player. The show will begin with Songs For Beginners followed by Wild Tales after a brief intermission.
Songs For Beginners contains many of his most enduring solo songs, including “Military Madness,” I Used to Be a King” and “Chicago.” The album reached Number 15 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, but Wild Tales didn’t generate any hits and stalled at Number 34. “It was actually shit on by Atlantic,” says Nash. “They never put any energy into promoting it.”
He hasn’t played some of these songs in decades, so in recent weeks he’s gone over some of the more obscure ones with Fontayne and Caldwell between gigs. “We are going through song choruses and getting three-part harmonies down,” he says. “We want to make sure we’re comfortable with the songs before we start rehearsing.”
As of now, Nash only has plans to play them at four shows on the East Coast. But he says if they go well, he might add more. “We’re kind of testing the waters here,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of enthusiastic responses from the web about it, so we’ll see.”
Graham Nash’s Songs For Beginners and Wild Tales Tour
September 26th – South Orange, NJ @ South Orange Performing Arts Center
September 27th – New York, NY @ Town Hall Theatre
September 28th – Albany, NY @ The Egg
September 29th – Boston, MA @ Berklee Performance Center