Wild Tales by Graham Nash

Graham Nash is most famous for his part in the musical giants Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. However he had a rather famous prequel as a member of the British group The Hollies who had a stream of hits both before and after his tenure... the Hollies minus Nash are still playing on a very regular basis, in fact I think they are due down here anytime soon.
Nash details his early life particularly well and invokes that period of time with a vivid brush stroke, its interesting, its exciting and what will happen next... well we know whats coming but there is an innocence that is rather engaging and the people and places of this time are rather interesting, some more than others. It isn`t all lollipops and roses however, there is alot of hard work and the start of that dissipated lifestyle that takes off like a rocket when Nash leaves the Hollies for greener pastures in America.

The Crosby,Stills, Nash and Young period is marked by excessive drug use, infighting and petulance of a type mostly seen in two year olds, makeups and breakups are a regular occurrence and the fact that they are making supposedly life changing music can`t allow the various players to see the bigger picture, its all too hard..... A lot of the book is devoted to the recounting of drug usage especially David Crosby`s well documented battles and Neil Young's somewhat disengaged personality, far too much type is given to dehumanising descriptions of interactions with surrounding females, this is a characteristic of most books in the Rock Star genre but it was tacky here.

Joni Mitchell`s cameo leaves you wondering weather the relationship difficulties were a case of a lesser talent attaching himself to a far greater one and her ending up frustrated muchly, there is a wonderful recounting of a voyage on Crosby`s yacht which will have you wanting to hoist sail immediately but all in all this was a rather dull book by a rather dull man with very little in the way of a personality. The Hollies were much better than his later gigs and so frankly when it came to harmonies were the Eagles!