After five decades of music-making, Graham Nash's voice is hard to mistake: It's that light, airy tenor you hear in his work with The Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
As a kid, he honed that voice singing along to The Everly Brothers in his bedroom, filling in the notes above the duo's signature close harmonies. Years later, on a 1992 tour stop in Ohio, his dream of being the third Everly suddenly came true.
"The phone rings in my hotel room, and it was Phil Everly," Nash says. "I said, 'Phil, why are you calling me in Toledo, Ohio?' He said, 'You know the place that you and David and Stephen are going to play tomorrow? Well, we're there tonight. Do you want to come to the show?' "
Nash made it to the club in time for sound check, where he was met with another surprise: the Everlys wanted him to join them on a song. Nash suggested "So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)," one of his favorites — and insisted on reprising his exact childhood role.
"Phil said, 'I'll tell you what: I'll sing underneath Don, and you take my part, because I have the high part,' " Nash recalls. "I said, 'Phil, look who you're talking to! I learned to sing high because of you. Why don't you stay exactly where you are, and I will sing on top of both of you.' "
Nash told that story and others in a conversation with NPR's Scott Simon, on the occasion of Nash's first solo album in 14 years, This Path Tonight. Hear more at the audio link.
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