Graham Nash

While his British Invasion peers were ripping it up with raw blues riffs, singer/songwriter Graham Nash was sculpting gorgeous harmonies. He's continued to spin lovely hooks for decades to follow, even long after embracing folk music's heart-on-sleeve immediacy. Born in Blackpool, England, in 1942, Nash turned The Hollies into hitmakers during the heyday of psychedelia, but there was already emotional depth hiding beneath the band's placid surface. Nash sought a more introspective path as the '70s loomed, moving to Los Angeles and teaming with fellow counterculture innovators David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. Nash often played the supergroup's voice of romantic vulnerability as psych-rock wildness gave way to quiet rumination. Hymns to ever-fragile domestic bliss, like “Our House”, would define Nash for many listeners. But he also penned rocking political anthems like “Military Madness” and “Chicago” with an edge to match a tumultuous era—while at the same time lending his gentle whimsy to the band's sing-along radio smashes like “Marrakesh Express” and “Teach Your Children”. And even at his most personal, there is often still a hint of candied pop in Nash's singing—a lingering echo of the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and the other lush '50s balladeers he loves.