Another legend of Laurel Canyon has partnered with Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group. Joining his Crosby, Stills & Nash bandmates on Team IAG is Graham Nash in a wide-ranging deal that aims to bolster the influential singer-songwriter’s musical legacy for future generations.
Under the agreement, Iconic has purchased a controlling interest in Nash’s music intellectual property assets, including his interest in his sound recordings and compositions, as well as his name, image and likeness. The prized assets include his work with a few bands you may have heard of: The Hollies, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Also in the mix is Nash’s solo music and his work in the Crosby & Nash duo.
IAG declined to share financial details of the deal, or the size of their controlling interest in Nash’s rights.
Nash, 81, joins an elite roster of acts at IAG, which Azoff co-founded in January 2020: Cher, Dan Fogelberg, Linda Ronstadt, The Beach Boys, Joe Cocker, Nat “King” Cole, Dean Martin and of course Stills and Crosby, who died earlier this year.
“I am thrilled to welcome Graham Nash to the iconic family, which now represents the works of all three of Crosby, Stills, and Nash,” Azoff said. “Graham is not only an incredible talent and true gentleman but a longtime friend as well. Back when I struck out on my own and started my first management company, Graham visited my office and came up with the name, ‘Front Line Management.’”
Nash co-founded the Hollies in the early 1960s with his school mate Allan Clarke, and along with guitarist Tony Hicks is credited (Lennon-McCartney style) with penning many of the British invaders’ original songs, including “On a Carousel,” “Carrie Anne,” “Stop Stop Stop” and “King Midas in Reverse,” among others.
By 1968, Nash was feeling creatively stifled with the Hollies and moved to California where he formed a supergroup of sorts with Crosby (The Byrds) and Stills (Buffalo Springfield). The trio’s 1969 self-titled debut, with its sterling three-part harmonies, miraculously gelled despite having three distinctly different songwriters. Nash’s keystone contribution to the set was the rolling “Marrakesh Express,” written for the Hollies but rejected, which peaked at No. 28 on the Hot 100. For the band’s next album, 19070’s Déjà Vu with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Nash brought a pair of all-timers with “Teach Your Children” and “Our House,” the latter written about the home he shared with Joni Mitchell.
Through their various configurations, the band produced eight studio albums and five live albums.
Nash launched a solo career in 1971, starting with the critically acclaimed Songs for Beginners, which includes “Chicago” and “Military Madness,” and then a few years later with Weird Tales. His latest studio album, Now, his seventh overall, was released in May. Throughout the 1970s, he and Crosby paired their voices for a series of similarly acclaimed albums: Graham Nash David Crosby (1972), Wind on the Water (1975) and Whistling Down the Wire (1976). Nash wrote their lone Top 40 hit, the politically-charged “Immigration Man” off their debut. The pair teamed again in 2004 for their Crosby & Nash double album. Nash also reunited with the Hollies in the mid-1980s for an album, What Goes Around…
The two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (CSN in 1997 and The Hollies in 2010) said he looks forward to working with Azoff and his team on “various projects to further the legacy of CSN’s music and my own.”
