Graham Nash: A Man and His Music Go Multi-Media
Some people
are thinkers, others are doers. Graham Nash has always been part of the latter
group. From his early days in The Hollies to the hey-day of Crosby, Stills and
Nash up through the present, Nash has always remained focused on whatever he
sets his mind to. As Nash has always maintained, it is quite possible to change
the world──as long as you have the information available on how to go
about doing it. As a parent, Nash has grown more deeply concerned with the
issues facing children coming of age today’s society than probably any other
socio-political movement he’s been involved with. Grappling with the challenge of
how to best address the matter, Nash is putting the finishing touches on what
he hopes will not only be one man’s solution, but also a revolutionary form of
entertainment designed for everyone to enjoy.
LifeSighs,
as the new entertainment form is dubbed, is the combined brainstorm of Nash and
the technical wizardry of digital designer Rand Wetherwax (with technology
supplied by Silicon Graphics, Inc.) wherein the audience will experience a “one-man,
musically-driven, multi-media theatrical production,” designed as much for
their empowerment as for their entertainment. In a nutshell, by guiding the
audience on a historical journey through his own life, Nash hopes to be able to
both educate and inspire others to take action on issues that affect their
lives.
The genesis
of LifeSighs goes back to the mid-‘80s, when Nash was doing some college
speaking engagements. “I just saw the original notes on the speech that I gave
at four colleges in 1986, the first one being Kent State, which was very
interesting,” Nash explained. “The colleges had asked me to speak. I accepted
the gigs and then panicked. I had no idea what they wanted me to talk about.
You know, give me a guitar , I’ve got you for at least a couple of hours, but
the thought of speaking was kind of terrifying. They said, ‘We just wanna know
about you, about your early beginnings with The Hollies, coming across to
America, David, Stephen, Woodstock, Kent State, the environmental movement, the
No Nukes movement, and all that.’ So, I put together this outline and gave
these speeches including a half-hour question-and-answer session, and it was
absolutely fabulous. After a while, I began to realize that if the kids could
see what I was talking about──no matter where I went or how deep
into it──then this would be a new form of
entertainment.”
“In the late ‘80s,” Nash continued, “I
met Rand Wetherwax, who seemed to be the kind of person who would be able to translate
what I wanted into the computer world. So, when he heard what I wanted to do,
he told me it was possible but that the technology was still six months to a
year away. It’s been since 1988 that we’ve been working on this.”
As one might imagine, rehearsals for an undertaking such as
this would bear little resemblance to standard tour preparation, although
practice remains a key component. “What we’re doing is rehearsing each segment
and at the same time trying to make the segments flow seamlessly together,”
Nash said. “We’re accessing massive amounts of data from my life in real time.
We’ve created this database that’s kind of like a time tunnel of my life from
the day I was born to the night of the show in whatever city I’m in. All of it
is accessible to me in past, present, and future (tense), in great depth. If I
want to talk about Kent State for two minutes one night and 10 minutes the next,
I’ve got at least 20 minutes of information on that subject in the database. I don’t
know where I’m going to be going and that’s kind of the thrilling part, it’s a
voyage of discovery on my part also.”
Accompanying Nash on his voyage will be CyberGraham, a
20-foot-tall three-dimensional digital puppet that Nash refers to as “my
conscience, my jester, and (someone to) keep me honest throughout the show. He’s
the only thing in the show that’s not at my control. There’s a voice actor
backstage and the puppet’s mouth is lip-synced to the words coming out of the
mouth of the operator. When you see it 20 feet high talking to me in real time,
it’s pretty impressive.”
How does one go about creating a digital alter-ego? “About three
or four years ago, as part of the process of putting this together, I went to
Silicon Graphics and had my head scanned,” Nash explained. “I sat there and had
this 360-degree scanner whiz ‘round my head a few thousand times, creating
digital information of my face, which was eventually transformed into a
three-dimensional moving puppet.”
Music will play an integral part in the production, to be
sure, with Nash’s extensive catalog providing the material. There will be plenty
of chestnuts (“Military Madness,” “Chicago,” “Cathedral,” “Wind On The Water”)
and newer songs like “Unequal Love” and “Liar’s Nightmare.” For the final song,
Nash plans to video interview a random selection of audience members prior to
each concert, asking them about their dreams. The resultant video montage will be
included in the performance of “Find a Dream” Needless to say, the tour will be
a series of unique events in which the audience will have a direct impact upon
the nature of each show.
Nash is planning on hitting the road soon, although the exact
tour dates and venues are still being worked out. “Because the technology is
being driven by our needs,” he said, “it’s slower to plan out than usual. I
know that I’m going out this fall, it’ll be a 30-city tour. Right now, we’re
looking at 800 to 2,000 seat theaters or college venues, something small and
intimate.”
Commenting on the ground-breaking nature of LifeSighs, Nash
is very matter of fact. “It’s certainly very different and very unknown, and I don’t
believe anyone has attempted this at all. People have worked with parts of
this, but nobody has done what I’m trying to do.”
Graham Nash retains all of the enthusiasm of a young boy when
talking about this latest project of his. You can be sure that by the time he
takes LifeSighs on the road, it will be the embodiment of all the creativity
and energy that has come to define an artist who has, in his own way, managed
to change the world.
© Roy Abrams 2021
Originally published in The Music Paper, September
1995
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