Music review: Graham Nash – ‘This Path Tonight’
For his first solo release of new tracks in 14 years, Graham Nash pens a deeply personal set of reflective musings focused firmly on documenting a lifelong journey of self-discovery and character-molding experiences.
Reflective messages of love, loss and mortality are woven with great care and detail into the mus ical fabric of NashĢƵ intimate 10-song testimony.
The 74-year-old singer, songwriter, activist, photographer and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee with Crosby, Stills and Nash and the Hollies is still in fine voice as he gazes back into the mirror of his past while also pondering the new path patterned before him.
The new arrangements contained on his sixth solo effort come together from the fallout of a dissolved marriage, a heated feud with David Crosby and the renewed hope and passion of a new love.
The title track finds Nash unsure of where he is heading but determined to stay the course to the best of his abilities as he confesses, “I may not know just where I’m going/But I’m on this path tonight.”
“Myself at Last” follows as Nash wonders what legacy he’ll leave behind by asking, “And the day that breaks before me/May never be surpassed/And the question haunting me/Is my future just my past?”
On “Golden Days,” Nash fondly looks back at his early musical years when Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young) made music that defined a generation.
“I used to be in a band/Made up of my friends/We played across the land/When music had no end,” nostalgically sings Nash as he reminisces about the “olden” days with songs full of soul and hope and when broken days eventually evolved into golden days.
The BandĢƵ Levon Helm is the center of a heartfelt tribute on the earthy and fragile “Back Home” with Nash offering, “May the circle be unbroken as the band plays on.”
“Encore” brings a fateful finality to the album as Nash ponders what will happen when our journey nears its end by asking, “What you gonna do when the last show is over?”
Fortunately, Nash seems far from performing his final show as he follows a new path filled with endless possibilities.
Clint Rhodes is the ĢƵ music reviewer.
He can be reached at crhodes@heraldstandard .com.