Songs for Beginners

Studio album by Graham Nash

Released

28 May 1971
23 September 2008 (CD+DVD)

Recorded

1970–1971
Wally Heiders Studio III, Los Angeles and Studio "C", San Francisco

Genre

Folk rock, country rock

Length

32:13

Graham Nash chronology

Songs for Beginners
(1971)

Wild Tales
(1973)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Allmusic	(CD+DVD)
Rolling Stone	(favorable)

Songs for Beginners is British singer-songwriter Graham Nash's debut solo album, released in May 1971, and one of four high-profile albums released by each partner of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the wake of their chart-topping Déjà Vu album of 1970. It peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart, and the single "Chicago" made it to No. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100. It has been certified a gold record by the RIAA.

Nash brought in an impressive group of guests to assist in the recording, including David Crosby, Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Dave Mason, David Lindley, Rita Coolidge, and Neil Young (under Neil's early 1970s pseudonym Joe Yankee). The making of this album directly followed his break-up with longtime girlfriend, Joni Mitchell. Many of the songs are about their time together. The album featured the traits that Nash had come to be known for: a good sense of pop song construction, expressions of emotional sincerity, and fervent political activism. The Top 40 track, "Chicago," concerned both the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the infamous trial of the Chicago Eight, articulating the outrage Nash felt concerning those proceedings. The topicality which suffuses the album would always remain central to Nash's work: of the quartet, he and Crosby most directly professed sentiments aligned with those common to the . This similarity undoubtedly formed part of the foundation for their long-standing partnership even outside the parent group.

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Wikipedia