Graham Nash, Songs For Beginners (1971)

It was the song I Used To Be A King that really turned me onto this album – and it’s still my favourite track (if I had to name one). But what a record! And it sounds so good now, some 40 years on. Great players on it – and such brilliant songs. Graham Nash is one of those things you possibly (have to) grow into. He wasn’t my favourite of the CSN/Y guys but here there’s beautiful singing and such great songs. Chicago was the “hit” but I prefer almost everything else here over that. You listen to the near-epidemic of late-90s/early-00s bedsit troubadours, none of them came close to this. You could take the name off this and release it today as a new record from a 70s-referencing earnest folkie/pop singer/songwriter and people would be gushing like it was the next Michael Kiwanuka. I love this album. I had the CD many years ago – recently bought this LP. Have fallen back in love with it big time.  

Sample Track: Military Madness

The Vinyl Countdown is a document of every LP I listen to, brand new discoveries and old-old favourites; extremely pre-loved, previously abandoned or with the shrink-wrap having just been removed it’s all here at The Vinyl Countdown