“You try doing this at 82 years old,” legendary musician Graham Nash said before taking an intermission on his first of three recent nights at The Barns at Wolf at Trap. For 82 years old, and for someone who’s lived a lifetime in rock ‘n roll, Nash is in amazing shape, and he was full of energy in his performance. It was a magical evening that spanned decades of beloved songs.

A multiple inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with British Invasion group the Hollies and supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash, Graham has been a fixture in popular music for more than six decades. His songs were omnipresent in the ’60s and ’70s, and he was there for cultural watersheds like Woodstock. One could write a fairly broad history of popular music following the courses of his career and his relationships with musical partners and lovers.

It’s not so surprising to me that, of the three members of CSN, Nash is the one still healthy and performing. David Crosby’s addictions were infamous. While his many “incredible musical partners in my life,” Graham said, there was “none better than Stephen Stills,” the man had his own issues and demons — he’s spoken publicly about being on the autism spectrum. The vibe one picks up from Graham, at least when he’s onstage, is that he’s very even-keeled.

On Oct. 23 at Wolf Trap, Nash sounded fantastic throughout an evening of amazing songs, beginning with “Wasted on the Way.” “Marrakesh Express,” he said, was based on a train trip he took in 1966, while he was still in the Hollies, from Casablanca to the titular city, where he  shared a compartment with two diminutive American women with blue hair. Before playing “Military Madness,” the lead track from his solo debut, Songs For Beginners, he said was feeling more hopeful “since Biden dropped out and Kamala took over.” Introducing “I Used To Be A King,” he said, “I wrote this song for Joni [Mitchell]…after we broke up.”

The set continued with “Right Between The Eyes.” When he was in the Hollies, he was approached by a manager who said she had a friend whose teenage son was a songwriter; she asked Graham to visit the young man. He agreed to, thinking he would humor her and offer the budding writer some words of encouragement. This young man turned out be 15-year-old prodigy Graham Gouldman, and the Hollies got their hit song “Bus Stop” from him.

Graham spoke lovingly of his late friend David Crosby, whose death, he said, “came as a shock to all of us, except David, who thought he was going to die decades ago.” He recalled how, many decades ago, while he was in Fort Lauderdale, Crosby invited to him to go sailing, and, nine weeks later, they finally landed in San Francisco. During the trip, a massive whale came up alongside the boat, which was 85′ long — and the whale was “half again” its length. This inspired the song “Wind On The Water,” before which Nash played a recording of himself and Crosby singing “Critical Mass” together in the ’70s.

Watch Crosby, Stills & Nash perform “Wind on the Water” live at Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1989 on YouTube:

The first CSNY tour, Nash said, finished in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the next morning, they went to the airport to fly black to California, where they all lived. Stills and Crosby, being Americans, had no problems getting through, and remarkably, neither did Young, who is Canadian. Nash, however was held up, an experience about which he wrote “Immigration Man.” He finished his first set with “Love The One You’re With.”

When he came back for his second set, Graham sang “The Sleep Song,” followed by “Taking It All,” which we wrote with David Crosby about life on the road. While the time on stage is wonderful, he said, the travel involved in touring is awful. Saying he was getting a bit personal, he told a story about how, when he was 14, his father brought home a camera he’d bought off of one of his coworkers. Shockingly, the police showed up their house. They believed the camera had been stolen, and demanded to know who’d sold it to Nash’s father. He refused to tell them and was sentenced to a year in prison, where he died “at the of 46, a broken man.” (This also started Nash’s lifelong love affair with photography, a pursuit which has garnered him considerable recognition.)

Some years later, Nash and Crosby received a letter from a man who was serving a 10-year sentence in Texas for smoking a single joint. At the time, they were hanging out in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the same act was only a misdemeanor. He also talked about how he had a friend, a single mother, who went to prison and permanently lost custody of her children for selling an undercover FBI agent a pound of cocaine. All of these experiences informed “The Prison Song.”

After “The Prison Song,” Graham and his band played one of his most beautiful compositions, “Cathedral.” He told the story of he wrote what became CSN’s biggest hit single, “A Song Before I Go.” He was in Hawaii, visiting with a friend — a pot dealer, he said — who said he’d heard he was some kind of “big-shot songwriter.” The dealer bet Graham $500 he couldn’t write “a song before you go.” Nash won that bet, though he only got the $500 decades letter, when a member of the man’s family slipped him an envelope at a show.

Introducing the final song of the second set, “Our House,” he said how glad he was that Joni has made a successful return to the stage, and gave a shout-out to Brandi Carlile for helping make that happen. For his encore, he sang “Teach Your Children,” followed by “Find The Cost of the Freedom,” finishing with the “Chicago/Change the World.”

Graham was in truly superb form, and his band provided excellent support, both instrumentally and with fine vocal harmonies. This was a wonderful opportunity to see one of the best songwriters and finest singers in contemporary music in a small, intimate venue — and The Barns may have the best atmosphere of any venue in the area — and Nash gave the audience an evening to be remembered, full of gorgeous songs and captivating stories.

Here are some photos of Graham Nash performing at The Barns at Wolf Trap on Oct. 24, 2024. All pictures copyright and courtesy of James Todd Miller.