Graham Nash is in love at 80 and back on a Tucson stage

The opening line of Graham Nash‘s forthcoming studio album will tell you all you need to know about where the legendary singer is in his life:

“I used to think I would never love again.”

At 80, Nash, who got his start in the UK pop/rock band the Hollies in the early 1960s before joining the American folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, is in love.

We’re talking teenage, butterflies fluttering in the belly, hands-sweating and face blushing kind of love.

“And that’s astonishing for me at my age,” said the singer-songwriter with a gentle tenor, who’s coming to Fox Tucson Theatre on Tuesday, Oct. 18. “That’s why the opening line is I never thought I would ever love again. I really didn’t believe that at 80 years old that those feelings of new love could arise. And they did and I am so grateful.”

Nash met his wife of four years, Amy Grantham, at a 2014 Beacon Theatre show in New York City.

“I loved her immediately,” he said, his voice taking on a sweet tone that barely hid the giddiness he still feels when talking about the eight-year relationship. “I knew immediately this was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing.”

Nash, whose show Tuesday is a makeup for a pandemic-postponed 2020 show, poured those emotions into his songwriting for the new album, which he expects to release next spring. It is his first studio album since 2016’s “This Path Tonight” and comes three years after he released “Graham Nash: Live” in 2019.

The live album, recorded over four shows, revisited his first two solo albums: 1971’s “Songs For Beginners” and 1974’s “Wild Tales.”

The new album won’t be all mushy love songs. Nash also has a few commentaries on today’s world.

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“I seem to always be in the middle of hating something and loving something,” he said with a laugh.

Nash said he is excited to return to Tucson, where he has been an every-couple-of-years regular for several years now. His show will traverse his 50-year career, pulling from his six solo albums as well as his repertoire from the Hollies and CSNY.

“I need my audience to know two things: One, that I want to be there. I want to be there singing music for them. I’m not going to phone it in,” he said during a phone interview last month from home in New York. “I’m going to play the songs that I’ve sung thousands of times with the same energy that I had when I wrote them.”

He also wants to thank his Tucson fans who held onto their tickets from the 2020 show.

“I saw that as hope. Hope that, yes, maybe the concert was canceled today but tomorrow was going to be better,” he said. “And I like that sense of hope.”

The show kicks off at 7:30 p.m. at the Fox, 17 W. Congress St. Tickets are $41 to $101 through foxtucson.com. Face coverings are strongly recommended.

Nash’s show is one several big shows at the Fox this week. Also coming:

The Righteous Brothers, with founding member Bill Medley and vocalist Bucky Heard, who replaced the late Bobby Hatfield in 2016. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13.

Award-winning screenwriter, actor, filmmaker and satirist John Waters (“Hairspray,” “Cry-Baby,” “Polyester”) brings his “End of the World” tour here at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15.

Aida Cuevas & Mariachi Aztlan celebrates the so-called Queen of Mariachi’s 45th anniversary of touring. 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16