Artists Who Worked Long Past Their Prime
The still-rocking Rolling Stones aside, should there be a required or suggested retirement age for concerts by over-the-hill music stars whose best days as live performers are years behind them?
The question is, admittedly, preposterous. Music is timeless. No one should have to retire unless their vocation poses a serious threat to others, or to themselves.
But what if a veteran rock star’s reluctance to retire from the stage poses a threat to their artistic legacy? Not their recorded legacy, but as once-dynamic live entertainers who could ignite and inspire on a nightly basis?
Specifically, what if the passing of time has led to an unmistakable decline in the quality of their performances, causing longtime fans to wince rather than cheer? And what if that decline means each successive concert and tour chips away at a performer’s previous accomplishments, simply because they are unable to rise to the same level that propelled them to stardom all those years ago?
As a lifelong music fan who cherishes attending concerts, these are questions I find myself pondering with increasing frequency. There are no easy answers. And there are multiple factors and distinctions to consider, including the love of performing at any age versus the risk of self-parody as one’s abilities audibly and visibly decline.
I pose these questions not because I no longer love much of the music I grew up with, but precisely because I still love so much of that music. This is why it becomes more and more difficult to reconcile the memories of what that music once sounded like in concert, when those performers were at the height of their powers — or even just 10 or 15 years ago, when they could still summon up a fair degree of magic on stage — as opposed to when they perform now.
This holds especially true after wincing through multiple performances over the past decade or more by such painfully diminished singers as Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, Todd Rundgren and Elvis Costello, to cite just four discordant examples.
Their music has been vital to me at different stages of my life, even before the first concerts I attended by Jethro Tull and the Beach Boys as an eighth grader in 1969, and by Costello in 1978. I became a Rundgren fan in 1969 after buying a copy of “Nazz Nazz,” the second album by his band, Nazz. In 1970, I happily acquired his first solo album, “Runt.” As a music critic, I have happily done multiple interviews with Anderson, Rundgren, Costello and Love.
When, just a few months ago, I asked Anderson if there should be a mandatory retirement age for politicians and musicians, he offered an immediate response,
“For politicians, yes,” he said. “For musicians, no.” He then excused himself to do another interview.
Living in the past?
For many casual concertgoers, the memory of what an artist sounded like in their heyday may supersede what they sound like now. Warm nostalgia may trump present-day reality. That disconnect can decrease in direct proportion to one’s desire to embrace the soundtrack of their younger days, when musicians and their fans shared a sense of boundless vitality, unlimited possibilities and feeling indestructible.
These colliding issues may be impossible to resolve, but they merit discussion.
Why would an artist who loves performing and lives for the roar of a crowd want to stop, even if they are a shadow of their former selves? Or does that question answer itself?
Why is it expected that jazz and blues artists grow better with age, while musicians who play rock — a genre created by young people for young people that is defined in part by its physicality — often face an uphill battle of steadily decreasing returns?
“It’s what I call the ‘Muhammad Ali syndrome’,” said Judas Priest singer Rob Halford.
“If you get in the ring too much, the whole thing can become really sad to look at and listen to. And you have to ensure that doesn’t happen as a musician, especially in the extreme world of heavy-metal, because it’s very demanding to carry these old bodies all over the place. You try to do the things you could easily do 30 years ago and it’s not so easy.”
Halford, now 72, made those comments in a 2010 San Diego Union-Tribune interview.
That was shortly before Judas Priest began its “Epitaph” farewell tour, which ended in 2012. Two years later, the band — like many rock and pop acts before it, including everyone from The Who to Cher — un-retired. The next world tour by Judas Priest, whose only original member now is bassist Ian Hill, runs from March 15 to July 10.
Please "Like" us on Facebook: / potentialproblemspodcast
Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Subscribe on Podbean: https://potentialproblems.podbean.com/