On Oct. 8 & 15, I'm giving a two-part class on "The Music of the '60s & '70s," at Greenwich Continuing Education. Ironically, my music, which the whippersnappers in the current music industry refer to as "Heritage Rock," is now being made by people in their '60s and '70s-- the same ones who did it back then.
I have to pat My Generation on the back for still rocking in their 60s and beyond-- not in a chair on a porch, either. The Stones are touring for the millionth time; Mick Jagger doesn't bop around as much as he used to, Keith Richard gets scarier looking every year, and I still don't know who the bass player is, but these guys definitely have made a deal with the Devil. Most middle-or-later-aged rockers have either packed on pounds or are struggling mightily against them; the Stones get skinnier and skinnier every year.
The Who are only half-a-Who, Pete is half deaf and twice his former size, and Roger hardly ever catches that swinging mic any more, but they keep on keepin' on--with Townshend declaring every other year that he's not going to do it anymore. Roger even ventured out on a solo tour a few years ago called "Use It Or Lose It," and he wasn't being entirely tongue-in-cheek. I still love him, in spite of his nerdy professor haircut and some of the unDaltreylike notes he hits by accident. At his New York show, when some yobbos down front gave him a hard time, the gloves came off the Shepherd’s Bush boy: “Come on up here, mush, let’s see you get up here and do it!” (They didn’t.) I'll bet he could've kicked their (am I allowed to say the next word here?) asses.
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant now gross me out, so I don't even want to talk about them. (Shave, Percy!) Sting kind of lost me--I think I just liked The Police; and Bono is still the new boy on the block, relatively speaking.
Aretha Franklin concerts are scarcer than hen's teeth, and I will stay up til any hour to watch her do two songs in a televised gospel cavalcade, even if they have nothing to do with ridin' on a freeway in a pink cadillac or drowning in her own tears or demanding respect.
John Fogerty must be sick of wearing that plaid shirt and neckerchief, but the guy who WAS Creedence Clearwater Revival is rocking the socks off his audiences. His voice isn't as bullfrog gruff as on the original "Born on the Bayou," but he sings his ass off, his guitar playing is sensational, and I will sing every line with him every time I'm there.
I wish I could be talking about Jimi Hendrix here, and Otis Redding, and Janis Joplin, but they left the party early, and I'm still mad. At least Tina Turner is out there steppin'-- every once in a while.
Above all, the 62-year-old Boy Wonder, Bruuuuce, still pounds out 3-hour shows, can kneedrop, backbend, and crowdsurf, and-- which I experienced at Giants Stadium-- can get "a fifth wind" near midnight. Take that, you 25-year-old wusses!
Last year I was invited to be a guest speaker at Brown University in a course called, "From Oz to Occupy Wall Street: the American Counterculture." The hookup was thanks to a college pal, via email. In his Subject line: "We're a course!"
Yup. All the things I used to get in trouble for have earned me a standing invitation to speak at Brown. It was inevitable: I'm officially an Elder Stateswoman. Good thing I saved all my SDS literature.
Last year, when I was psyched up about going to see John Fogerty (or was it Delbert McClinton?), my mother asked me, "When are you going to get over it?"
I said, "When Bruce does, Mom."
