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You know you are getting old when:

Edward

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https://americansongwriter.com/this...eal-opener-for-first-date-of-their-2024-tour/
As The Rolling Stones start their 2024 US tour, you know that you are getting old when you can remember band members, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts. Good grief, Mick Jagger will be 81 in July.

Having said that, Jagger's youngest child, presented to him by his girlfriend, Melanie Hamrick, is his son Deveraux, 7, born in 2016 when Mick was 73.
In October 2023, he opened up about fatherhood during an interview with British newspaper, The Guardian.

His one time girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull, whom he dated for 4 years in the late sixties, went into an old people's nursing home three years ago.


Charlie was a sad loss. I've long loved the story about how, on tour back in the wild days, Jagger phoned his room from the hotel bar and demanded to know "Where's my drummer?" at three in the morning. Charlie got up, shaved, dressed immaculately in one of his Savile Row suits (I believe he patronised Huntsman right to the end), calmly went down to the bar.... and socked Jagger right on the nose. "I'm not your drummer. You're my singer." he said, firmly.... and then returned to bed.

I have always suspected the Stones will just keep going until either Mick or Keith can no longer take playing live, then that'll be it. There are other acts who've been around more or less as long - Dylan, Macartney in particular - though somehow as a rock and roll band the Stones seem to be the ones testing the limits of age. I hope they've still got it when they decide to call it a day - Sinatra was a tower of talent, but his last few shows, well... I don't think he was up to it any longer, a shame. OTOH, I saw Jerry Lee Lewis' last ever UK show some years ago. He may have been physically more sedate at 80, but it was *all* still there where it counted - the voice, the magic fingers. Not a bad thing on stage that night, save for DJ Mike Reid they'd brought in to compere, name-dropping Princes Diana and generally making a twit of himself.
 
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Charlie was a sad loss. I've long loved the story about how, on tour back in the wild days, Jagger phoned his room from the hotel bar and demanded to know "Where's my drummer?" at three in the morning. Charlie got up, shaved, dressed immaculately in one of his Savile Row suits (I believe he patronised Huntsman right to the end), calmly went down to the bar.... and socked Jagger right on the nose. "I'm not your drummer. You're my singer." he said, firmly.... and then returned to bed.

I have always suspected the Stones will just keep going until either Mick or Keith can no longer take playing live, then that'll be it. There are other acts who've been around more or less as long - Dylan, Macartney in particular - though somehow as a rock and roll band the Stones seem to be the ones testing the limits of age. I hope they've still got it when they decide to call it a day - Sinatra was a tower of talent, but his last few shows, well... I don't think he was up to it any longer, a shame. OTOH, I saw Jerry Lee Lewis' last ever UK show some years ago. He may have been physically more sedate at 80, but it was *all* still there where it counted - the voice, the magic fingers. Not a bad thing on stage that night, save for DJ Mike Reid they'd brought in to compere, name-dropping Princes Diana and generally making a twit of himself.
I saw the Stones live in Seattle 1975 (or so), paid $25 for the ticket and I bought it from a scalper. Interesting things is; I thought they were old back then.
 
Messages
10,862
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vancouver, canada
Charlie was a sad loss. I've long loved the story about how, on tour back in the wild days, Jagger phoned his room from the hotel bar and demanded to know "Where's my drummer?" at three in the morning. Charlie got up, shaved, dressed immaculately in one of his Savile Row suits (I believe he patronised Huntsman right to the end), calmly went down to the bar.... and socked Jagger right on the nose. "I'm not your drummer. You're my singer." he said, firmly.... and then returned to bed.

I have always suspected the Stones will just keep going until either Mick or Keith can no longer take playing live, then that'll be it. There are other acts who've been around more or less as long - Dylan, Macartney in particular - though somehow as a rock and roll band the Stones seem to be the ones testing the limits of age. I hope they've still got it when they decide to call it a day - Sinatra was a tower of talent, but his last few shows, well... I don't think he was up to it any longer, a shame. OTOH, I saw Jerry Lee Lewis' last ever UK show some years ago. He may have been physically more sedate at 80, but it was *all* still there where it counted - the voice, the magic fingers. Not a bad thing on stage that night, save for DJ Mike Reid they'd brought in to compere, name-dropping Princes Diana and generally making a twit of himself.
There is something about music and where the 'memory' resides in our mind. I sang in a choir for many years and at Christmas we would visit numerous aged care homes. We put together a program of songs from the 1940's & 50's. There would be folks, almost comatose, sitting in wheelchairs but from time to time as we began to sing a song popular in their youth they would sit up in their chairs and start to sing along.
 
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I have always suspected the Stones will just keep going until either Mick or Keith can no longer take playing live, then that'll be it. There are other acts who've been around more or less as long - Dylan, Macartney in particular - though somehow as a rock and roll band the Stones seem to be the ones testing the limits of age. I hope they've still got it when they decide to call it a day - Sinatra was a tower of talent, but his last few shows, well... I don't think he was up to it any longer, a shame. OTOH, I saw Jerry Lee Lewis' last ever UK show some years ago. He may have been physically more sedate at 80, but it was *all* still there where it counted - the voice, the magic fingers. Not a bad thing on stage that night, save for DJ Mike Reid they'd brought in to compere, name-dropping Princes Diana and generally making a twit of himself.
I fear I’d be embarrassed for myself for attending a Rolling Stones show these days.

An old girlfriend and I were in the audience during the Seattle stop on the Sinatra/Sammy Davis Jr./Dean Martin tour (but Martin bowed out mid-tour and was replaced by Liza Minnelli) back in, like, 1988(?).

So I can say I saw Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. and Liza Minnelli in the flesh. That’s about it, really. Sinatra wore a rug and Sammy did a song and dance or two and Liza looked out of place. That’s what I remember. And Sinatra and Sammy were both younger than Jagger and McCartney and Dylan are today, by upwards of a decade.
 
Last edited:

Edward

Bartender
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London, UK
I saw the Stones live in Seattle 1975 (or so), paid $25 for the ticket and I bought it from a scalper. Interesting things is; I thought they were old back then.

They were definitely considered "old" when I saw them in Wembley Stadium in 1999 (the fort quid the tickets cost seemed enormous them, but these days that's about par for the course at much smaller affairs). Great show, though. Jagger had more energy than a lot of performers half his age. Not seen them since... when it got to £75 for a standing spot in an arena so big I'd be watching the screen all night to see anything, I bowed out.

I fear I’d be embarrassed for myself for attending a Rolling Stones show these days.

An old girlfriend and I were in the audience during the Seattle stop on the Sinatra/Sammy Davis Jr./Dean Martin tour (but Martin bowed out mid-tour and was replaced by Liza Minnelli) back in, like, 1988(?).

So I can say I saw Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. and Liza Minnelli in the flesh. That’s about it, really. Sinatra wore a rug and Sammy did a song and dance or two and Liza looked out of place. That’s what I remember. And Sinatra and Sammy were both younger than Jagger and McCartney and Dylan are today, by upwards of a decade.

I saw Dylan in 2022; he was I think 80 or 81 then. He stopped playing guitar live some years ago with his arthritis, though he still plays keys. That last show we saw was in Oxford at the end of a long tour, and he was clearly exhausted by the end of it. Still a great performance, though. I suspect he might be stepping back on doing as many live dates in future, but he's one of the few who've been around that long still putting out consistently great new material. This must be his fourth or fifth wind by this point.
 
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^^^^^^
Willie Nelson recently had his 91st birthday. The lovely missus and I attended a live outdoor show of Willie and his band about five years ago. The star attraction sat on a chair for most of the performance while his older sister Bobbie (since deceased) on piano and Mickey Raphael on harmonica carried much of the load.

And that was fine. I attended a live performance by Willie Nelson, which was something I had wanted for myself for quite some time. I suspect that’s a large part of what motivates many who attend shows by our now elderly popular music icons.

Willie hasn’t let himself become an oldies act. His writing chops are still very much intact
 

Edward

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Location
London, UK
^^^^^^
Willie Nelson recently had his 91st birthday. The lovely missus and I attended a live outdoor show of Willie and his band about five years ago. The star attraction sat on a chair for most of the performance while his older sister Bobbie (since deceased) on piano and Mickey Raphael on harmonica carried much of the load.

And that was fine. I attended a live performance by Willie Nelson, which was something I had wanted for myself for quite some time. I suspect that’s a large part of what motivates many who attend shows by our now elderly popular music icons.

Willie hasn’t let himself become an oldies act. His writing chops are still very much intact


TBH, nice as it is when they are still writing new material, I'm often happy when they can still credibly perform the good old stuff. In an ideal world, of course, it'd be up to an artist when to stop.... I remember a good year or so before his death from, I believe, kidney failure, Dick Dale (now there was an amazing artist... hell of a showman too) being asked by an interviewer when he'd retire from performing, and he basically said only when he was ready to die, because he was dependent on the income from live performance for his dialysis payments. Sobering thought in a world where parasites like Spotify try to shout down any concerns about fair royalty payments for artists with "play more gigs!", "work harder" and the likes.
 
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^^^^^^^
I recall Willie saying several years ago that he turned down an offer to record “The Gambler.” He said he knew it would be a big hit (as it was, for Kenny Rogers) and he didn’t want to have to play it every night for the rest of his working life.

Willie’s book is so deep that he has literally hundreds (thousands?) of his own tunes to perform to the satisfaction of his audience.

But yeah, it’s hard to imagine him leaving for his bus without having played “Whiskey River.”
 
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As I mentioned here, before, I always loved Bee Gees 1989's One album. But it gets even better with aging! "Bodyguard", "Tears" and so on...
 
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I saw the Stones live in Seattle 1975 (or so), paid $25 for the ticket and I bought it from a scalper. Interesting things is; I thought they were old back then.

I saw The Stones here in Los Angeles during the "Steel Wheels" tour in 1989. My best friend for life called at the last moment and asked if I wanted to go. He said he had a free ticket if I wanted it, the only catch was that he needed someone he could trust to help him keep an eye on his younger brother who was already on the radar of law enforcement throughout southern California. Strangely, he had three tickets--two on one side of the stadium, one on the other, and I was elected to take the single seat so he could watch his brother. I had a great time; he had to constantly babysit his brother, which nearly ruined the show for him. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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Orange County, CA
For some reason profanity, especially the F-word, seems to bother me more nowadays when it never used to. I’m no prude and, God knows, I’ve been guilty of liberal use of the F-bomb myself, but now I find it kind of jarring.
 

Turnip

My Mail is Forwarded Here
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…you return from a two weeks vacation in the southern sun and feel like never having had only one day off in your entire life after just half a day back at work.
 

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