Norbert
2024-03-11 11:01:41 UTC
It was a reasonable question in 1963: What did John, Paul, George and Ringo plan to do when all those screaming fans lost interest in the lads from Liverpool?
"We can't keep playing the same sort of music until we're 40," replied McCartney. "Old men playing 'From Me To You' -- nobody's going to want that sort of thing."
Turns out, Sir Paul was spectacularly wrong. More than half a century later, the world is still mad for the Fab Four and countless other artists whose heyday was eons ago. But as a slew of vintage acts are discovering, age and illness do intervene eventually. Playing rock'n'roll is not a leisure pursuit, and the demands of singing (or shrieking), strumming nimbly, and keeping a thunderous beat -- or even just a steady one -- are a lot of senior citizens.
While McCartney has managed to persist inti old age -- he performed for nearly three hours at Fenway Park on the eve of his 80th birthday in 2023 -- an alarming number of oldsters are being sidelined of late.
[Snip of discussion of sidelined acts]
-- from the 3-10-24 Boston Sunday Globe
"We can't keep playing the same sort of music until we're 40," replied McCartney. "Old men playing 'From Me To You' -- nobody's going to want that sort of thing."
Turns out, Sir Paul was spectacularly wrong. More than half a century later, the world is still mad for the Fab Four and countless other artists whose heyday was eons ago. But as a slew of vintage acts are discovering, age and illness do intervene eventually. Playing rock'n'roll is not a leisure pursuit, and the demands of singing (or shrieking), strumming nimbly, and keeping a thunderous beat -- or even just a steady one -- are a lot of senior citizens.
While McCartney has managed to persist inti old age -- he performed for nearly three hours at Fenway Park on the eve of his 80th birthday in 2023 -- an alarming number of oldsters are being sidelined of late.
[Snip of discussion of sidelined acts]
-- from the 3-10-24 Boston Sunday Globe