While minds may be saying “no,” there is a corner in every older rock fan’s heart still yearning for “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” And though the desire is largely metaphorical, baby boomers have retained sufficient connection to their rock roots to help sustain what has become far more than a cottage industry. “There seems to be a strong whiff of something in the air, and I think it’s nostalgia, not weed,” says Ron Givens, a rock critic for Stereo Review. Though rock nostalgia is hardly new, the boomers’ relentless quest to recapture their youth has propelled the phenomenon to new heights. As a result, rock-and-roll fans have witnessed this year: major tours by Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and the Grateful Dead; hit albums by Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart and Steve Miller, and reunions for Steely Dan and Deep Purple.
The unifying conviction of baby-boomer fans is that their music (in fact, everything about them) was better than anything that followed. They are not the first generation to believe that, only the first in a long time with the demographic clout to convert it into conventional wisdom. It is ironic that those who ushered their own into the White House to the tune of “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” in truth can’t stop thinking about “Yesterday.” And perhaps with good reason. Most of the ’70s was a musical wasteland, forcing true rock fans to cling to the past or surrender to pop. Fleetwood Mac may have been a megagroup in the ’70s, but in the ’60s, they were in their rightful place-a second-rank blues group out of England, deep in the shadow of Cream, akin in prominence to, say, Ten Years After.
Few fans of groups with two-and three-decade histories even try to make the case that the performers rival their earlier incarnations. Mark Jurkowitz, a 39-year-old writer who admits to being in a musical “time warp,” will go see the Allman Brothers this summer, not expecting a replication of the “At Fillmore East” era. “I may not hear a ‘Whipping Post’ that will send chills up my spine the way it did years ago,” he says. “But I still expect to hear the best ‘Whipping Post’ I can hear today.” By attending concerts, he is also, in effect, testing himself Last weekend Jurkowitz drove nine hours each way to see the Grateful Dead at Washington’s RFK Stadium, exactly as he would have (except for the rented Lincoln) 20 years ago in college. “So much of my life today is instinctively, ‘Nah, why bother?’ that I prove something to myself when I do things that don’t appear to make sense,” he says.
Bernie Ranellona is another fan who desperately wants to believe that “rock music transcends age.” At 36, he still catches at least 50 rock shows a year. But as he grows older, the New York banker has trouble recognizing himself in the young fans who usually surround him. “I see kids walking around with no shirts on and sometimes I wonder, ‘Was, I like that?’ Probably worse!”
Others, though, revel in the ways that going to a concert today isn’t like when they were young. Take Ken Wexler, who owns a construction company in suburban Boston. He gets top tickets through private contacts, hires a van and driver, and enjoys quality food and drink at his preconcert tailgate party. But he still thrills to see Mick Jagger strut or Pete Townshend’s leaping guitar riffs. “Look at some of these guys and the lives they ledwith the drinking and drugs,” he says. Wexler, who recently danced all night to celebrate his 50th birthday, finds it truly “inspiring” that they didn’t die before they got old.
He also finds rock and roll a bridge to his children. Wexler and his 23-year-old son talk regularly about their musical tastes, a conversation he could never have had with his own father. “I don’t think we talked about music once except for his asking why I was playing Elvis so loud,” he says. In Ft. Wayne, Ind., Bill Gibson and his wife, Mary, made the recent Aerosmith concert a family night–for them a reminder of “days gone by,” for their 11-year-old son his rock-concert debut. “What better first concert than Aerosmith?” says Mary, apparently not concerned with 45-year-old lead singer Steven Tyler’s phallic routine with the mike or the young girls tossing panties onstage.
Not all parents are anxious to discover rock-and-roll common ground with their children. When Cynthia Free, a 41-year-old legal secretary, went to the recent Grateful Dead concert in Chicago, she had only one reservation. She didn’t want to bump into any of her 15-year-old daughter’s friends. She managed to avoid them, but avoiding all 15-year-olds is impossible. Even the older acts ultimately depend on young fans for successful gates. Yet older rock fans still exert tremendous influence on the recording industry. While they may buy only three or four CDs or tapes each year, says Atlantic Records executive Danny Goldberg, “there are more baby boomers than any other age group and they are still capable of turning a couple of albums a year into big hits.” Which goes a long way to explain how Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart and Neil Young got “Unplugged.”
Charles Laquidara, a disc jockey at Boston’s WBCN-FM since 1969, tries to entice aging fans with a mix of the old-Hendrix and the Doors-and new-R.E.M. and Black Crowes. While he has a healthy respect for nostalgia, he deplores sloppy sentimentality, people wanting to hear over and over the same song they tried to get laid to in high school." Yet there isn’t anything inherently admirable about sharing all the latest teen tastes. “Nothing is more pathetic than growing older and pretending to like everything you hear,” says Martin Lewis, a former producer who has worked with Clapton, Sting and Phil Collins.
In the end, there are plenty of reasons to keep faith with those great talents who thrilled audiences when both were young. Stars like Tina Turner, Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton have more than earned that loyalty. Besides, it’s immensely comforting to cast one’s lot with one’s peers, something that transcends the sweet, gentle notion of nostalgia. After all, if they’re OK, a generation surmises, then we must be OK, too.
Number of records by dead rockers sold in the first six months of 1993:
The Doors 500,000 Marvin Gaye 300,000 Jimi Hendrix 450,000 Janis Joplin 200,000 Bob Marley 275,000 Roy Orbison 250,000 Elvis Presley 750,000 Stevie Ray Vaughn 190,000
The latest example of Steven Tyler’s manic vocals and Joe Perry’s corrosive guitar rock.
Grave and sexy pop songs that would be perfect for the end of the world. “I’ve seen the future, brother: it is murder.”
He puts his right leg in. He takes his right leg out. He introduces children to the whop bop a lu bop a whop bam boom.
Anybody for a moondance? Morrison weighs in with a reverie of American idioms, namely jazz and blues, and a swaggering remake of “Gloria” that features John Lee Hooker.
Nelson brings 60 years’ worth of authority to the songs of Paul Simon, Lyle Lovett, Peter Gabriel and Bob Dylan.
Slinky, shimmering pop from a man with the voice of an angel and the tattoos of a lifer.
A spare, elegiac song cycle for two of the singer’s departed friends-dead not from walks on the wild side but after painful illness.
Standards for the next millennium, including her Grammy-winning duets with Neville and the Jimmy Webb song “Adios.”
Pop’s globe-trotter and the boys from Brazil.
A wistful nod to his acoustic classic, “Harvest,” and the biggest seller of his career.
