[Q] Ever since you turned 80 I've had a question in mind for you, and I'm finally asking it before you turn 81! What musicians in whatever genre have continued producing worthwhile work at 80 or so -- David Allen, Claremont, California
[A] I can think of a few. My 84-year-old friend Peter Stampfel contracted a vocal disorder called dysphonia in 2017 at 78, 17 or so years after he'd conceived and begun his oft-delayed 100-song Peter Stampfel's 20th Century in 100 Songs and maybe three-four years after he'd started work on it again. Basically, he couldn't really sing anymore. Yet he could whisper and whistle and sometimes simulate singing and he somehow finished the thing. Chuck Berry's excellent farewell Chuck, released shortly after he died at 90 in 2017, was recorded well after he turned 80. The New Orleans trumpeter Doc Cheatham recorded 1992's The Eighty-Seven Years of Doc Cheatham, when he was pushing that age. He also backed classic blueswoman Alberta Hunter, who enjoyed a circa-1980 three-album revival when she was around 85. Barbara Dane, who in 1973 put out an album called I Hate the Capitalist System, released the much sexier Throw It Away in 2016, when she was 88. Tony Bennett is not only in his nineties but has Alzheimer's yet has his timing and knows the words on his two Lady Gaga collabs. And of course there's the miraculous Willie Nelson, now 90, who by my count has released some dozen-plus albums in the past decade, some of them--December Day and A Beautiful Time are my picks--among his best ever. Paul McCartney will be 81 in June and I doubt he's stopped. Ditto I hope for Randy Newman, who'll be 80 in November. And Paul Simon, now 81, just released an ambitious album I've yet to get my teeth into that certainly has something to say. I probably could come up with more possibilities, but that should do for now.
[A] I can think of a few. My 84-year-old friend Peter Stampfel contracted a vocal disorder called dysphonia in 2017 at 78, 17 or so years after he'd conceived and begun his oft-delayed 100-song Peter Stampfel's 20th Century in 100 Songs and maybe three-four years after he'd started work on it again. Basically, he couldn't really sing anymore. Yet he could whisper and whistle and sometimes simulate singing and he somehow finished the thing. Chuck Berry's excellent farewell Chuck, released shortly after he died at 90 in 2017, was recorded well after he turned 80. The New Orleans trumpeter Doc Cheatham recorded 1992's The Eighty-Seven Years of Doc Cheatham, when he was pushing that age. He also backed classic blueswoman Alberta Hunter, who enjoyed a circa-1980 three-album revival when she was around 85. Barbara Dane, who in 1973 put out an album called I Hate the Capitalist System, released the much sexier Throw It Away in 2016, when she was 88. Tony Bennett is not only in his nineties but has Alzheimer's yet has his timing and knows the words on his two Lady Gaga collabs. And of course there's the miraculous Willie Nelson, now 90, who by my count has released some dozen-plus albums in the past decade, some of them--December Day and A Beautiful Time are my picks--among his best ever. Paul McCartney will be 81 in June and I doubt he's stopped. Ditto I hope for Randy Newman, who'll be 80 in November. And Paul Simon, now 81, just released an ambitious album I've yet to get my teeth into that certainly has something to say. I probably could come up with more possibilities, but that should do for now.