
 |
|
February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
|
| |
Jewish World Review
May 19, 2005
/ 10 Iyar, 5765
Sympathy for geezer rock stars
By
Clarence Page
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
On the culture front, it is encouraging for an aging Baby Boomer like me to learn that the hottest act on this summer's rock concert circuit happens to be a group of senior citizens.
Yes, roll out the black denim, my dear, and pack up the extra-strength painkillers. The Rolling Stones are leaving their English homes to come back and kick boo-tay on tour yet again, some 40 years after Mick Jagger couldn't "get no satisfaction" in their first invasion.
Sometime back in the 1970s, if memory serves, Mick Jagger scoffed at the notion that he still would be dancing around stage to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the time he turned 40. Right. Now Sir Mick he's been knighted is 61.
Yet, as he performed a few numbers with the band at their recent news conference, he looked not only fit but physically pumped and buffed, more muscular than the scrawny Kid Mick we used to know.
Still, there was an ironic message to the occasion. The ability of geezer Stones to roll in as this summer's hottest-selling rock concert ticket is a testament not only to their resilient talents but also to how much rock 'n' roll is ailing as a vital, edgy soul-capturing engine of youth culture.
The summer of the Stones follows a winter of rock's discontent. "Rock Radio No Longer Rolling," blared a headline in the March 24 Rolling Stone magazine (no relation to the band). In the previous seven months, no fewer than five major-market rock radio stalwarts (Philadelphia's WPLY, Washington, D.C.'s WHFS, Miami's WZTA, San Jose's KSJO and Houston's KLOL) switched to other formats.
The sounds of "urban," the radio industry's artful term for hip-hop, or "hurban," short for "Hispanic urban," are the new engines of creativity and sales, outside the easy listening "cool jazz" or golden-oldie rock stations.
CD sales show a similar trend. All 10 of the top performers on the Billboard music sales charts were black artists in October 2003, for the first time in the 50-year-history of the charts. Nine were rappers and the other was a song by R&B singer Beyonce and reggae star Sean Paul.
If young black artists are emerging at music's new cutting edge, history is only repeating itself. Like countless other rockers, the Stones (who got their name from the Muddy Waters blues song "Rollin' Stone") reverently embraced the low-down, fundamental Mississippi-Memphis-Chicago blues axis, dropping in on Chicago and Memphis clubs to jam with Buddy Guy, B.B. King and others and recording an instrumental track titled "2120 S. Michigan Avenue," the address of blues-giant Chess Records' studio in Chicago.
And now, years after studying the lords of ancient blues arts, the Stones themselves have become elder statesmen of rock, a role to which the media are unaccustomed. In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, Jagger and lead guitarist Keith Richards, also 61, hinted at a curious "inverse racism," as co-host Matt Lauer put it, in the way reporters always seem to ask white seniors like the Stones why they're still touring while black artists keep touring no matter what age they are and hardly anybody asks them why they still do it.
"We're just musicians," Richards said. "I mean, it's other people's bags that we get put in, and, I mean right, because we're white. Oh, `You you made a lot of money, why the hell would you want to do that?' Because we love it. It's as simple as that."
Still, it doesn't speak much for the state of new rock artists that the old guys seem to make a bigger noise than the new ones.
I suspect that rock as we have known it is over. Been there, heard that, bought the T-shirts. Maybe rock died as a cutting-edge force with the 1994 suicide of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain, the king of grunge, the Seattle-born music of youth-despair that became rock's first and last Big Thing of the 1990s.
Maybe some new Beatles, Stones, Sex Pistols, Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix or some other Messianic Big Thing is coming around the corner to save rock once again. But, if history is our guide, I predict that rock will fade after a half-century of vitality into a pastime of aficionados in the way of jazz, the blues, bluegrass and other once-prominent genres.
The new nurseries of music creativity are much the same as the old ones: black culture, Latino culture, working-class whites, angst-ridden suburban kids and the fast-rising global multicultural techno-reggae pulse of "world music." Who knows? As the world's young people live increasingly in the fast-paced, planet-shrinking paths of cyberspace, the next musical rage may not be so easy to pin down by geography.
In the meantime, as we boomer geezers fill our iPods with memories and gather in amphitheaters to hear soulful rock survivors perform what's left of our music and the selves that we once knew, indulge us, children. These days we hear a new message in the Stones' refrain, ". . . This could be the last time. May-be the last time, I don't kno-o-ow."
Oh, no.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on Clarence Page's column by clicking here.
Archives
© 2005, TMS
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Tony Blankley
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Alan Douglas
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
Marybeth Hicks
David Horowitz
Jeff Jacoby
Renee James
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Ben Wattenberg
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

Mr. Know-It-All
Dr. Peter Gott
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
Tech Maven
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|