Who Is the Oldest Living Rock Star?
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After David Bowie and Professor Snape, we lost Glenn Frey yesterday. (Editor’s note: Today we also learned that Italian director Ettore Scola has died…) I do not need to say much: everyone’s social feed is already full of “There will never be another Hotel California” posts. In a group chat with music insiders, people were discussing which elderly rock legends are still alive. Someone posted this picture:
Most of these legends, active in the 1960s and ’70s, were born in the 1940s. The oldest was Leonard Cohen, born in 1934. He started out as a poet and novelist, and did not release records until his thirties, near the end of the 1960s—then became a master in no time.
But there are even older legends than these rock stars: the pioneers of rock ’n’ roll, blues, and R&B, who came before heavy metal. A few famous survivors are Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Guy, and Fats Domino, all over 80. The oldest, Chuck Berry, turns 90 this October.
Who is Chuck Berry? He was already a star in the 1950s. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys all covered his songs in the 1960s. And even in the 1990s, people were still crazy about him. Movie fans will surely recognize this song:
Listen to Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell”
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The music behind that classic dance scene in Pulp Fiction is Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.”
As a writer with a rigorous commitment to gossip, I wanted to find out whether there were any music superstars older than Chuck Berry. I went to an obscure website, searched “oldest rock star,” and found a gloriously obsessive site: ihopeidiebeforeigetold.com.
The site keeps birth and death dates for 2,328 living and deceased musicians and updates the data every day. I clicked “The 100 Oldest Living Rock Stars.” The list was titled “Stairway to Heaven”—so considerate (not!)…
Chuck Berry was only at number 13. Ahead of him was Tony Bennett, just a few weeks older. Bennett, an evergreen jazz and pop singer often mentioned alongside Frank Sinatra, released Cheek to Cheek with Lady Gaga as recently as 2014.
Watch Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga perform at the 2015 Grammy Awards
Performing at the 2015 Grammy Awards.
Running time: 3:31
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Just ahead of Tony Bennett was George Martin. Attention: not George R. R. Martin, the much-loved and much-maligned author of A Song of Ice and Fire. This George Martin was the Beatles’ producer, known as the “Fifth Beatle” (not Stuart Sutcliffe, the bassist who died young). He produced most of the Beatles’ early work and also arranged, conducted, and played keyboards.
George Martin (second from right) with the Beatles
A few names higher up were unfamiliar to me, until I reached number five: 91-year-old Charles Aznavour. The French chanson legend was already working with Édith Piaf in the 1940s. A few years ago, in his eighties, he came to China for the “Year of French Culture.”
Charles Aznavour and Édith Piaf
And then there was number four, Doris Day—a major star! She was not only a music superstar but a film star too, one of the most popular singers in American history and a “box-office queen” of the 1950s and ’60s. She retired from acting in 1968, so younger people may not know her well. But she sang a song covered countless times, which you have surely heard.
Listen to Doris Day sing “Que Sera, Sera”
Running time: 2:07
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The song comes from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Hitchcock gave Day little direction during filming. A bit anxious, she asked him whether he was unhappy with her performance. He said, “If you do anything I don’t like, you’ll know.” At the premiere, a reporter asked Hitchcock how he had gotten such a good performance out of Doris. “It wasn’t my doing,” he replied. “It was hers.”
Hitchcock and Doris Day on the set of The Man Who Knew Too Much
After her last film in 1968, Doris retired and devoted herself to her animal charity. Last year, there was a report that Clint Eastwood had taken her a script and wanted her to return for a role. Her spokesperson later said that she had turned down her good friend Clint’s offer.
Doris with her dog
By the time I got to Doris Day, I was satisfied; I did not know the three people above her anyway. There are older movie stars, of course—Kirk Douglas, who acted with her and is Michael Douglas’s father, turns 99 at the end of this year. But few veterans can match Doris Day: over a 20-year career (1948–1968), she made 650 songs and 39 films, and received lifetime-achievement honors in both music (the Grammys) and film (the Golden Globes).
Seeing this photo, I am beginning to understand why so many people like Taylor Swift
Appendix: The 100 oldest living rock stars (many of them are not really rock stars).
Source:
The 100 Oldest Living Rock Stars
Cinema is a dangerous adventure.
