In a previous blog post I told of my dream of a "Last Wave". That's my term for the Baby Boomers who are heading into retirement picking up their old guitars for one last stand. They now have the time and money and forty years of developing skills and are of need of a hobby. Sure, they won't be doing any major label signing as they're "too old" and the company can't squeeze another twenty years out of them and they won't be doing anything so new and as yet so unheard so as to hearld in "the next big thing", but what they do have that the kids can't have is Authenticity.
A twenty year old blues singer might say he got his inspiration from the singer of Nickleback who clearly got his style from Eddie Vedder who copied Jim Morrison who got turned on to the Blues by The Rolling Stones who were influenced by Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. What the Baby Boomers have to offer is music much closer to the source and therefore much more authentic. These musicians aren't just copying the music that came before but many actually were playing this music when it was new. Their experience flavors the sound to a great degree and is hard to replicate.
The previous Baby Boomer music "wave", Newwave, had as a large part of its genre a rediscovering of the music that its performers had grown up loving. Elvis Costello, The Cars, The Knack, The Plimsoles, The Pretenders, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Blondie are just a few of the bands from the early Eighties that reinterpreted the music of the British Invasion of 1964, the Folk Rock movement of 1965 and the girl band sound of Phil Spector. These musicians did such a good job not because they were spoofing or parodying a music style that was before their time, but because they grew up with this music. Rather than invent a style all their own, which Newwave sort of was, they brought back the music of their youth. The Stray Cats and Queen with A Crazy Little Thing Called Love, went even farther back and revived Rockabilly.
Classic Rock still has its fans even among today's young people who I believe would appreciate a new version performed and recorded by the people who not only heard it but lived it.
Speaking of the real thing, here's an example right HERE.
Speaking of the real thing, here's an example right HERE.
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