Some GOOD news for a change!
 

With all the music legends passing recently, here's a (partial) list of those who are still with us:

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...YA&oe=63D8C700

They just even bother putting Keith Richards on these lists because we know he'll outlast us all.

Was the first thing I thought too:)

One of my top favorite songwriters, Kris Kristofferson, turns 87 this year.

FYI advance tickets go on sale Wednesday for the Stones' 75th Anniversary Tour in 2038... :eek:

Jimmy Buffett, 76
Jackson Browne, 74

Neil Young, 77
Grahm Nash, 80
Stephen Stills, 78
Joni Mitchell, 78


Non-rockers:
Dolly Parton, 77
Tony Bennett, 96
Del McCoury, 83
Bobby Osborne,91

James Taylor - 74 (?)

Ah yes, Keith Richards, the cockroach of British rockers...

Thanks for reminding us that a glass half-empty is also half-full....

I'll add 74 year old Ozzy Osbourne to that list. He had a new album come out a few months ago that featured some great guitarists, including Jeff Beck. Ozzy's had his health concerns over the past few years though.

Oh, yes. We are the people intrigued by these names.



I hope to be up and at 'em doing my job at any of those ages. Maybe one of them will come by sometime to chat over coffee to talk about their own real story. I didn't have the teen magazines so their story would be fresh to me. I tend to design guitars after conversations. It is the playable art (built by Tim) that becomes a historical story teller to enjoy during older age 'relax at home' couch days.

I can't play a guitar, but in 1972 I sang on the stages of Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center as a teen participant in the America's Youth in Concert. That was only one summer. As the large choir stepped off America's major stages 50 kids hopped on my bus and we sang many songs by some of those names above. I'm sure that pleased our dignified conductor. We also hopped a plane and toured Europe. I can smile as I admit without permission we sang, "If I had a hammer" as a warm up. Thankfully my small county school had ways of pushing my parents to send me on this endeavor as I was told I was one of 5 from Ohio accepted. Why was I picked? WOW - don't know. Don't care. It also involved touring Europe during those sweltering months so I went and sang where I was told to sing. Over the span of the last 50 years, even with no alcohol or drugs involved, much of that summer has become a blur.


Since then I made life style changes. Guitars are my subject now. In this manner I can simply imagine how nice it would be to listen, laugh, hear about the moments that these artists talk of their real lives. While sharing a cup of java of non-stage conversations, I would hear how their private lives were real struggles and yet, filled with joy. On a piece of paper, napkin, candy wrapper whatever I can grab I tend to swirl a quick picture, jot a note and then tell Tim, "That conversation put this in my head. This is our next guitar."


I sang with many of these people back in those rock star days. Well, kind of. Money was always tight as I was the middle daughter with 15 siblings. I was never a concert type of person. It was the words and the voices of the above mentioned names coming from that little AM/FM transistor radio that made this girls life more interesting. Those people were sitting in the car seat next to me as I leaned on their music to help me grow into who I am. You had your own cars where you listened but mine was way out back in that old broken down Ford Fury car with windows cranked down so I could comfortably breathe. Many of those names sat with me and I sang with the best of them! Not one time did they cringe and say, "Mary, let's don't and say we did." So, technically I did sing with them. ;)


However they could stand and talk to me at a guitar show and I wouldn't know one from the next. Each person who comes to our table is just as interesting to me. Regardless of age, size, color or mannerism people intrigue me. To all names above and to any of you who reads this I hope you are able to celebrate another year.


My sincere thank you for helping me smile at those oft times forgotten memories I personally experienced. Will this AGF thread in time become a guitar in the McKnight wood shop?

Hey ... the organic coffee is on. This is how it begins.

Steve Hackett turning 73 soon.
Stephen Stills 78.

When we're children, I think we see age as something of a fixed entity, perhaps because the passage of time in our perceptions is so slow. One year is like an aeon.

I used to see my parents as eternally in their late 30s/40s; my heroes in their late teens, twenties, or early 30s; and my grandparents fixed in their mid 70s-early 80s. I think that illusion was only completely shattered when I was at university and the grandparents started dying. Funny to think that the 'beautiful' generation are now in that grandparent bracket. A child or young teenager looking at someone like Paul McCartney might register his look as I did those of my grandparents: that he was magically born in his 70s and somehow always looked like that!

How can they miss off Uriah Heep's very 'eavy, very ' umble Mick Box and Phil Lanzon - 75 and 72 years respectively. Combine age of the band is currently 325 years!

Also, just limiting myself to some of my favourites, most of whom are still playing:

Andy Latimer & Rick Wakeman - 73
Johnny Echols - 75
Dave Gilmour & Peter Daltrey- 76
Robbie Krieger - 77
Roger Waters & Nick Mason - 79
Arthur Brown - 80
David LaFlamme & Dave Brock - 81
David Freiberg - 84

The surviving members of the Dead: Bob Weir - 75; Bill Kreutzmann - 76; Tom Constanten - 78; Mickey Hart - 79; Phil Lesh - 82

and of Country Joe & the Fish: Barry Melton & Bruce Barthol - 75; David Bennett Cohen - 80; Joe McDonald - 81;

And in the folk(ish) world:
Janis Ian - 71
Gordon Giltrap & Cat Stevens - 74
Dave Pegg - 75
Christy Moore - 77
John Sebastian, Ralph McTell & Dave Cousins - 78
Eric Andersen - 79
Andy Irvine - 80
Roy Harper - 81
Martin Carthy - 82
Wizz Jones - 83
Tom Paxton - 85

So maybe a few heroes still alive and kicking...

Yeah, but when his daughters die, think of everything he'll inherit!

Bob