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This is probably too much of a black-pilled take for most here, but... looking at this topic through the lens of "industry" and it all makes sense.

These artists are.... brands.

The truth is — especially in their later years — they are little more than mascots for the brand that's been built up around them. There's too much money involved — too many people getting paid — to just let them walk away. Especially at a time when live performances are the only real money-makers. Just having control of their estate really doesn't mean as much as it used to... far fewer people are going to make a living off of that.

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It took me a while to realize that a career can be likened to chapters in a book. The final chapters in my long career as a scientist are much different than the beginning and middle chapters. Most time is now spent teaching and mentoring. The best part of this is that these chapters are just as fulfilling if not more than earlier chapters.

Thanks Ted for your thoughtful contribution.

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Great timing. I'm no superstar--I barely qualify for the bottom rung of "unknown"--but just yesterday I drafted an email to my 500-ish music newsletter subscribers to say something about how I am back to focusing on prose-writing now and I haven't gigged since last July or written a new tune in ages or even practiced piano much in two seasons, and I probably won't be out there again until...

Then I stopped myself, thinking, "Wait, how many times have I sworn I'm done with music only to show up again a few months or years later? Maybe I should just let the moment pass in silence until I have another show date to announce."

Was still vacillating until I read your piece and decided definitely not to bother saying a word yet. 🤣

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I've read that professional athletes suffer greatly when they retire—when they are forced to retire because of aging and injury. I've read a few memoir of Olympic athletes who struggled in their post-retirement years. They didn't become millionaires. Their competitive years were short. And they sacrificed a "normal" childhood and young adulthood for their sport.

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This is a great story Ted. As always. I read a lot of them, but as a general avoider of comment sections - for well understood reasons - I hadn't seen this part of your site before and didn't realize it was a kind of ongoing conversation with so many interesting and interested folks. Very cool!

As you may know, I'm an unreasonably determined fan of THE BAND and came in contact with Levon Helm and his circle in 1999 after we covered BESSIE SMITH on our Holiday Romance album for Universal. Rick Danko had just died and Helm had just been diagnosed with cancer. And things got worse from there in every way imaginable. Especially money.

It was at that time, with the help of the indefatigable manager Barbara O'Brien that, out of necessity and to pay the rent, he re-imagined his career as a stay-at-home affair where he simply invited people over to his house to play and listen to music.

By the time he went back to the studio in 2007 to record Dirt Farmer, these Ramble Sessions in his barn in Woodstock, patterned after the medicine shows of his youth, had taken on a mythic and financially viable path forward. Pilgrims visited by the thousands to pay their respects.

Comparing his bandmates who passed in near total obscurity, Helm left a lasting legacy. Today's global Last Waltz tributes would be the most unlikely thing if not for Helm's evangelism and prosperity preaching of the music of The Band.

This month the lead singer, Myles Goodwyn, of my hometown-band-made-big, April Wine announced a retirement at 70 something. The idea is the band (with no original members) will stay on the road without him. We'll see. I'd like to encourage him, and others in their position to consider the Levon Helm strategy. Seems to me it's a good way to extend the fun in a healthy way. But as Levon liked to say, "we ain't in it for our health."

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This brought Leonard Cohen to mind.

He had no desire to tour in his 80's, but he was robbed by a greedy manager. He was a great singer and poet who deserved better.

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Bill Withers had it about right. He had a career in the Air Force before becoming popular at the age of 32, had a decade recording and performing then left it alone. I'm sure he's done well off the royalties rather than have to sing ' Lean on Me' every night.

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I saw the Lady Gaga/Tony Bennett performance. It just confirmed my belief that, even in his diminished state, he is a much greater talent than she'll ever be. Take away the costumes, lighting, and unending hype, and what have you got? Stefania Germinotti, a fair-to-middling singer whose reach never comes anywhere near her grasp. They say that Chopin in his last days had to be carried on stage, but as soon as his hands touched the keys, he could play. I always think of Leonard Warren, collapsing on stage in "La Forza del Destino" after singing the words "Morir...tremenda cosa". Opera singers in particular seem to have erratic judgment about when to quit. Beverly Sills did it right; on the other hand, Cornel MacNeil kept singing (and the Met kept casting him) when he was obviously well past his prime. I think Maria Callas kept singing because (1) her fans would cheer for her regardless of how she actually sounded, and (2) she just didn't know what else to do after Onassis dropped her. Big difference between "This is what I do" and "This is who I am".

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Interesting piece. Reading it I came up with a couple reasons why performers might (seem to) feign retiring:

-They change their minds. Maybe an artist thinks that they're washed, can't do this anymore, they've had enough, it's no longer worth it, they want to spend their time enjoying their lives and riches offstage, etc. and announces the end, they change their mind even a short while later. The burden of being an active artist is lifted with said announcement and they get another wind in their sails, the muse returns ... and they find themselves walking back onstage or back into the studio. As I'm sure you're aware, artistry can be a funny thing like that. And provided they're still physically capable of making it through shows, there will always be the temptation to be (put) on stage regardless of how diminished a presence they might be.

-They need the money performing brings. The money doesn't last like they thought it would, whether through malice, overspending or some other issues. When my parents saw Don Henley a decade ago, they noted he thanked the crowd for paying for one of his children's college tuition. Dick Dale toured relentlessly until death to afford the medicine and medical supplies he needed, as many people noted after he passed away. While I fully agree that nobody should be active well into their retirement years out of fiscal need, the music industry's non-performance revenue streams are frequently incapable of providing retirement-aged musicians adequate support.

-False announcements of retirement drive interest in that 'final' tour or release. FOMO is a hell of a feeling. Even for an artist that seemingly has years if not decades of creative output still to come like Justin Bieber or Nicki Minaj (independent of the quality of said work or our perception of it), the declaration that this is the end can drive up interest in said shows, even if it's highly unlikely they are truly hanging it up soon. You wouldn't want to be the fan who missed out on seeing them because you thought they were bullshitting you about quitting, would you? Better see them now while you can, just to be sure! (Or maybe they're just being dramatic for attention.)

Especially coming out of pandemic-related shutdowns, I've found feelings of FOMO and knowing this could very well be the end of a legacy artist's career driving some of my concert going decision-making, having seen how fickle the live performance industry can be and how shockingly quickly many of the stars wind up 6 feet under. As eternal as folks like Iggy Pop, Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen etc. may seem, they won't be around forever, and their contemporaries and fellow players are dropping like flies. I'm not expecting Iggy to be the same bruiser he was in the 70s when I see him perform in a few weeks ... but I'd still like to see him before he's gone forever like Bowie.

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There are multiple reasons why a person may choose to continue performing in their later years. I suspect that some are forced to continue due to finances. The Monty Python troupe had to return to the stage to recoup monetary losses due to legal entanglements. I used to have a perception that being or having been famous meant that you were rich. Permanently so.

This is flawed logic. Showbiz does not provide the same safety nets that an average working person may have available, pension or savings plans, insurance, and reasonable associates who are there to warn against unhealthy financial activity. I expect to hear changes in voices, and in performance skills as they (we) grow older. I cringe when I hear some of singers who voices are well beyond their golden years and yet the performer insists on pushing forward, with no reasonable end in sight.

I wish for them to have an opportunity to take a graceful bow and exit stage left. But, that doesn't happen. There are several acts that continue to push forward as tribute acts that feel more like exploitation than performance. They leave me with a sense that I have just watched a side show performer bite the head off a chicken, rather than a loving tribute to the memories of deceased band members.

And now, I am thoroughly discouraged in a system that took so much, but gave so little.

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Your column led me to think about Paul McCartney, one of my music idols since 1964, when I was eight years old. His voice is gone. And none of us seem to care when he performs. That said, it is getting harder (and quite expensive) to watch. Maybe he should just talk the songs...like William Shatner.

I love the elderly jazz musicians in Cincinnati. Well into their 70s, playing purely for the love of communicating with a tiny neighborhood audience. They are a part of the city's history. Whoops, I hear the Joni Mitchell lyrics coming up --- "you don't know what you got until it gone."

There's no reference to retirement in the Bible. The same goes for jazz.

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Robert Palmer’s liner notes for what would prove to be his final studio album DRIVE conclude thusly:

“It’s the first record I’ve made which I play for my own pleasure and don’t think to myself ‘Oh no...if only I’d done this or that ....’

It’s finished.“

He died within the year and when I heard, I recalled that quote. I think he was saying - wittingly or not - he was done.

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such a fascinating essay, I think it could apply to lots of careers, but especially those in the public spotlight. Its strange how we feel cheated when a star retires, or changes career. I think we get upset when anyone does it too though. A person changes so much, but as humans, we often don't like it when a person becomes something other than the image we had of them. Thank you for writing this, its made me think a lot which is always the best ❤️

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I was one of those weird kids who was into jazz when all my friends were listening to the Beatles, et al. (I rarely had company when I went to hear someone play.) My favorite was Herbie Hancock. I snuck into several bars to hear him play. He was obviously a very angry and unhappy man, but his music was extraordinary. When I got to know him more personally a few years later, he was playing a different, more commercial kind of jazz. The music disappointed me, but he had become a happy and (by musician standards) wealthy man. I don't know what to make of all that.

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Art, and performance, requires courage, and comes with no guarantees of success. Musicians, as artists, should know if what they are attempting to produce is something of artistic value, and be both responsible to be reaching for that, and be granted the freedom to take whatever chances are necessary in the attempt. And as humans, doing the most humanizing thing we are capable of, be granted as much mercy and forgiveness as necessary should they fall short. And we should all know that more often than not, the beauty revealed in imperfection is worth the flaws woven in the cloth.

Amen?

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Musicians (at least the good'uns) 'r national treasures an' I like all yer suggestions! (The unions--just like they do fer actors in Hollyweird--could offer nice housing fer them that need it an' include a decent on-site stage with open-to-public ticket options an' a handy roster of studio musicians in " the area" happy to support the old timers.... mebbe in Nashvillie, Woodstock, Austin, or even L.A.?)...

Disagree with ya on Tony B--the man could be SLEEPIN' soundly and he'd outshine the likes of twitchy witchy Lady Caca (however highly she may regard 'im...) Due to bein' born a little too late ta see some've the greats "in their prime," I'm MORE'n grateful to have seen 'im in their sunset years--Peggy, Rosie, Mel (Tormé), an' even ol' Blue Eyes (his last concert in Joisey).

My gran'pa played with Les Brown's band (with Doris Day!) an' some other-knowns (he did backup for Kate Smith!!!!--whom he fondly called a "big lady with a big voice!") an' one of his greatest joys 'til the end was pullin' out his clarinet n' tenor sax and playin' along to recordin's of the tunes he knew n' loved.... in his heart, he never retired!

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