There are an interesting couple of pages at the outset of Greil Marcus's new book, The History of Rock 'n' Roll in 10 Songs. As you'd expect from one of the most erudite and playful writers on rock and pop, the book contains way more than 10 songs, as he sets about having an idiosyncratic poke through rock history.
Before he gets going, Marcus lists every act inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Forget about Buzzfeed’s listicle culture, this is the mother of all musical lists, running to six pages. Here is the roll-call of acts that those who curate rock’n’roll’s past pages deem worthy of lauding and celebrating. If you’re someone who fervently believes that rock’n’roll should be about danger, mavericks and outcasts, the list of those who have made it into the Hall of Fame is a tad depressing. It is homogenous, safe and conservative, because history is written by the commercial winners, and they all share pretty much the same characteristics in order to maintain that status.
What is interesting about the list, though, is just how many of the inductees are still chugging away on the circuit, making a living. The rise of the heritage act over the past decade has meant boom times for acts no longer in the first bloom of success but still able to tour until they drop.
Twenty years ago you didn’t see older acts touring in the same way. The music-industrial complex wasn’t set up to capitalise on their availability, as it could see no way to make a buck from them. It was believed that mainstream live shows were just for the young ones, so the senior acts who did play live were stuck on different circuits.
Before Rick Rubin came along, for instance, Johnny Cash was largely playing by that stage of his career in the Branson timewarp. The occasional engagement beyond Missouri aside, Cash’s audience was largely the country-music tourists who had made their way to Branson to see him.
It is a far different game today. Heritage acts are an essential cog in the live-music industry, from clubs and theatres to arenas and festivals, as promoters realise their pulling power. There had always been dedicated fans for big hitters like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen or Leonard Cohen, but now any act who had a few hits a couple of decades ago, and has a decent agent, can fill their diary with live dates worldwide.
Familiarity can breed audience contempt, though. Take the relationship with Dublin of the Hall of Famer Neil Diamond. Back in 2008 he played Croke Park. Three years later he was back to play the Aviva Stadium – largely remembered for the never-ending barrage of radio ads to try to flog the tickets. Next summer he plays the city again, this time at 3Arena. It would appear that we’ve reached peak Diamond.
He is not the only one who will see diminishing returns from their continued presence on the touring circuit. For every musician like Nile Rodgers, who can effortlessly reinvent themselves to stay relevant, many others will see their audiences going elsewhere. After all, the fans reason, the act will be back, and they can always see them then.
But there are also Hall of Famers you realise you should have gone to see years ago, and you now rue your procrastination, because time is running out. Jerry Lee Lewis, for example, is heading towards his 80s and living on a ranch outside Memphis. The shorthand of his career is full of hell-raising, scandals and derring-do. As Rick Bragg’s new biography makes clear, the longhand is just as colourful. The real wild days may be over, but Bragg talks about Lewis recording new albums, playing more gigs and walking up the aisle for a seventh marriage between hospital treatments for pneumonia, arthritis and broken bones. He is still in the game and, like everyone else, doesn’t want to be defined by what he did and who he was in his younger years.
Yet it is the wildness of those early years, how the subject survived, his connection to rock’n’roll’s eureka days and how he never sold out that make Lewis such a fascinating character for both biographer and music fan. Back when he was knocking over piano stools and driving audiences crazy, Lewis had an edge few others possessed. Many wanted it, but most were unwilling to embrace the madness with the same fervour as Lewis to obtain it.
This edge is what drove him to outlandish creative heights, and it may well have been the attempts to re-experience those highs that led to the self-destructive spirals of later years. Both the highs and the lows came out in his music. When you listen to Lewis singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow you hear the song mined for the kind of sadness and desperation few apart from Lewis knew it possessed.
Age has put a halt to some of his gallop, and the Killer no longer jumps on top of the piano. A different sort of edge is at play now, but when we read about him or hear him in his pomp, a sepia-tinged movie starts to play in our heads, and we’re reminded of what we dreamers want from rock’n’roll. That desire doesn’t need an endorsement from the Hall of Fame.
Fintan O’Toole is away
