Welcome back to Ancient Wisdom, our Sunday series in which writers over 70 tell us how they are aging gracefully. Last week, we excerpted the wonderful, wise Thanksgiving letter Warren Buffett, 95, wrote to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders. This week, Larry Gondelman, 73, shares how he’s turned his lifelong passion, rock ‘n’ roll, into his late-life vocation.
If you’re a Boomer like me, you can’t help but view your teenage years as the golden age of rock ‘n’ roll. The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and so many more were recording one great song after another, music that sounds as fresh today as when we first heard it. My fate as a rock ‘n’ roll die-hard was sealed on September 14, 1964, when I was 12 years old and the Beatles came to Pittsburgh, where I grew up. My father pulled some strings and wangled a backstage pass, and I actually met the Fab Four. The thing I most remember is how short they were; I had expected these larger-than-life musicians to be, well, larger than life.
By the time I got out of high school, I had seen, if you’ll allow me, The Smothers Brothers, The Temptations, Little Anthony and The Imperials, Vanilla Fudge, The Doors, The Guess Who, Three Dog Night, and Led Zeppelin—all bands we Baby Boomers knew well. In college I saw The Moody Blues (with Van Morrison as the opening act), Neil Young, James Taylor and Carole King, Ike & Tina Turner, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and the Grateful Dead. During law school, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Price and the Keystone Rhythm Band offered respite from the grind of reading cases.
