The Nursing Home Tour

I didn't have the opportunity to see the recent tour with James Taylor and Carole King. However, I heard that Sweet Baby James may have less hair than he did in 1975 and the Tapestry Queen may look a little more gray around the noggin, but their voices were as strong and as clear as ever. More importantly, the songs didn't age. The work of two sixty-somethings held up admirably for over 30 years, and sounded much like they did on the 8-track tapes you originally heard them on.

So then I started thinking about today's young "artists" and projected them some 40 years out and doing their own reunion tours. What the hell will Lady Gaga look like then? Will she still wear her underwear in public with the flab of her belly hanging out like jello? Yikes. When she sings, "oo-la, oo-ga-ga", it may look and sound like early onset Alzheimers. The Black-Eyed Peas will be another doozy. I have a feeling that Will I. Am will most likely be referred to as Bill. And can you still call yourself, "Fergie" if you're a senior citizen and not royalty? When they croon "tonight's gonna be a good night", it will probably be foreboding that they both may get through the night without wetting the bed.

If Eminem lets himself go to the tune of 200 pounds with a pot belly and a hoodie to cover the flab, will he still refer to himself as "Slim Shady?" I doubt it. And when Kanye West sings "Paranoid" at 71, he'll most likely sound like a guy who needs immediate testing for dementia. Nobody wants to see that. And nobody will want to hear old men rapping or singing through a voice distortion box either. Their music is frozen in time with the same likelihood of thawing out as Walt Disney.

I would be remiss not to mention the long term potential of the Disney Channel clan. As much as they would like to have the longevity of a cartoon, these people will age just like the rest of us. You think Miley Cyrus can still sing "Best of Both Worlds" into her 60's? It's just a hunch, but I think Hannah Montana's double life secret will probably be out of the bag by then. And the Jonas Brothers may still sing about the "Year 3000," but I doubt they'll live to see it, albeit they'll be closer than they ever were.

Disney music, much like the rest of the top 40, isn't built for the long run. They just wait for someone to age, and then clone another teenager to replace them and take a premium position. The singer-songwriters from the 70's were built from a different stock. James Taylor, Carole King, Billy Joel, Elton John, and Stevie Wonder, all continue to sell out shows and play music that doesn't even seem like there's a hair out of place. It's a true testament of how music has evolved from high quality writing for the long term to a culture of custom made American Idols and single hits for iTunes.

So the next time an artist from the 1970's moves through your neighborhood, bite the bullet and pay the exhorbitant ticket price. They're a dying breed that won't be seen again.