All Things Must Pass
This site celebrates the giants of a generation of musicians that is now, slowly but surely, leaving us. The focus might appear morbid, even mawkish - it is not meant to be.
Rather, it celebrates the longevity and continuing creativity of a generation of musicians who never dreamed they could make life-long careers in the then-new rock 'n roll. But, it turns out, they could and many did. We hope to show that the 27 Club has a much smaller membership than you would think, and certainly much smaller that the 80-And-Still-Going-Club.
Sad news, however, that one of that club's members, David Crosby, has now left us (January 18th). He was twice inducted into The Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, with The Byrds (1991) and with Crosby, Stills, and Nash (1997).
January has also seen the sad, and sudden, passing of Jeff Beck, a credible claimant of the Best Rock Guitarist Ever title - he was on tour in the UK as recently as last summer. And like Crosby, he was tow-time inductee into the Hall of Fame.
Brief tributes to David and Jeff, and to other recent losses from across the world of music, are on our Farewell page.
Happier news that the 80+ club continues to gain new members:
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Lee Jackson of The Nice (80 on 8 January). The Nice folded in 1970 when Keith Emerson left to join ELP, but they reformed for a tour in 2002. Lately, Lee has been playing with bands in the Northampton area.
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Andy Summers of The Police turned 80 on New Years Eve, 2022. Hard to believe? Yes, largely because he is basically a decade older than his colleagues in The Police, and however youthful they looked, he seemed to keep up with them, in both looks and energy. Still a working musician (last solo LP in 2021), he is also an internationally acclaimed photographer, with numerous exhibitions to his name.
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Robb Royer of Bread (80 on 6 December 2022). He was in Bread 1968 - 71, and was replaced by Larry Knechtel with whom Ronbb worked after Bread folded in 1973. Now a songwriter based in Nashville.
To celebrate rock's 80 year olds, and other feats of longevity, please visit our Analysis of these living legends.
Please note - the site is still (yes, still) undergoing a major refresh, during which old, outdated material will still be available for a while - please bear with us while we clean everything up.
Best place to start is probably with the Bands pages. We've grouped the bands into five categories, dependent on the survival rate of the membership. We're only focusing, initially, on major line-ups, although our database aims to track all recording line-ups. We're much less interested at this stage (although not uninterested) in touring line-ups.
An "On this day..." feature is on our Celebrations page.