Fixin’ To Die
It’s pretty dangerous to be a fireman. And from what I understand, working on an oil rig, while great for meeting women, is also a perilous occupation where mortality is constantly tested and often failed. The fabled open-sore pearl divers of Hawaii’s world famous Starving Shark Bay. Rhinoceros tattoo artists. Democratic senators traveling by airplane two weeks before an election against a Bush affiliate. All of these occupations are notorious for their high attrition rates. And with the possible exception of the democratic senators, all of these are fairly glamorous gigs.
But there is nothing so simultaneously glorious and death defying as being a rock star. In the business, the bell is constantly tolling. Sometimes, it really sticks with us. The Buddy Holly crash of 1959 is the stuff of American lore now. The John Lennon assassination still hangs in your throat like a horse-pill wrapped in razor wire. And Elvis Presley’s 1977 departure, as well as the unflushed hunk of burnin’ love he left behind, are part of our collective understanding of the world and the way it is sometimes.
On the other hand, sometimes they disappear off the face of the earth and we couldn’t give a flaming crap about it. When Rob Pilatus took his own life in 1998, the only person who mourned was Fab Moravan. After all, what’s a Vanilli without the Milli? When Sonny Bono died, most people were just upset that Cher doesn’t ski. And when Peter Frampton died in 1983, it went so unnoticed that he continues to tour and record right up to this very day.
But rockers young and old are dying all the time. And we are prompted especially to recognize this right now, in the midst of an unruly spade of casualties that began late July with the passing of the 80 year old revolutionary, Sam Phillips. The visionary producer, whose Memphis Recording Service-turned-Sun Studio was the site of debut recordings by Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Rufus Thomas, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf and many others, forged one of the very first and most earth-shattering pit-stops on the way to the rock and roll revelation.
Among his discoveries, also, was Johnny Cash, whose deep-welled voice was sadly silenced this month. At 71, this master of anguish and endurance shuffled off to the valley, and though few were surprised, his death was a heartbreaking one. So too was it with Warren Zevon, an acerbic bright spot in the Southern California crapfactory scene that otherwise spawned the cynical laid-backed ungroovies of Jackson Browne and the Eagles. The sarcastic scribe who imbued a plastic age with a dose of reality died of an inoperable form of lung cancer at age 56, just three weeks ago.
And suddenly on Friday, without giving the world any time to prepare, yuppie rocker Robert Palmer had a heavy nova and his heart exploded. Said a publicist in an interview this weekend, “I guess we should have seen it coming. I mean, he was the same age as John Ritter.” If Palmer himself had seen such an early demise on the horizon, he probably would have done more drugs. At 54, the MTV era star joined Ritter in making an interesting case: If all the really cool people go at 27, maybe those who are modestly lame go at exactly twice that age. The lead singer of Air Supply will probably live to be 81.
But there is a troubling trend at hand here, albeit a natural one. Here we are, living 50 years from the inception of rock and roll into the canon of popular culture. Perhaps rock and roll has exceeded its life expectancy. Perhaps, as some would argue, it is already dead. One thing is for certain; those of us with statistical mathematics on our side will live to see the passing of many of its greatest progenitors.
Let’s face facts here. If Ozzy Osbourne lives to see the end of this decade, it’ll corroborate all that talk about him and the devil. It would appear that the devil left him with his soul, and instead co-opted his coherence. Whatever the case, he falls over while he’s lying down. He’s probably going to die in the near future.
And B.B. King? He’s bigger than Disney World. Granted, the
man can still play. But not on a stage that requires stair-climbing.
King’s nutritionist predicts that the legendary bluesman will
choke to death while trying to eat an amp.
Michael Jackson should probably be on 24 hour suicide watch. Stevie
Wonder probably shouldn’t drive. Justin Timberlake is probably
going to die of natural causes…when somebody pushes a tree over
on him. Ted Nugent should be bored and necro-raped by the antler of
a caribou during mating season.
The Ramones are down to three, the Who has dwindled to a pair and there are only two remaining Beatles…and one of them is Ringo.
What’s the point of all this morbidity? Surely, it’s tough to watch your memories fade like this. It seems like a century ago that Kurt Cobain was the living embodiment of all our frustrations. And it stings to know that Jerry Garcia, Bob Marley and Tiny Tim left us for the touring circuit in the dirt.
But there is something to be gained by this realism. Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, James Brown and Ray Charles are all active, at least as much as men in their seventies can be. I had the good fortune to see Berry and Diddley this summer, and Brown and Charles recently as well. It’s an awe-inspiring thing to be in the presence of the founding fathers.
So yes, it’s a sad but fair statement to make that we will all be around to watch these great men die. But in the mean time, you should see them play. Hey, maybe you’ll be lucky enough to be at the show where it happens.
One day, it’ll be Keith Richards and the cockroaches sitting around and laughing at all of us. Until then, we have the opportunity to see in the flesh, the absolute giants of popular music. A generation from now, that is unlikely to be the case. So when you’re searching for an impressive accomplishment to tell your children about through a prison phone thirty years from now, it would be neat to tell them that you saw James Brown after his shooting spree but before his death.
Recorded music offers us the gift of preservation. But to truly be humbled, you’ve got to see it live and close-up. Anybody who ever saw Jimi Hendrix perform will tell you that once they’re gone, another chunk of the Holy Grail is lost forever. Everybody leaves a legacy but live music is a one-time-only, special-engagement, get-it-while-it’s-hot sort of thing. The unpredictability of rock, and life in general, is such that you never know who could be next. It could be Creed, but on the other hand, it could be somebody whom you’ll regret missing. When we grieve our fallen rock stars, let us do so without the pangs of lost opportunity. Death is hard enough.
Suggested Downloads:
Warren Zevon: “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” “Roland
the Headless Thompson Gunner” and “I’ll Sleep When
I’m Dead.”
Johnny Cash: “Cocaine Blues,” “Wanted Man,”
and “The Mercy Seat.”
Sam Phillips: Elvis Presley’s Sunrise, anything by the Million
Dollar Quartet (comprised of Lewis, Presley, Cash and Perkins) and
Jackie Brenston and the Delta Cats’ “Rocket 88.”
Robert Palmer: ummm…