How old is old?

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: Fred Maslan
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 09:15 PM

Unfortunately I have no real evidence. I never saw my dad play any instrument although there was a variety around the house. My mom played the piano and mandolin.

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 09:39 PM

~~sigh~~

GfS

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 11:34 PM

"...not a misogynist...try a novel idea....satire!" GfS

Sorry, fella. That was not satire. Sarcasm, maybe (although I don't think so).

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 11:38 PM

I knew it!!!....You didn't take exception to the suppository post...was it because you don't mind detesting that finger...or is it because you're anal retentive...and suppositories are your pleasure???

Gotcha!

GfS

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 12:02 AM

Remember this??...and this one is snazzier!


...or this one.....'got you all worked UP'......

GfS

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 01:20 AM

GfS, you're not nearly as witty as you think you are. In my oh so 'umble estimation, of course.

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 02:05 AM

Of course....

GfS

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 05:15 AM

Old is 15 years older than you are, when applied to people.

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 11:47 AM

Yesterday Lighter said: "Bill, why should he have thought different? Surely you don't think he had a ballads course in school.."

Two things.... first, I question the idea of describing songs from 10-20 years ago as 'oldies'. I had replied to the kid, "In my group, 'oldies' means from 100-300 or more years ago."

Second... in general, I remember when I was in school they tried to at least give us a sense of history and relative ages of different events. I am aware that you can't spend all your time exploring the minutiae of the past, but many of the kids I meet now have no idea of 'when things happened'. For all some of them know,(unless they had a European History course) Hitler and Queen Victoria were contemporaries.

No, I doubt the kid had a ballads course in school....but he didn't WANT to believe me that 'ancient' songs were still being sung... he seemed to think that if it was vaguely popular in HIS group, it must have been written in the last 20 years or so.

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 12:07 PM

It takes a while to get a sense of historical perspective. Always did; not a new thing among today's children. My sister [who is 88 now] once asked my mother, "Did you wear animal skins when you were a little girl?"

~M~

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: Old Grey Wolf
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 12:13 PM

I had a cat who was 15 when she died a couple of years ago - that's old.
One of the best things I ever did was to retire 2 and a half years early. I have now been able to catch up on all the musical stuff I had to park up - learning the guitar, keyboard and cornet; even learning a new language (actually it's not new, it's Japanese, it's been around for hundreds of years). I'm now just past state pension age and officially an Old Fart. My wife says I should act my age, not my shoe size but I say that while age is compulsory, maturity isn't.
There's life in the Old Grey Wolf yet!

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 12:25 PM

Old Grey Wolf: "My wife says I should act my age,..."

Tell her that you ARE...you're just giving it a second time around..after all, practice makes perfect!

Regards!

GfS

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: Old Grey Wolf
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 12:31 PM

Your'e right GfS - gonna tell her that!

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: PHJim
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 04:03 PM

My guitar hero as a kid growing up in Hamilton Ontario was Jackie Washington. My mom recalls me coming home after seeing him for the first time at the Black Swan Coffee House in Hamilton. I was all excited about seeing this "old guy" who could really play the guitar. She pointed out to me that Jackie would have been in his 40s at the time.

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 05:33 PM

'Oldies' is an interesting category in (mostly American) popular music.

One narrative—which I'll give from a subjective perspective, as a fan—goes like this:

It starts with Art Laboe, a radio DJ and concert host who is kind of like the West Coast's answer to Alan Freed in terms of popularizing 'Black' music with non-Black audiences...except Laboe is still alive and still on the radio!

Laboe started the idea of 'Oldies but Goodie' in the early 1960s, in reference to the doo woo soul, rock n roll, etc of the 1950s! For his audience, which had memories of the musical artists they enjoyed in local concerts and while cruising, etc less than a decade earlier, these songs were already 'oldies'.

Since then, a sort of canon of oldies has grown. Each decade, songs that were special to that 'generation' have been added to the canon.

The twist (?) is that this phenomenon largely resonated with Mexican-American/Chicano audiences. There is a sort of family structure there...lots of intergenerational events...where you'd hear your parents' and grandparents' 'oldies' as well as your own. The canon of Oldies now includes stuff from the 50s until, say, a decade ago. If the song has stood the test of time — kind of like what some people think is 'folk' music — then it is an "oldie."

The "oldie" category is not determined by corporations pushing a certain thing. And the oldies in this scene -- this tradition? -- are not your typical 'top 10 from the 50s' that are played on a lot of so-called 'Oldies' radio stations. It is, again, a canon of songs embraced by this community of generations that have sort of 'elected' the songs they think are meaningful or notable. One way this election happens is through radio requests. Art Laboe, the DJ, still takes all requests that are called in; he has a good sense of the pulse of the 'community'.

If you talk to people in this culture about 'oldies,' the expectation is of a particular body of songs — each of which is encoded with a meaning. It is insufficient to try to define oldies by the age of a song of by musical traits.

I think there is a lot to compare here to the concept of 'folk' songs. Though many people interested in folk songs have been historically disinterested in 'commercial' or mediated music...the sort of 'processes' that songs undergo, the 'community' building and the sense of heritage and meaning have been going on with popular music, just as 'folk' songs of the past though recording technology wasn't there.

Subject: RE: How old is old?
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 09:02 PM

[Daughter:] Just imagine it, you're forty years old. I hope to be dead and buried before I reach that age. You've been living for forty years.
[Mother:] Yes, it must be a biological phenomena.
-- Shelagh Delaney, _A Taste of Honey_