{"id":5732,"date":"2011-02-08T01:02:56","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T05:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=5732"},"modified":"2011-02-08T01:02:56","modified_gmt":"2011-02-08T05:02:56","slug":"putting-ones-rock-n-roll-house-in-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/putting-ones-rock-n-roll-house-in-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting One&#8217;s Rock &#8216;n Roll House in Order"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5737\" title=\"elton\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/elton-220x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/elton-220x300.jpg 220w, https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/elton.jpg 306w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I saw a recent cover of <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> magazine featuring an interview with <strong>Elton John<\/strong>.\u00a0&#8220;Elton Remembers,&#8221; reads the cover copy, as the formerly flamboyant Glam star soberly stares out at me with his million dollar weave and horn-rimmed glasses as humble as those he wore during his <a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_wbCIjNQwnpg\/TRiVx9nqibI\/AAAAAAAADw4\/YvxHe8EdMhs\/s1600\/Elton_John-1970.Front.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">1970<\/a> tour introductory tour of America. I have not yet read this article, but I&#8217;m pretty sure I know what it&#8217;s going to focus on: the continuing process of John putting his rock &#8216;n roll house in order.<!--nextpage--><\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mpLedBxzgus?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>We&#8217;ve known for some time that it&#8217;s hard for a rocker to age gracefully. Long before rock &#8216;n roll as a genre could envision even middle age, <strong>Pete Townshend<\/strong> wrote &#8220;Hope I die before I get old.&#8221; But old rock &#8216;n roll and rock &#8216;n rollers have gotten. Perhaps no rock &#8216;n roller has done a better job of preparing for the inevitable point of complete irrelevance (or worse) than Elton John. Among some of the key steps that he has completed are the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Public self-awareness? <em>Check.<\/em> The man&#8217;s been publicly examining his life for much of the last 30 years. He&#8217;s been open about his sexuality, his addictions, his attempts at maintaining a facsimile of hair&#8230; I&#8217;m pretty sure he&#8217;s published an autobiography, cried for Barbara Walters, and so forth.<\/li>\n<li>Acts of international healing through the power of song? <em>Check.<\/em> Let us not forget &#8220;Candle in the Wind.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>A move toward austerity? <em>Check.<\/em> Elton dumped his sequinned suits and oversized glasses in the &#8216;8os. He&#8217;ll never be caught wearing jeans and an Oxford shirt, but he&#8217;s at least scaled back to the point where he wouldn&#8217;t seem out of place at a Pentacostal wedding.<\/li>\n<li>Teaching moments for younger, troubled artists? <em>Check!<\/em> The guy&#8217;s played big brother to <strong>Axl Rose<\/strong> and <strong>Eminem<\/strong>, for crying out loud. He&#8217;s also helped rehabilitate the image of <strong>Robert Downey Jr.<\/strong> by letting the post-rehabbed actor lip-synch a new single in a video. Teaching moments, <em>healing<\/em> moments&#8230; We can only hope his mentoring of Eminem is more successful than his work with Axl.<\/li>\n<li>Parenthood? <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/8301-31749_162-20030881-10391698.html\" target=\"_blank\">Check.<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n<li>Paying back the artistic debts to his own elders\/teachers? <em>Check plus!<\/em> Elton is sincerely paying homage to one of his greatest influences, <strong>Leon Russell<\/strong>, while Leon hangs on through old age and some tough times.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J2e4NlnLr28?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Am I missing anything? I&#8217;m having trouble thinking what&#8217;s left for Elton to do to put his rock &#8216;n roll house in order. If he decides to never appear publicly again or if, god forbid, he leaves us too soon, I think he&#8217;ll have completed the difficult task of moving from mega-star to mega-joke to eternally comebacking veteran star to simply classy, veteran musician and seemingly solid citizen. I&#8217;m not sure how many musicians have completed this transition, have gotten their rock &#8216;n roll house in order. I sincerely commend John for having done so and ask you to help me identify other artists who are near completing this task\u2014not to mention artists who still have some serious work to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paul Simon<\/strong> may be there. He&#8217;s practically a rock &#8216;n roll goodwill ambassador by now, traveling the world like post-presidential <strong>Jimmy Carter<\/strong> does to this day. <strong>Bono<\/strong> should take notes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick Lowe<\/strong>&#8216;s gotten his house in order, but in the large scheme of rock &#8216;n roll excesses he doesn&#8217;t have half as much to clean up as rock&#8217;s biggest stars.<\/p>\n<p>A major artist who seems to be working toward this task is <strong>Bob Dylan<\/strong>. His <em>Chronicles, Vol. 1<\/em>, for instance, was nothing if not an admission that he was a &#8220;regular Joe&#8221; like the rest of us. He would still benefit from an adjustment to his Look, maybe ditching the Vincent Price pencil mustache, but the guy seems to be making a serious effort to leave this world as a grown man.<\/p>\n<p><strong>David Bowie<\/strong> is almost there. He makes fun of himself on occasion. He dresses down now and then. He&#8217;s dropped pretensions to Glass Spiders and Tin Machines. It may help him to stop releasing overblown albums with space themes. Would a classy album of tunes from &#8217;40s musicals be in order, or maybe a piano-acoustic guitar-drums with brushes album?<\/p>\n<p>There are a number of musicians who try, at least now and then, to get their rock &#8216;n roll house in order. <strong>Paul McCartney<\/strong> comes to mind. For every good deed, for every reconcilliation with his past, however, he reverts to desperate, ego-fueled behaviors, like mounting major tours and firing off those stinking pyrotechnics every time he and his band play &#8220;Live and Let Die.&#8221; I think another simple rockabilly album may be in order.<\/p>\n<p>What about <strong>Pete Townshend<\/strong>? He&#8217;s made major moves toward getting his house in order, even taking a job as a proofreader or something at a publishing house about 10 years ago, right? Like McCartney, though, he seems to have trouble resisting one more leap back into the forced spotlight. What&#8217;s it going to take for Pete to get his rock &#8216;n roll house in order, or will that challenge inevitably lead toward the difficulties in wiping one&#8217;s hard drive clean?<\/p>\n<p>Then there are artists who seem to have little interest in getting their rock &#8216;n roll house in order, such as <strong>Mick Jagger<\/strong>. Right? Mick seems to have no interest in preparing for the Great Irrelevance, whereas <strong>Keith Richards<\/strong> has initiated the process of getting his house in order.<\/p>\n<nav class=\"page-links\"><strong>Pages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/putting-ones-rock-n-roll-house-in-order\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">1<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/putting-ones-rock-n-roll-house-in-order\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">2<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/putting-ones-rock-n-roll-house-in-order\/3\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">3<\/span><\/a><\/nav>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw a recent cover of Rolling Stone magazine featuring an interview with Elton John.\u00a0&#8220;Elton Remembers,&#8221; reads the cover copy, as the formerly flamboyant Glam star soberly stares out at me with his million dollar weave and horn-rimmed glasses as humble as those he wore during his 1970 tour introductory tour of America. I have <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/putting-ones-rock-n-roll-house-in-order\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[54,153,340,425],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}