It’s not just the rockers who are dying

David Bowie’s death means classic rock era is ending

If I was the curator of deathlist.net — which prides itself on guessing which ailing celebrities will die each year — I would clear the roster of the 80- and 90-something showbiz luminaries who typically make their Top 50, and focus exclusively on rock stars in their 60s.

As we’ve seen in the last three-anda-half weeks, the most endangered species aren’t the doddering geezers who made their names in the postwar 1940s and ’50s. It’s musicians who came up in the classic rock era.

First it was Motorhead’s Lemmy, the heavy metal party animal who died of cancer at 70. Then it was Natalie Cole, the R&B powerhouse who died of heart failure at 65. Then it was David Bowie, the iconic glam rocker who died of cancer at 69.

And then, a few days later, it was Glenn Frey, the bellicose, driven cofounder of the Eagles, who died from a variety of chronic ailments at 67.

Can Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler (67) and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant (67) be far behind?

Mind you, rock pioneer Chuck Berry is still onstage at 89, for crying out loud. Little Richard, that wop-bop-aloo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom wild man, was still tearing it up two years ago at 81. And that cousin-marrying lunatic Jerry Lee Lewis continues to unleash his great balls of fire at 80.

So why, you may ask, is the death curve being squared with such ominous precision as once-vibrant superstars prepare to collect their social security cheques? One word: excess. Music in the ’70s was about overkill: drugs, groupies, sex, booze, pills.

The ones who didn’t die in their prime to join the 27 Club — Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix — probably figured they would live to an advanced age, free from physical fallout. But as we now know, when you spend all your time drinking, partying, carrying on with groupies and snorting things up your nose, the past catches up with you.

What did Bowie, Lemmy, Frey and Cole have in common during their rock and roll heyday? Substance abuse. And if you think that doesn’t take a toll on your body over time, you’re like Bowie’s Major Tom, floating in a tin can up in space, untethered from reality. But there’s symbolic heft here as well, as anyone who grew up in the era of shag carpeting and eight-tracks can tell you.

Bowie and the Eagles virtually defined the ’70s: bold, innovative powerhouses who influenced generations. Their deaths, not surprisingly, feed into something greater than the end of a particular music style.

They represent an end to the freewheeling, boundary-pushing ’70s as a lingering force in pop culture. Yes, that legendary decade ended 37 years ago.

But the classic rock spawned in the era of leisure suits and lava lamps has proven more resilient than any other musical style: catchy, anthemic, generation defining.

Until now. As the 2010s pass the mid-decade mark, the end is near. Which means all the dinosaur bands that have kept the struggling concert industry alive are on their last legs, hitting a temporal wall beyond which there’s nowhere left to go.

Who’s left to fill the bill? Rush just retired. The Eagles are kaput. Black Sabbath is on its farewell tour. Foreigner played Kitchener last year without one original member. Even stalwarts such as Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones are entering their mid-70s. How long do they have left? One year? Three?

And it’s not like there’s a long line of contemporary acts who can fill their shoes. One Direction and Justin Bieber have huge followings, but who thinks they’ll cast the same wide net in an era of niche entertainment where loyalties are fickle?

The sad fact is, once these legacy acts pack it in sometime this decade, there will be a gaping maw on the stadium circuit that has traditionally given bands a boost long after their commercial heyday.

So goodbye classic rock. It’s been a sweet ride, but all good things must come to an end.

What was that line in “Hotel California?” “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

That’s the ’70s. Its charter members are checking out every day, but the memories tend to linger. Joel Rubinoff writes for the Waterloo Region Record. Email him at jrubinoff@therecord.com.