Comment: The Rolling Stones - older, but time waits for no one Published on: 6 March 2018 Writing for The Conversation, Dr Adam Behr argues that The Rolling Stones harking back to their past is ensuring that they and the music remain relevant. An article in Rolling Stone magazine described the legendary band 鈥� its near namesake 鈥� as 鈥溾��. Its portrait of Mick Jagger referenced 鈥渁ge lines around his eyes 鈥� as old as the weariness and cynicism in his voice鈥�. That was in 1980 when Jagger was in his late 30s. Eleven years, an acrimonious split with Keith Richards and a triumphant comeback later, Q magazine鈥檚 review of the band鈥檚 live album Flashpoint also placed them in 鈥溾��. So as the Stones announce that they are for their first UK dates in five years (they performed a 12-city European tour in 2017) it鈥檚 worth remembering that the debates about how old is too old to rock 鈥� and the attendant mixture of , and 鈥� have their own well-worn lineage. This is as much to do with genre and how it鈥檚 authenticated as with age. Jazz and 鈥� closer to home for the Stones 鈥� blues artists face fewer qualms about staying on the road, even as the fire fades from their performances. John Lee Hooker was and BB King was just a when he played the last shows before his death (having played Glastonbury at 86). Chicago bluesman is still touring at the age of 81. Crossroads from blues to rock The Stones themselves, now closer to their 60th than 50th anniversary, have played heavily of late on their origins as a blues band 鈥� their 2016 album Blue and Lonesome consisted entirely of blues covers. Returning, or retreating, to the blues that influenced them initially seems both a natural and a strategic move. Strategic in that it taps into a lineage of long-running performers that predates rock. But also natural enough given that the blues has been a musical thread throughout their albums and shows. They emerged in the early 1960s as a blues covers band 鈥� and drew heavily on their influences (their very name is taken from a ) as they forged a new identity as the 鈥済reatest rock 鈥榥鈥� roll band in the world鈥�. To be fair, they were rather more assiduous in crediting and publicly acknowledging their musical forebears than some of their 1960s contemporaries, (Led Zeppelin, for example) insisting that show if the producers also booked black American bluesman Howlin鈥� Wolf. The key difference, though, is the way in which blues and rock emerged as popular, commercial music genres. Blues emerged from folk forms and was interpreted and authenticated in light of that 鈥� as music predicated on life stories and personal stories embedded in a collective tradition. The music went back to the era of the segregation laws and, before that, slavery. (BB King鈥檚 great grandfather, for instance, ). It was also subject to heavily in the US, both on the live circuit and on radio. Rock emerged and was sold as youth music, making an appeal to authenticity predicated on a generation gap and sense of rebelliousness 鈥� the Stones鈥� own 鈥淪treet Fighting Man鈥�, for example. This meant that while there were numerous musical similarities 鈥� such as the 12-bar form 鈥� some of the social nuances were lost. As author , a middle-aged black American man like Muddy Waters in the 1950s and 1960s singing lyrics like 鈥淚鈥檓 a man鈥� carried the sub-text of not being referred to as 鈥渂oy鈥�, a common form of racist address. The same song in the hands of a young, white Englishman was shorn of this context. The Rolling Stones in 1966. , Artists such as the Stones were more associated with a commercial milieu. Whatever their 鈥� doubtless genuine 鈥� pronouncements of dedication to the music, they emerged through major labels with large marketing budgets. And rock music鈥檚 rebel credentials were somewhat diluted when its stars, including Jagger, started . Torn and frayed? But genres evolve and, as the Stones and others have shown, commercial or not, they can still chart new paths. Rock, like jazz before it (now a music of conservatories), has entered the academy. 鈥淐lassic鈥� and 鈥溾�� rock are established categories and ways of thinking about, as well as selling, a music that is now situated across three generations鈥� worth of cultural discourse. A key, lasting change brought about by the Stones and Beatles generation of rockers was the centrality of the band as a unit of music making, . As my 缅北禁地 colleague , straightforward derision of ageing artists as mere peddlers of nostalgia is itself a rigidly Romantic view that 鈥渇ixes rock to a time and an attitude鈥� 鈥� without allowing for the twists and turns of both the artists and the their work has informed. There are numerous of ways dealing with growing old in the limelight, from Randy Newman鈥檚 to to call a natural end to touring with his voice still strong. For an act such as the Stones, harking back to their musical roots may be a way of aligning their musical development with its own antecedents, at the same time as allowing for a mode of performance less reliant on the physicality of their younger days. Paying tribute to the past 鈥� both their own, and musical history more broadly 鈥� is a means of carrying it forward. after all. , Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, This article was originally published on . Read the . 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