I always said I’d retire when I got to 50,” chuckles Rick Wakeman, who didn’t do any such thing. Instead – after realising that far from being left adrift by pop’s ever-changing styles, people were still interested in what he had to offer – he recorded another 37 albums (taking his total to more than 100), penned two bestselling autobiographies and a film score and carried on performing shows. Then last year he announced that he’d stop touring when he reaches 77, but he’ll be 76 this May and his packed live schedule doesn’t suggest a performer saying his last goodbyes.
“There was a time when I thought, maybe it’s time to gracefully bow out,” the prog keyboard caped crusader explains, before his latest gig in Bradford. “But unfortunately I can’t. Music is the world to me.
It’s just become blatantly obvious that I’m going to keep doing it until they put an epitaph on my gravestone reading: ‘It’s not fair. I’m not finished yet.’” Elkie Brooks knows exactly how he feels.
The “Queen of British blues” (whose hits include Pearl’s a Singer and Lilac Wine) has had 13 Top 75 albums in total and is on the road again at 80, having performed a “farewell tour” when she was 40. “The promoter thought it might be a nice idea,” she chuckles. “I’ve been saying ‘farewell’ ever since.
” The pair are not alone in rocking way past pensionable age. When rock’n’roll was considered a young person’s game, the young Mick Jagger once .
