Arthur Klein is 84 and walks with a Zimmer frame because of arthritis. He
makes his way slowly, but purposefully, to the centre of the stage. He grips
the frame firmly, lifts his head and, as a group of fellow octogenarians
look on, roars into the microphone: “This ain’t a song for the broken-
hearted.” In come the drums, keyboard, and guitars and Klein tears into Bon
Jovi’s It’s My Life. “It’s my life/ It’s now or never/ I ain’t gonna live
for ever/ I just wanna live while I’m alive.”
The scene is a studio theatre in the bustling university town of Northampton,
Massachusetts, where possibly the world’s most unlikely rock stars are
rehearsing. The Young@Heart chorus is a group of about two dozen ostensibly
geriatric singers (the number fluctuates for understandable reasons) with an
average age of 82. Rather than singing Bach cantatas or hits of the great
crooners, they present classics of rock and pop, from the Clash to Coldplay.
Young@Heart was started by Bob Cilman in 1982. He thought it might be fun to
arrange a weekly singalong for residents of a home for senior citizens. Then
the group did some recitals. Cilman found that matching old people with
energetic rock songs surprised and delighted people.
Collaborations with other arts projects, most notably the drama group No
Theater, led to appearances in Europe. Then in 2007 came the feature film
Young at Heart, by the British director Stephen Walker. Clips of the group
melting the hearts of hardened cons at a prison concert and the late Fred
Knittle lugging his oxygen supply on stage to sing Coldplay’s Fix You in a
haunting bass, became YouTube hits.
Now as they prepare for a week of performances of their new show, End of the
Road, at the Manchester International Festival next month, they are learning
to cope with fame. (The nearest equivalent we’ve had here were the Zimmers,
put together for a BBC documentary.) Before the film Young@Heart were best
known in Europe and Australia. Now they are in demand in their own country.
They also have to deal with a lot of applicants, many of whom are
unsuitable. “We have had the stage daughters, who bring their mothers along
and push them forward,” says Sheena See, who is producing the show with her
husband, Roy Faudree. Sometimes applicants want to move to the area simply
to join the chorus. “We tell people to come to rehearsals before buying a
house,” Cilman says.
Not everyone was wild about the film. Faudree and See consider it a
distraction from their theatre work. Cilman hopes that it will help to sell
concert tickets, but is a little weary of talking about it. One of the
group’s associates complains that the film dwelt too much on the death of
two of the members during filming.
But the regular demise of chorus members is a central reality of its
existence. Brock Lynch, 85, a former doctor and a stalwart of the group,
says that the deaths give the film backbone: “Without that it would have
been kind of dull.” He loves it, watches it frequently to remind himself of
colleagues who have passed away.
Lynch has been to at least ten funerals of chorus members. “Singing with the
group is the way to work out the grieving. I am going to carry on until I
die and then it will carry on without me.” One chorus member turned up the
week after the death of her husband, who had also been in the group.
Death is “part of the whole experience”, Patrica Ervin, 84, says. “It makes me
want to live while I’m alive.” A few years ago she was settling into
comfortable retirement in her native Texas after living away for 50 years.
She wanted to be close to her sister and one of her sons in Austin. “I
planned to volunteer, take a class at university. I had a nice pool in my
front yard. I was enjoying my life.” But on a trip back to New England to
visit her daughter she bumped into an administrator for the chorus in the
post office.
She auditioned, joined the chorus and now resides in her daughter’s living
room while her condo in Texas stands empty. “It has profoundly changed my
life. I’m seeing the world, singing my heart out, making new friends. I
always wanted to be an actress, but I got married and had children.”
Her preferred music is Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald but she has found
rock songs to be “wonderful, exhilarating. The message is sometimes a little
obscure. But they are energising.” She thinks Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life is the
group’s anthem. “What that says to older people is so important because it
is easy to retire. Slowing down is part of what you do, but you don’t want
to stop and settle down in a rocking chair.”
There is a certain amount of black humour among the chorus. During a break in
rehearsals I remark to Jean Florio, who has been a member for 20 years, that
everyone seems very committed. “Once you are in, you’re in for life,” she
says. So no one ever leaves? “They do, but not standing up,” Pat Cady cuts
in. “In a box. We are like cowboys. Die with your boots on.”
“We took a doctor on the first tour because we were scared s***less,” Cilman
says. “He was the only one who got sick.” Now they have a doctor standing by
at each gig. No one has expired yet during a tour.
There are no members of the original chorus line-up left, but the group
regularly replenishes. After spending a long day with chorus members it
would appear that all that singing does seem to keep them remarkably
youthful.
Take Dora Morrow. I first see her shimmying sylph-like across the stage to a
version of Jerry Butler’s Only the Strong Survive. It turns out that she is
86, has 15 children and 52 grand and great-grandchildren, and regards the
chorus as “like another family. Not as big as my family, but everybody gets
along real good.”
Steve Martin, in shorts and polo shirt, doesn’t look old enough to be in the
chorus. When he says he is 80 I ask to see his driving licence. He whips it
out as proof and attributes his youthful looks to “good friggin’ women, good
friggin’ whiskey, good friggin’ cigars. I say to audiences, ‘Don’t be afraid
of getting old.’ We have experienced so much in life: buried spouses, buried
children, had cancers, we have walkers, canes. But the moment we hear the
first note everything is forgotten. We are not from assisted living, we are
performers. People are astounded that we deliver. That lifts them up and
they think about their own physical condition and think of their moms and
dads and grandparents and think, ‘I wish they could do that’. Don’t give up
on life.”
Many, like Jean Florio, 86, joined after their spouses died. “I had never been
abroad. Fifty miles from home was the farthest I had been. So, you don’t
start to live until you are 73.”
There are rumours of a budding romance in the ranks and the banter can be
bawdy. At dinner at a local restaurant A.P. Stevens, 82, a former school
principal, who has had a heart attack, says that he had walked slowly to the
restaurant behind the rest of the group, with a woman who has breathing
difficulties. He says that he joked to her, “Do you think they will think
we’ve started something?” “Can they finish it?” responds a fellow diner. To
which, Shirley, Stevens’s wife, says, quick as a flash: “Can they start it?”
Cilman says that the chorus “work very hard” and adds: “What’s wonderful is
they show up on time all the time.” Working with young or old people is
identical in many ways but “older people are more relaxed about whether they
are going to be approved or accepted”.
He says that the project “was always art. I never really wanted it to be a
social services project. It’s not about making people feel good. It’s not,
‘Look at what seniors can do when they put their minds to it’. They are a
really interesting group to see on stage.” He accepts that the elements of
surprise and incongruity are important.
We go to a local bar, where several of the group kick off an evening of
musical acts by singing solos. Some have had some previous musical training,
but most have learnt everything with the group. Some of the voices are
stronger than others. But somehow the unpolished nature of some of the
performances adds to the effect. They all have dignity and an enthusiasm,
and that, married with the unlikely material, makes the performances hard to
resist.
Louise Canady, 80, brings the house down with a powerful rendition of Ain’t No
Stoppin’ Us Now. But my favourite number is Pat Cady, wrapped in a feather
boa, jauntily singing the Magnetic Fields’ Too Drunk To Dream: “I’ve gotta
get too pissed to miss you/ Or I’ll never get to sleep.” Students young
enough to be her grandchildren tap their feet. One follows the percussion
with imaginary drumsticks.
Afterwards, over a beer, I ask Cilman how long he will go on with Young@Heart.
He started the chorus as a young man and is now 56. As he gets older he
keeps raising the minimum age for joining. It stands at 73. “The great thing
about this age group is that by default you have to change all the time. I
will stop doing it when I get bored. The worst thing is to go on and on and
bore people.”
As we drain our glasses he mutters: “I’m getting close to retirement.” I point
out that he, of all people, should know that retirement is only the start.
Young@Heart Chorus perform End of the Road at Manchester International
Festival, July 10-18
