Artists whose peak period was middle-age

lemmy is a lot older than you think...he was probably close to 40 when motorhead was at their peak..

Alan Vega of Suicide is the first thing that comes to mind.

Earl Brutus : in pop terms, they had been around the block several times, before they hit their stride.

A lot of the jazz greats fit this timeline - Mingus, Coleman, Coltrane, etc.

Oh yeah LCD Soundsystem

Robert Wyatt (arguably)

Lucinda Williams

Lemmy was 30 when he founded Motorhead - if you place their peak as the late 70s/early 80s he more or less makes the cut

also, mark e.

I would be curious to see an argument that the Fall's peak period is from 1992 onward...

agree a ton of jazz guys fit the bill here, which is interesting

wyatt's work is so different compared to soft machine but ultimately i think it's more rewarding.

DJ Quik is making a case for himself

blows my mind that Andy Partridge is almost 60

dylan and neil young don't really fit in this but they kinda do, their careers are so all over the place but they both also did some great work, up there with their greatest in middle age or beyond in dylan's case.

Scott Walker

I would be curious to see an argument that the Fall's peak period is from 1992 onward...

Let me see if I can get my Lou1s J4gg3r bat signal to work...

What's funny is Huston fits the criteria - 1941's Maltese Falcon at 35 and 1964's Night of the Iguana at 58. Arguably, all his best movies fell in that time frame.

blows my mind that Andy Partridge is almost 60

he's been dormant for a decade!! sigh

classical would probably be cheating right?

dylan and neil young don't really fit in this but they kinda do, their careers are so all over the place but they both also did some great work, up there with their greatest in middle age or beyond in dylan's case.

Those guys have been middle-aged since they were young.

but i guess jazz and classical are more trades in a sense and require a lot more time to learn the craft and the theory etc than other forms of music so it's should be surprising that ppl tend to peak later

dylan and neil young don't really fit in this but they kinda do, their careers are so all over the place but they both also did some great work, up there with their greatest in middle age or beyond in dylan's case.

Those guys have been middle-aged since they were young.

― kkvgz, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 10:43 AM (7 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

they're younger than that now iirc

Leonard Cohen

looooool m@tt

Bill Dixon -- made his first record at 37, his last (yet to be released) at 84.

nick cave i don't know if you can say peak but abbatoir blues/lyre of orpheus and then the grinderman stuff i like about as much as anything he's done.

I think I'm in the minority of thinking late period Fugazi rules and pwns so to me Ian Mackaye

OH SHIT

Duh - Robert Pollard! he was 35 when propeller came out!

Tom Waits

it's looking like E-40 might be the world's first rapper where this is true

surely Frank Sinatra ?

good one

ooh yeah Pollard, he is a strange case. he always seemed so out of place with his 90s indie rock peers, like he was the Breeders' drunk uncle or something

Dieter Meier was already 35 when Yello released their first album, and their peak period wasn't until a few years after that.

It's pretty hard to think of female pop/rock singers for whom this would be true. Debbie Harry and Grace Jones almost make it.

Not sure if Can counts, since they were already in their 30's when they formed the band.

Yo La Tengo were a lot better in their 30's than in their 20's.

Moondog

Susan Boyle

Oh yeah, and I would argue that Meshell Ndegeocello's peak period started in 2003 with Comfort Woman, and hasn't ended yet. She was born in 1968.

Scott Walker

OTM. Not that I ain't a massive fan of the numbered albums, but SW is the first thing I thought of when i saw thread title.

this is a pretty idiosyncratic list of people so far

bill withers

Go-Betweens.

The drummer from Spirit was 85 when their debut came out.

weren't The Damned kinda old or at least some of them?

tonetta

Jeez, is anything over 30 middle aged now?

lee hazlewood

Trish Keenan was 35 when Broadcast released their second album (Haha Sound).

Pet Shop Boys

Marianne Faithfull
Lucinda Williams

Ivor Cutler

serge gainsbourg

he was 40 when he made "je t'aime moi non plus" and 43 when he made "melody nelson".

you would think that electronic music producers would improve with age, since it's a craft that benefits from knowledge and experience, but it doesn't seem to work that way. proof that ideas trump craft, i guess.

Lucinda Williams and Tom Waits are spot-on choices.

Matt Pike has to be 40 years old. Peak for me was Blessed Black Wings in '05, so that's pretty close to 35.

Had no idea Mastodon dudes were that old.

Mastodon had the Today Is The Day connection remember. At the Cathouse gig some years back just when Leviathan came out some smart arse was shouting for today is the day songs. (everyone knew who they were too) think those days might be gone.

Pulp was formed in 1978, but didn't creatively or commercially peak for almost two decades later (albeit with a mostly revamped lineup). They have some live shows scheduled for this year, by which time at least one band member will be 50.

As for artists whose commercial peak came long after their creative peak, I'll nominate Steve Winwood, who creatively peaked around 1967-68 - although some would argue it was anywhere from 1966 to 1971. But he was 40 when "Roll With It" (both the album and the single) topped the charts in 1988.

Decrepit old bluesmen.

To wit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRgg_9TmI-w&feature=fvwrel

Sorry - got lost in the thread - posted, then read the thread title.

thought of a good one: Mark Sandman turned 40 the year Morphine released its first album

I don't know how old Nina Nastasia is (40-ish?), but she waited a long time before recording her debut (having performed live in NYC since the early '90s), and last year's Outlaster is as good as anything I've heard by her.

oh, and Mark Lanegan has produced some of his best work while in his 40s. the latest Soulsavers album is one of the high points of his career, I think.

Howlin Wolf was 41 when he started to record for Chess in 1951.

Muddy Waters hit Chess Records peak started around 1950 when he was 37.

Erykah Badu? She's just put out two of her best albums in her late 30s.

I would be curious to see an argument that the Fall's peak period is from 1992 onward...

― in my world of loose geirs (Shakey Mo Collier)

http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/features/2009/mark-e-dj.jpg ≠ http://media.musicfeeds.com.au/files/mark-e-smith.jpg

he's been dormant for a decade!! sigh

only five years. no idea if much of the smattering he did in the five years before that is any cop though.

Revive.

There are very, very few women mentioned on this thread. Why is that?

Well here's one: Jane Weaver's at he absolute peak at the moment and she's 46.

Parenting affecting female careers more than male careers, perchance.

Neko Case seems to be in peak form in her 40s. Many of the artists on the ILX Gonna Shine in My Backdoor Someday are late bloomers, probably due to the proficiency required.

also rampant gatekeeping throughout their youth

no "perchance" about the parenting thing either

Tina Turner

Ella Fitzgerald, probably lots of other jazz women

Yeah I argued for Peggy Lee upthread, her run between "Fever" at age 37 and "Is That All There Is?" at 49 is for me her most fun period to listen to and also when she took the most chances

Vi Subversa was 42 when she founded the Poison Girls

https://www.discogs.com/artist/420468-Vi-Subversa

Gyorgy Ligeti

38 for Atmosphères, probably the start of his peak period

Laurie Anderson?

Lou Reed

Kim Gordon was 42 when Washing Machine was released, many people think SY peaked after that

The majority of Moondog's recording career was between the ages of 37 and 55, and the most famous stuff is all from his 50s.

many people think SY peaked after that

Is this actually true?

hi!

to my ears they released with a couple of mediocre exceptions a string of wonderful albums through 2006 but

GBV?

I do like the latter day albums and, maybe especially, a lot of the SYR stuff! I just don't think of "post-1995" as Sonic Youth's peak period.

Alex Harvey was 33 when The Sensational Alex Harvey Band was formed, which seemed really old for a rock star at the time.

I think Bill Callahan's best work was done as Bill Callahan, and Woke on a Whaleheart came out when he was already 41. Even the best Smog material (imo) was done in his 30s.

Yeah, tbf, even Sonic Youth's 80s work was done when Gordon was in her 30s; the band name was always ironic.

It would be an easy argument to make that Celia Cruz peaked after age 35 or even after 40

Bill Frisell: mid-30s during downtown NYC days, 37 when he moved to Seattle, over 40 by the time of Have a Little Faith. Some of my favourite work of his might actually be post-middle age!

Duke Ellington was in his early 40s when he composed/released a string of masterworks ("Take The 'A' Train," "Cotton Tail," "Harlem Air Shaft," "Jack The Bear," "Ko-Ko," "Concerto For Cootie," etc. etc.).

And he was in his late 60s when he started a series of brilliant suites (The Far East Suite, The Latin American Suite, The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse, New Orleans Suite).

Wow I didn’t realise Kim Gordon was 66! I would have guessed at a minimum five years younger.

Sorry, should correct the above to co-composed -- Billy Strayhorn was either the sole composer or a collaborator with Duke on many of the '40s pieces.

xp

Duke is a good one.

Nels Cline was in his 50s when he made my favourite albums of his, probably past middle age when he made Macroscope.

personally i'm planning to peak around 43

― adult music person (Jordan), Tuesday, March 29, 2011 4:27 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Still on track for this

Pauline Oliveros fits in here for sure

Steve Reich was 39 when Music for 18 Musicians premiered. I think this is common for classical and jazz artists in the contemporary era.

Lucette Bourdin was a visual artist who released her first ambient album in 2005, when she was 51... Then, in following 7 years, she released something like 25 albums, most of which are excellent. Sadly, she died in 2012, but it was an amazing burst of music from someone who had never made (commercial) recordings at all in her first fifty years.