Late Blooming Musicians

September 30, 2014 2:36 PM

Can you think of acclaimed musicians who didn't put out their first album until 35 or later?

I've buried my dreams of being a singer-songwriter for a few years now. However, it still feels like an important part of me and I find it inspiring to hear about musicians who didn't take their craft seriously until they were older. E.g. I listened to an interview with Mary Gauthier on Fresh Air recently and was so releived to hear about a songwriter who didn't start writing songs until she was 35. Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen and other "late-starters" who I used to look to, well, I've surpassed the age when they started recording.

Can you think of other acclaimed (if niche) musicians who didn't put out their first album until 35 or later?

posted by oceanview to Media & Arts (17 answers total)

LCD Soundsystem's first full-length came out in 2005, a couple of weeks before James Murphy's 35th birthday.
posted by ludwig_van at 2:48 PM on September 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hugh Laurie.
posted by humph at 2:49 PM on September 30, 2014

Al Jarreau is another
posted by Clustercuss at 2:49 PM on September 30, 2014

(The wikipedia article on Hugh Laurie is better, he was 52 when he released his first album.)
posted by humph at 2:52 PM on September 30, 2014

It's a bit different since her first album came out when she was in her late 20s, but Linda Perhacs, at 70, released her second album this year, 44 years later.
posted by darksong at 3:17 PM on September 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Sharon Jones released her first album with the Dap Kings in 2002, at 46.
posted by sea change at 3:20 PM on September 30, 2014 [8 favorites]

Also on the Dap-Tone roster is Charles Bradley who was in his 60s when his debut released in 2011.
posted by .kobayashi. at 3:37 PM on September 30, 2014

Charles Bradley (also a Daptone artist) released his debut album in 2011, at 62 years old.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 3:40 PM on September 30, 2014

My instinct is to ask who cares about precedent, but I'll mention Seasick Steve instead. First album out aged 59-60, after a life spent doing much else.
posted by ambrosen at 3:40 PM on September 30, 2014

Dave Carter came out of nowhere in the year 2000 and quickly became one of the most popular figures in modern folk music. He had spent most of his life as a mathematician and software developer before releasing his first disc (of demos) at the age of 43, and it wasn't until he was 47 that Tanglewood Tree (his first non-self-published album) brought him and his partner Tracy Grammer to everyone's attention. I think he's the best example of a '60s-era baby boomer having a midlife crisis, throwing his old life away and returning to his adolescent hippie values (Buddhist/cowboy/guitarist) ... and really succeeding.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 3:53 PM on September 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Elizabeth Cotten "had retired from the guitar for 25 years, except for occasional church performances. She didn't begin performing publicly and recording until she was in her 60s."
posted by Knappster at 4:03 PM on September 30, 2014

It may also inspire you to look at musicians who have stayed great as they got older (Tom Waits!) or musicians who hit a really bad patch for a decade or so and then got great again in middle age. I had kind of written David Bowie off as a has-been by the 1990s, and then I heard I'm Afraid of Americans on the radio and it was like holy shit.

Age can be really hard on rockers, but it doesn't have to ruin them. In Waits' case I get impatient with his noodly jazzy stuff from the 1970s, and he doesn't click into place for me until he got that roaring old man voice and started banging around on toy pianos and stuff.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:20 PM on September 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Fat Possum Records is a label that specialized (they've expanded their roster since their early days) in putting out records by Mississippi blues artists, many of whom were between 40 and 70. Some of the musicians had done some recordings decades before, but many had not, and many were actively playing in local juke joints and parties, but it was the Fat Possum records that put them in front of a national audience.
posted by soundguy99 at 5:12 PM on September 30, 2014

Don Knuth, nearing the end of his life, has decided to get cracking on his compositions.
He'd like to hear something by the time he's 80.
He's 76 now. I think it'll be a piece for organ.

Also, Dan Reeder, born 1954; debut album, 2003.

Harry Partch.
posted by the Real Dan at 11:11 PM on September 30, 2014

Would Susan Boyle count?
posted by SisterHavana at 12:33 AM on October 1, 2014

Seasick Steve was born in 1941 and, after a life of bumming around, busking, bits of gigging, studio work etc. released his first album at the age of sixty three and his first solo album at the age of sixty five. Then he went pretty huge in the UK (in particular).
posted by Decani at 1:26 AM on October 1, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions! I will check them out. I've found myself singing around the house as your picks came in which is incredible as I'd worried that I'd lost my passion, but it's still there, bubbling back to the surface :)
posted by oceanview at 9:42 AM on October 1, 2014 [1 favorite]