I saw the wonderful Walker George documentary “Young@Heart”this week about the Young@Heart Chorus, a “rock band chorus” made up of well-seasoned seniors, singing songs like Nirvana’s “Come As You Are,” Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia,”  Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here and Radiohead’s “Plastic Trees”– This is not the Roy Rogers music review.

The group, who’s members currently range in age from 73 to 89, just celebrated it’s 25^th anniversary. They are gutsy and very real. They have had 25 years of changing members, as active singers become sick, leave for operations, cancer treatments, have heart attacks. Members die, return from illnesses, new members join. What impressed me most was how nothing was denied. During filming of the documentary, 2 members died. And the shows went on each time, the same day. Members have all agreed to go on with the show, and bring the reality of their loss into the power of their song. The documentary filmed them performing in a prison on the day one member died. They shared that reality with their audience. And here were these hard-edged criminals all but weeping in their listening. It was moving and instructive.

 I find myself sometimes shying away from the grittier possibilities in life. “Let’s hope for good health, talk about only the good”—you know the mindset, most of us have it, at least some of the time. But here are these folks singing because they love it. They are going to Japan in the Spring. They tour Europe, and the US regularly. While facing 3 bouts with cancer, family realities, or an illness the doctors said would end a life 2 years ago. They are Living, with a capital L, facing life, death, the truth of it all on their plates daily. Some of them singing with oxygen tubes in their nostrils. Live now–Be alive, no settling for a socially acceptable facimile…Sounds like the roots of Rock itself, doesn’t it?

It is a magnificent thing to see LIFE, without much denial, in action. Find out more about them here: http://www.youngatheartchorus.com/index.php.  You can also buy their CDs on Amazon or listen to them on I-tunes  and Rhapsody. I say Rock On!