Aging Gracefully: Icons Showing Us How It’s Done

Rock and roll wasn’t designed with longevity in mind. In the early days, the whole thing felt like a dare: play loud, live fast, and hope the hotel doesn’t send you the bill. Yet here we are, decades later, watching many stars cope with aging in, well, divergent ways.

We’re not here to trash anyone, so we’ll leave it to you to picture stars who’ve made one too many trips to the cosmetic surgeon, clinging to the past like a pair of jeans that stopped fitting three presidents ago.

We’d much rather celebrate the artists who are aging well. Here are a few we especially admire, each of whom is navigating their later careers with time-tested ease, humor, and a sense of adventure.

Ringo Starr: Decades of Joy

While other musicians brood, reinvent, or philosophize, Ringo has chosen a different path: pure, unfiltered glee about making music.

His All‑Starr Band tours are basically the world’s most wholesome traveling revue — a rotating cast of hitmakers, a setlist full of songs everyone knows, and Ringo himself radiating the kind of positivity usually reserved for people who have just discovered meditation or adopted a puppy. Most comments we’ve seen from his various bandmates over the years affirm his essential sweetness and kindness. How do you not like that?

He still plays with that unmistakable swing, still sings with charm, and still flashes the peace‑and‑love mantra like it’s the world’s most sustainable energy source.

Nick Lowe: The Gold Standard for Aging with Style

If there were a patron saint of aging with grace, it might be Nick Lowe. The man who once gave us razor‑sharp pub‑rock classics has evolved into a wry, elegant songwriter whose late‑career albums feel like conversations with your coolest uncle — the one who gives great advice and knows exactly when to pour another drink.

Lowe didn’t cling to his youth. He pivoted. He refined. He grew into his voice, his style, and his sense of humor.

Mavis Staples: Faith and Power

Mavis Staples isn’t just aging gracefully — she’s aging triumphantly. Her voice has deepened into a soulful growl that carries decades of history, but she still radiates joy like she’s plugged into a higher power.

Her collaborations with Jeff Tweedy and Ben Harper have produced some of the most powerful music of her career.

Darlene Love: The Voice That Refuses to Quit (Or Even Slow Down)

Darlene Love has lived at least three musical lifetimes, and she’s still going strong. After decades of singing behind the scenes — and behind Phil Spector’s questionable hair choices — she finally got her due, and she’s been making up for lost time ever since.

Her voice remains astonishingly powerful, and her charisma is undeniable.

In our house, watching several years’ worth of “Christmas: Baby Please Come Home” is required seasonal viewing. She crushes it every time.

Bonnie Raitt: Slide Guitar, Zero Drama

Bonnie Raitt has always been cool, but her later years have given her a kind of zen‑master swagger. She won a Grammy for Song of the Year in 2022 — not as a lifetime achievement nod, but because the song was simply that good.

Her musical and personal elegance remain fully intact.

Elvis Costello: The Professor of Perpetual Reinvention

Elvis Costello has never met a genre he didn’t want to flirt with. Jazz? Sure. Classical? Why not. Americana? Absolutely. Latin pop? Let’s go.

His voice has aged into something wonderfully textured, and his songwriting remains razor sharp.

Chrissie Hynde: Punk Attitude, Zen Delivery

Chrissie Hynde has always had a ” don’t mess with me ” aura, but her later work has revealed a more introspective side. Her Dylan covers album is smoky, intimate, and beautifully phrased.

Her recent collection of duets sounds fresh and relaxed — a good way to be at any age.

Robert Plant: Reinvention as a Lifestyle

Robert Plant could have spent the last 40 years doing Zeppelin karaoke, but instead, he’s become one of the most interesting elder statesmen in music. His work with Alison Krauss, for example, is haunting, elegant, and completely unexpected.

And he can still “bring it” live, unadorned and unafraid…

Paul McCartney: The Master of Eternal Reinvention

We’ll start and end the list with a Beatle. Lots of folks, including us, have commented on his aging voice, but his way of being is undoubtedly admirable. For one of the most famous people on Earth, he – and his family – seem remarkably sane.

His recent work — Egypt Station, McCartney III — isn’t nostalgia. It’s the sound of someone who still wakes up excited to make things. His media tour for his latest album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, has showcased a relaxed, confident, self-aware ease that suits him particularly well, as in this charming interview:

It may indeed be easier said than done, but all of these fine musicians remind us that aging gracefully isn’t about pretending time hasn’t passed. It’s about making time your co‑writer.

-Al Cattabiani

Photo: Chrissie Hynde. Marvey Mills / Alamy