6 Musicians Who Never Want to Retire
Many classic musicians have been working since the early 1960s, but they often have little in the way of a retirement plan. Fans who have been following their favorite bands for decades can still expect to buy tickets to upcoming shows. Here are six classic musicians who have already announced that they have no plans to retire.
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton has been performing since she was a child and has no plans to slow down.
“I would never retire,” she said on Greatest Hits Radio Thursday (via USA Today). “I’ll just hopefully drop dead in the middle of a song on stage someday, hopefully one I’ve written.”
At 77, Parton said she would only consider retirement if she faced problems with her or her husband’s health.
“As long as I’m able to work, as long as my health is good, and my husband is good,” she said. “I mean, the only way that I would ever slow down or stop would be for that reason … But in the meantime I’m going to make hay while the sun shines.”
Ringo Starr
After 60 years of working as a musician, Ringo Starr continues to tour with his All-Starr band. He wants to continue working for as long as he can pick up drumsticks as he feels that music is a part of his identity.
“People always ask but I’m a musician, I don’t have to retire as long as I can pick up the drumsticks I can do a show,” he told Metro Philadelphia. “I can be playing the blues, it’s just the way it is. I love this and it’s part of us, we are musicians at the end of the day.”
Starr still has tour dates planned for 2023.
Paul McCartney
Like his former Beatles bandmate, Paul McCartney still puts on live performances. When asked about Elton John’s retirement, he said he has no plans for a farewell tour.
“I’m like these footballers,” he told the BBC in 2018. “People say, ‘When are you gonna retire?’ And they will nearly always say, ‘Well, when I don’t enjoy it, or when the legs give in,’ or something like that. When there’s a factor, that makes them retire. I don’t think any of them want to retire particularly.”
He, like Starr, sees music as a part of who he is. He would feel like he was losing a part of himself, not retiring from a job.
“And I was talking to – name-dropping, clunk – Willie Nelson, and I was talking about this whole retiring thing, because he’s older than I am, even,” McCartney said. “And he says, ‘Retire from what?’ And I think that just says it. Retire from what?”
Stevie Nicks
Stevie Nicks began writing music as a teenager. As a person in her 70s, she continues to write songs and tour. She has no plans to stop, as she feels retirement would shrink her.
“I’ll never retire,” she told Rolling Stone. “My friend Doug Morris, who’s been president of, like, every record company, said to me once, ‘When you retire, you just get small.’ Stand up straight, put on your heels, and get out there and do stuff. I want to do a miniseries for the stories of Rhiannon and the gods of Wales, which I think would be this fantastic thing, but I don’t have to retire from being a rock star to go and do that. I can fit it all in.”
Keith Richards
Keith Richards has been performing with The Rolling Stones since the early 1960s. In this time, he’s worked with other music acts, but his time with the band has been lengthy. He doesn’t have any plans to stop working with them, either.
“You might call it a habit,” he said, per Rolling Stone. “I mean, that’s what we do. And also there’s that thing between us, like, ‘Who’s going to be the first one to get off the bus?’ You have to be kicked off or drop off, right? So it’s like that. I really can’t imagine doing anything else.”
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen has toured extensively in 2023. He plays lengthy concerts that are likely exhausting, but he enjoys what he does.
“I can’t imagine [retiring], you know?” he said on The Howard Stern Show. “I mean, if I got to a place where I was incapacitated or something but up until then I think I’m… I mean, look at Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger.”
While he might not always play three-hour shows, he plans on working in one form or another for the rest of his life.
“I look at those guys and go, ‘Yeah, I don’t know if I’ll [always] be doing three-hour shows, but I have so many different kinds of music that I can play and do,'” he said. “The Broadway show I can do for the rest of my life in one form or another if I wanted to. I can’t imagine retirement, no.”
