A grizzled rock veteran belts out the opening chords to “Smoke on the water “ in a hangar-like concert hall. A slender folk legend sings folk songs unaccompanied in an open-air arena under moonlight. What’s the connection?
Back in 2011 I blogged about “Life Lessons from Deep Purple”. This month I had the privilege of seeing Joan Baez, Woodstock veteran and indefatigable campaigner, at the beautiful open air theatre in Istanbul. Both were inspiring in different ways.
What impressed me about Deep Purple was that, after what one web-site described as “a seemingly endless series of lineup changes and a dramatic mid-career shift from grandiose progressive rock to ear-shattering heavy metal to emerge as a true institution of the British hard rock community”, some of the longest-serving members of the band were still thoroughly normal blokes. When I asked them how they achieved this compared with other celebrities who went off the rails, they told me that the secret was “never take yourself too seriously”. This struck me as good advice for any rock star, politician, diplomat or anyone else.
I have to admit that when I heard Joan Baez was coming to Istanbul, I was concerned that at 74 years of age she might no longer be quite such an outstanding performer as she had been in Woodstock 1969. Not a bit of it. She opened her set singing a slow a cappella chorus which I later tracked down as (correct me if I’m wrong) the chorus from Wilson Pickett’s “Land of 1,000 dances”. Within 90 seconds she had the 5,000-strong audience singing along with her. She followed up with folk songs and classics, including Bob Dylan numbers, combined with two Turkish songs for which she invited local performers onto the stage and which, predictably, went down a storm.
I came away inspired that a seasoned performer could retain such energy, freshness and ability as well as the humility to allow others to perform alongside her, to immense effect.
So the lessons I drew from Joan Baez were: keep using what you’ve got. Let others shine. Stay humble.
Deep Purple would be proud.
Follow Leigh Turner on Twitter at @leighturnerFCO
