As the title really – great artists who we have lost, but who are not dead. They just, for whatever reason, stopped. The example I’m going to kick off with is from the performing arts, but I don’t mean to restrict the thread to this – any artistic medium is fine.
A couple of examples spring to mind, but I’ll go with just this one: Shane McGowan. A great performer, but a better poet – I really mean that. And then there was… alcohol. But at the peak of his powers he could speak straight to your heart. There are so many examples. But here’s A Rainy Night In Soho:
Now, the song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still, there’s a light I hold before me
You’re the measure of my dreams, the measure of my dreams
Shane was one of the great ones, but has been more-or-less inactive for many years now, which is a very great shame.
Bearing in mind that a little introduction to/reminder of their work may be useful - what other great artists are still alive but sadly missed?
If comedy movies count as the arts, then Rick Moranis makes the list. IIRC was the only major living cast member of the original Ghostbusters who could not be persuaded to come out of retirement.
Daniel Day-Lewis is retired but he’s only 63 so he could make more movies. Kate Bush has not put out an album since 2011. She did concerts in 2014 and the rumor was she did them because she needed money for repairs to her house. She is 62 and has not said she is retired. . BTW Rick Moranis is back acting now.
Also Gene Hackman is retired from acting and he’s 90. On the other hand Michael Caine is 87 and said as long as he gets offers to act he will work. He said actors should not retire .
The Beatles? I’m not exactly a big fan – I like some of their “greatest hits” tracks – but the amount of cultural bandwidth they had during the time they were together, the influence of their music, and their continued relevance is hard to overemphasize.
Kate Bush hasn’t put out an album in 9 years and we’re discussing whether or not she’s retired. The Beatles released a dozen albums and changed the world in 8 years. Amazing how fast things moved then.
I’d count an artist that was relevant and turning out great work, but then “sold out” or “lost their edge”…
…can’t think of any I’d accuse of that right now.
But the nominees I’m running through include Jefferson Airplane (pre-Starship), Ice Cube, David Crosby, maybe Sir Paul, Howard Stern and Kandidate Kanye…
Some would say Elvis Costello was lost to Angry Punkers when he got sober and happy. I disagree. But that reminds me that I’ve always said Jim Morrison was in the process of becoming an overweight lounge act.
I saw Paul Simon play live two years ago, on what he then termed his “farewell tour” (though he’s made at least one live appearance since then), and he’s released two albums in the past four years.
But, the last time the two played together was in 2010, and the fact that they’ve spent much of the past 50 years being pissed off at each other suggests that the odds of any additional reunion shows is increasingly low.
Can you (or someone) give me a TL;DR on why they are pissed off at each other for the last 50 years? And is it something that’s come up again in the news just lately? (I saw a headline on the subject just in the last day or two, but it was marked as clickbait so I didn’t go there to read it.)
The sense I’ve gotten, from various stories and writers, is that they have always had a fractious relationship, dating back to when they were “Tom & Jerry” back in the late '50s. It sounds like they are both insecure, and jealous of each other: Simon is apparently very insecure about his height in general, and was jealous of Art’s height, singing voice; and (at one point) acting career, while Garfunkel was jealous over Paul being the primary songwriter of the duo, and for his more successful solo career. They will alternately praise each other, and insult each other, and I get the sense that they both are very good at holding grudges.
Also, FWIW, when I saw Simon perform two years ago, he only played four S&G songs: he started the concert with “America,” but then didn’t play another one until the encore (where he played “Homeward Bound,” “The Boxer,” and “The Sound of Silence”).
There was a guy in California who was into showing his horses, named Paul Simon. I bumped into him once at a horse show in Monterey. I always wondered if it was the same guy. (If so, I would not have recognized him, and didn’t.)
(ETA: I certainly didn’t want to be so rude as to ask him.)
Audrey Hepburn largely retired from acting in 1967, at age 38, having won one Oscar, and another four nominations. She only appeared in five films after that, and instead focused on her family, and her work with UNICEF.
She is, of course, now dead (having passed away in 1993), but she walked away from acting at the height of her career, so I think she meets the spirit of the OP, if not the letter.
