LELAND SHENFIELD ...
OK,
A lot of these answers are individuals. Let’s try a BAND that plays one of the HIGHEST QUALITY and most DIFFICULT styles of music: Progressive Rock.
Let’s talk:
RUSH.
Rush 1976. Double doublenecks. Crazy, I know, but needed for the songs that they used them on, because they are crazy.
Rush in Rio, 2011, in front of 40,000 screaming fans.
34 years later.
Boom goes the dynamite.
EDIT:
Specific examples:
Musical Talent:
YYZ 1988. Bangin!
YYZ 2010, 22 years later. Jaw dropping talent.
Rush in Rio 2011
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BRETT FOX ...
I was at Heathrow airport waiting for my flight home. I got through security really fast, so I had some time to kill. I walked into a store that was selling CDs, and there it was:
I was excited because I didn’t know Paul Weller, maybe my favorite artist from the punk era, had a new record out.
Wild Wood was released almost 20 years after The Jam’s (Weller’s first band) first release. And what a record it was. Listen to the first track, Sunflower:
There’s not a bad track on the whole record. Except for a small down period when he was leading his second band, The Style Council, Weller had been putting great music out for close to twenty years at this point. Listen to this track, Away From The Numbers, off the Jam’s debut record, In The City, in 1976:
Now, over 40 years into his career, Weller is still producing great music. His latest record, 2018’s True Meanings, is another classic. This time the focus is more acoustic. Here’s the first track, The Soul Searchers:
So, for an artist that started out producing punk rock, then moved to soul music, then to roots rock, then to acoustic, Weller has continued growing and changing as an artist. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
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SKIP MOORE ...
30 years? Try 53 years.
Boz Scaggs was in the Steve Miller Band 1967–68, contributing to two epic albums, Sailor and Children of the Future. He went solo in 1969 and recorded his first album for Atlantic in Muscle Shoals, AL with Duane Allman.
Scaggs released two albums in 1971, Moments and Boz Scaggs & Band, wherein he wrote most of the songs, but never received much acclaim even though they had radio hits like “We Were Always Sweethearts” (#61) and “Near You” (#96). These albums were followed up by My Time in 1972 which produced the minor hit, “Dinah Flo”. The majority of the songs on these albums were penned by Boz Scaggs.
Next came the album Slow Dancer in 1974. While it failed to chart any hits, it received a Gold Record and made it to #81 on the album chart. Many Boz fans consider it his best.
Scaggs had his greatest success with 1976’s Silk Degrees, containing hits like “Lowdown” (#3), “Lido Shuffle” (#11), and “It’s Over” (#38), propelling Scaggs into the popular limelight.
1977 brought us the albums Down Two Then Left (#11), then Middle Man in 1980 (#8), and Other Roads in 1988, each filled with excellent songs and music like “JoJo” (#17) and “Look What You’ve Done to Me” (#14).
So we’re 21 years and 10 solo albums into his career and he’s still very relevant on the music scene.
Scaggs took a hiatus from recording while operating a restaurant and a music nightclub in San Francisco. Luckily for us, 1988 brought us Other Roads (#11), 1994’s Some Change, and the unplugged Japanese release, Fade Into Light in 1996.
Scaggs returned to his blues influenced roots with 1997’s Come On Home, followed by a more polished album, Dig, released on 9/11/2001 (an unfortunate coincidence that hampered the album’s success). I heard him say once that he felt Dig was his best work.
Scaggs then switched genres to record two albums of jazz standards, But Beautiful in 2003 and Speak Low in 2008. These albums received rave reviews from the jazz community.
In 2013 Scaggs once again returned to his Texas musical roots with the release of Memphis (#17), followed in 2015 with A Fool to Care (#54). These albums are drenched in roots music, and were a critical success.
So were now 46 years into his solo career and he’s still going strong.
His last release, 2018’s Out of the Blues completed the trilogy of fine blues and R&B albums.
Boz Scaggs still performs about 50 nights a year, and is held in high acclaim by critics and fans alike. After 53 years, Boz continues to reinforce his reputation as one of America’s finest recording and performing artists.
