It’s been said by many an aging musician that rock ’n’ roll is a young man’s game.
Don’t tell that to Joe Grushecky.
At 77, Grushecky is a long way from his first gig, where he sang “Woolly Bully” and “Gloria” at the Westmoreland City Fire Hall in the 1960s. He also has no plans to slow down anytime soon.
“I don’t care if it’s 20 people or 2,000,” Grushecky said. “I play every show like it’s going to be my last. I put everything into the shows, and I expect the same from my band. If you’re just playing for adulation? That comes and goes. You have to do it for yourself.”
It certainly doesn’t hurt that, along the way, Grushecky and the Houserockers have made a name for themselves not just in Pittsburgh but across the country. They’ve toured from coast to coast and are lucky enough to count one of the most successful rock stars in the world — Bruce Springsteen — among their fans and early boosters.
Even as a touring musician, though, Grushecky had a day job, working as special education teacher in the Sto-Rox School District prior to his retirement. And even two rewarding jobs didn’t stop his back from aching when he got done with a gig.
But music is a compelling force. It has the ability to grab hold of our emotions, and for a great many musicians — both professional and amateur — in the Pittsburgh region, getting older is no excuse to stop doing it.
Playing music is simply something they must do, whether it comes with financial rewards, backaches or nothing at all.
‘I love sharing what we do’
In the early 1970s, Wendy Mackin had no business being in a bar in East Liberty. For one thing, she wasn’t old enough to drink yet.
But that wasn’t going to stop her from going to see live bluegrass music, a staple at the former Walsh’s Lounge.
“I would go down there to see Mac Martin and Billy Bryant,” said Mackin, 73, of Mt. Lebanon. She grew up playing piano and guitar, and when she left for college in Springfield, Ohio, she heard a local bluegrass band called Les Hall & the Master Tones, “and I was just smitten with the banjo,” she said.
“I’d had a banjo for several years, but I didn’t really know what to do with it,” Mackin said.
After taking banjo lessons from local musician and bluegrass historian Bob Artis, Mackin started making her way into the local bluegrass scene. At Walsh’s, she met her future husband John, and the pair formed a group called the Willow Creek Ramblers.
“John was Mac Martin’s nephew,” Mackin said. “John’s dad played old-time fiddle, and we’d go out and play square dances along with one of his uncles. We started a different band called the M&M Express in the 1980s, and at the same time we started the John & Wendy Mackin Band.”
The John & Wendy Mackin Band doesn’t tour the country like Grushecky. The highest-profile gig they typically play is the annual Ice Jam bluegrass festival held in mid-January in Beaver County.
And for Mackin, that is perfectly fine.
“I really love sharing what we do with people who love to hear it,” she said.
That goes for most of the attendees at the Ice Jam. The hallways of the Ramada Wyndham hotel are packed with supremely talented musicians who usually excel at not just one but multiple instruments. But if you’re looking for a headlining band, there isn’t one. Nearly all the bands that perform are made up of amateur musicians from the greater Western Pennsylvania region. No one is paid to play the festival.
Mackin’s band plays smaller gigs here and there, but to her, the most important thing they do is get together once a week to rehearse.
“It keeps us ready and it’s very helpful,” she said. “I just love playing the music.”
‘A unique experience’
Far from the dimly lit confines of Walsh’s Lounge, Gretchen Van Hoesen of Pittsburgh’s Regent Square neighborhood situates herself at the center of the Heinz Hall stage with some of the world’s best classical musicians surrounding her.
Van Hoesen, 72, has served as principal harpist for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since 1977. Over the years, she has performed with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Orchestra Association, the Greenwich Philharmonia (today the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra) and the Westmoreland Symphony.
“I was 23 years old when the curtain came up on my first performance with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and it was quite amazing,” said Van Hoesen. “I had come from school at Juilliard where there were great players. But most of them were headed toward solo careers, rather than into an orchestra.”
Van Hoesen said she remembers taking her spot onstage near the center of orchestra and feeling the sound and music wash and reverberate all around her. It’s part of what has kept her passionate about playing there for the past four decades and change.
“There’s so much great music, and so much great music written for the harp,” she said. “There’s something about music that reaches right down into your core. When you hear great music, or a great musician, it just draws you into the sound, almost like a magnet.”
Van Hoesen said continually learning new music over the years has kept her mind sharp.
“Learning new music at my age is not easy, but I do really love adding things to my repertoire that I know I’m going to be able to enjoy and introduce to people who’ve not heard it before,” she said.
There is also the joy of playing in concert with other master musicians.
“Whether it’s musicians coming into town or my fellow symphony players, I just love working with them,” she said. “I have so much respect for them because they’re at the top of their field, they sound amazing, and we respond to one another when we play.”
‘A passionate challenge’
Don Aliquo Sr. has been playing jazz since the 1940s, when he began taking clarinet lessons at 12 years old.
“Back then, we’d sit around the radio and listen to ‘Cavalcade of Bands’ with (big band leader) Sammy Kaye,” he said.
Aliquo eventually switched to saxophone and became a member of the Walter Reed Army Band during his military service from age 19 to 22.
“I came out of the military, married my sweetheart, got my teaching degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and my wife and I found a place near Pittsburgh so I could try and exploit my newfound talent,” said Aliquo, 96, who has been a mainstay on the Pittsburgh jazz scene for nearly 70 years.
He got a job teaching at Har-Brack school that served students from Harrison and Brackenridge, and he got his first jazz gig at Crawford Grill in the Hill District, which was the epicenter of Pittsburgh jazz music from the 1930s to the 1950s.
“I’ve played just about every venue in the city plus a lot of great gigs at the Benedum, the ice show at the Civic Arena for 20 years,” Aliquo said. “I played Bob Hope’s show three times, including a show at the St. Clair Country Club (in the South Hills) where I met him and Bob Newhart.”
These days, Aliquo has a regular weekly gig at Uncorked in Sharpsburg. He said there’s really just a single word to describe why he still plays well into his 90s.
“Love,” he said. “I love practicing, I love performing. It has become a passionate challenge.”
For the love of it
All of these musicians get paid to play, although the pay scale varies widely. Many of them would likely be doing some form of music even it wasn’t a primary part of their lives.
For a group like the Delmont Area Concert Band, though, performances are truly done for the pure joy of making music and sharing it with others. The all-volunteer band formed in 1962 and plays free concerts throughout the year.
“We play at several senior centers in the area, and they do have an entertainment budget, but the money we get goes back into the band fund to keep us going,” said manager Chuck Amadee, 70, of Hempfield.
During the covid-19 pandemic, when public gatherings were limited, groups like the community band were hit hard.
“At one point we we down to about 15 people,” he said. “But we’ve been building back up in various ways, this year we have about 40 people in the band.”
Members of the band range in age from 9 to 96 years old.
Amadee said musicians have the advantage of being able to return to their craft.
“Unlike sports, you can keep doing it as you get older, and you can also keep getting better at it,” he said. “Most of us did it in high school and some in college, but at some point you put your instrument down to get a job or start a family. But you can pick it back up again — you never forget how to play — and a lot of people instantly remember how much fun it was.”