For Wilmington bands and musicians of a certain age, how playing music keeps them young

Over the past couple of years, Wilmington's music scene has experienced a youthquake of sorts, with a dozen or more really good bands emerging from the pandemic lockdown.

But while the arrival of young talent is an always-welcome and even exciting prospect, Wilmington also has its fair share of elder statesmen who've been keeping the scene vibrant for decades now.

Here's a look at some of those musicians.

'I'm still having fun'

Michael Wolfe has been playing locally with his blues and rock band, Mike Wolfe & the Wolfe Gang, since shortly after he moved to Wilmington from Louisiana in 1993.

"I went to the Ice House," Wolfe said, referencing the late, lamented Water Street music venue that was torn down in 2004. "When I left, I had a band."

He's been playing regularly around Wilmington ever since.

"I'm not as active as I was," Wolfe said. "But I do keep my hand in."

Wolfe recently played what he terms his "organic free-range music" at a small Wilmington music gathering called BevFest for 100 or so people, and the Wolfe Gang are regulars at local listening room Live at Ted's.

He keeps playing, he said, "Because I feel like I kept on getting better. And I'm still having fun."

The main difference between playing now and during his younger days, he said, is that "I don't feel like setting up the PA anymore. The equipment got heavier."

'I'm the ampersand'

Bass player Mike Adams, 71, is an official member of gypsy jazz combo The Hot Club of Wilmington and bluegrass group End of the Line.

But he also fills in on bass for The Clams, Phil Kelly, Steal Willin' and the duo Ron & Luis, aka R&L.

"I'm the ampersand," Adams said. "Whenever anybody needs a bass player, I show up."

A Wilmington native, Adams grew up near 13th and Grace streets, and he had an older brother who started a band in the mid-1960s emulating The Beatles.

Adams played guitar as a teenager, but once he had a child on the way, "I laid it down and went to work."

Years later, he took a property management job because the flexibility allowed him to care for his elderly father. One day, cleaning out the attic of a rental property, he found an old guitar. Just seeing the instrument, Adams said, sitting untouched for so long, somehow rekindled his desire to play.

"I started playing for my dad" to entertain him, Adams said, everything from Beatles tunes to vaudeville classics. Eventually he started writing his own songs, and now he's got dozens.

Adams said he loves the idea that he can "write a simple little poem, and three chords, and people will cry inside their hearts. That's just incredible to me. It's just an outright honor to perform these songs," he said. "It's just fun. It warms me from the inside out."

When he was a younger man, Adams said, he had dreams of being a rock star. But his perspective has changed over the decades.

"When I was younger, I just wanted to be seen," he said. "You know, up on stage, 'Look at me!' Now it's just completely all about sharing the music. It's almost like it's nothing to do with me."

'It keeps me young'

Si Cantwell is a retired StarNews editor and reporter who plays guitar for Wilmington band The Clams, whose county-tinged rock style is heavily influenced by The Grateful Dead. (He previoulsy played in a Grateful Dead-heavy cover band called TOMD, or They're Only Most Dead.)

At 67, Cantwell is the elder statesman of a band whose other members — Jeff Sanchez, Dylan Lee, Tucker Hill and Stuart Ross — are in their 40s or 50s.

"It keeps me young," Cantwell said. "When you're playing in a band, you have to listen and interact."

Plus, he added, "I'm retired, so it gets me out of the house."

The Clams gig pretty steadily, averaging about two or three shows a month.

A first time for everything

Some musicians spend their retirement years playing music as a way to make up for not being able to do so in their youth because of work or family responsibilities.

But the women of Wilmington cover band The Hot Flashes, which formed earlier this year, are, with the exception of bassist Lynda Graubert, playing in a rock band for the first time.

During a gig at The SeaWitch in Carolina Beach in May, the band, whose members are mostly in their 50s or older, had the crowd grooving to a medley of pop bangers, including Elle King's "Ex's & Oh's," Jay-Z's "99 Problems" and "Dua Lipa's "Begging."

"We've been mamas. We've been businesswomen," keyboardist Terry Espy told the StarNews earlier this year. "Now we just want to have some fun."

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'Till I'm 90, I hope'

Jim Nelson, 71, has been playing with his New Orleans-style blues band, The Rhythm Bones, at Wilmington dive The Rusty Nail every Sunday for six years now. The group has built quite a following, with four or five dozen people showing up each week for a potluck and tight tunes from Nelson, who plays piano; David Bolton on guitar and vocals; Al Payson, who toured with Jose Feliciano, on bass; sax player Dean Brennan; and drummer Paul Baker, who's in his 50s and is the band's newest (and youngest) member.

"It's our home away from home," Nelson said of the Rusty Nail, and his band also plays such venues as Dram Tree Tavern, Waterline Brewing and Bowstring Burgers & Brewyard.

When the weather's nice on Sunday, The Rhythm Bones play on the Nail's outside stage, a mix of classics and "as much original music as we can get away with," Nelson said.

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Nelson, who's from Louisiana but has been in Wilmington since 2008, grew up playing music. For his first 10 years out of college he tried to make a living in music, he said, but wound up "broke and with no health insurance."

Even after starting a career at a professional job, though, Nelson never stopped thinking about returning to the stage.

"Music has always been one of those things I've just loved," he said. "I just love doing it. I can do it till I'm 90, I hope."

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Veteran Wilmington bands play music into their 60s, 70s and beyond