December 2024
Pete Elman is a musician, an author, a journalist, a historian — and a star educator. He has performed, recorded and produced popular music since 1962, authored four books, been a sportswriter, taught K-12, and, since 2015, has wowed OLLI members with more than a dozen courses on American music. He’s teaching “Turn, Turn, Turn: A Rock ’n’ Roll Road Trip” with us in Winter 2025.
Pete! You and OLLI have been on the road together for ten years. Can you believe it?
It’ll be exactly 10 years in January, and, man, it’s been a great trip. In fact, the course I’m teaching this winter “Turn, Turn, Turn: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Road Trip, Part One” — the second part is going to be in the spring — was the first course I ever taught for OLLI.
The first of many.
It’s been 14 courses total. A lot! I’m proud to say that I’ve debuted all of them at OLLI at the wonderful Freight & Salvage. OLLI and the Freight are like my home base.
How did you first connect with OLLI?
That's a nice little story. Back in 2014, a good friend of mine, David Meggyesy — an ex-professional football player who wrote a very famous book called Out of Their League — and I were working out together at the Berkeley Y, which I do pretty much every morning — and so do many of our OLLI students.
Anyway, I asked him, 'What are you doing these days?' He says, 'I'm teaching this class for OLLI at the Freight & Salvage. You should come.” So, I came and there was David doing his thing on stage. After the class he said, 'You've got to teach a class for these guys.' I'm like, 'What are you talking about, man?’ He knew me as a sportswriter, a musician and a teacher who, like him, loved American history. He said, ‘Why don't you teach a class on rock and roll?' And I'm like ‘I don't know if that's going to fly, David.' He said, 'You'd be great at it, man. You can teach anything. Call up Susan, the director, and say that I’m recommending you.’
I sat there and, I swear, within 15 seconds I had the entire first course roughly mapped out in my brain. The whole road trip idea, start to finish. I’ve worked as a professional musician in 49 states, so it wasn’t hard for me to lay it all out. City by city, musician and band by musician and band, year by year. The whole journey.
Talk about the course a bit. Sounds like quite a jaunt.
I open with New Orleans, which is really where rock and roll started, but I go back to old folk stuff like with Leadbelly. Then we go to Memphis, which is where rockabilly took hold and became a huge deal. Rockabilly was the confluence of rhythm and blues and hillbilly music, hence rock and roll. Then we head over to New York City, where all the great Brill Building songwriters like Carole King and acts like The Drifters were. There’s this whole kind of lost period between '58 and '63 when New York really came to the forefront. It was a kind of post-rockabilly time after Buddy Holly died and Elvis went into the Army, and before the Beatles arrived in Christmas ‘63. Then I went back to Memphis because of what happened there with Stax Records, Booker T., Sam and Dave, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett — all that wonderful music. And of course Detroit, for Motown. I end with Bob Dylan’s 1965, which was a pivotal year for rock n’ roll.
You just knew all this history?
Oh yeah. I mean, I've read a lot, too — like I said, I love history and I love geography —understand that I've played rock and roll since I was 10, since 17 for a living. I knew these towns and their histories because I’d played there.
A love of music and a love of history make you a pretty perfect OLLI educator.
I’ve always been fascinated by history. I grew up in the nation's capital. I'd go to the White House and the Capitol when I was a kid, and it made a big impression on me.
That said, I don't consider myself a rock and roll scholar like another OLLI instructor, Richie Unterberger. I mean, that guy knows more about rock and roll in his little finger than I know in my whole body. But unlike Richie, I've played so I have a different perspective.
What instruments do you play? I’ve seen you jamming on a lot.
I was a piano player when I was little, doing recitals until I was 11, when I picked up trombone. At 13 I learned ukulele, guitar, electric guitar, and bass guitar. I always played all the keyboards — piano, organ, clavinet, synthesizer. My favorite instrument is a Wurlitzer electric piano. I stopped playing the trombone when I was about 35.
Has it always been rock and roll for you?
The first group I played in back in 1961 wasn’t really a rock and roll band. We’d play standards like “Misty” and “Tenderly,” and hit pop songs that were on the radio. As I got a little older I played Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, James Brown, and stuff like that. In 1964 here come the Beatles, and along comes Soul music and Motown, and it all exploded at once.
So, picture it: I'm 13, and I’m doing gigs in some pretty good rock and soul bands in the DC area. Some were with guys my age and some were with older guys who had kids! It was kind of a wild time.
As a teenager, I learned how to be in a working band. The rock—or garage--bands had to learn how to play the Beatles, Stones, Yardbirds, Who, Kinks, Dave Clark Five and all that, plus how to play The Young Rascals and the hits by American bands, as well the stuff coming out of LA. The Soul bands I was in were better — among the biggest acts in the metro area. I made my first record when I was 16, an original rock tune called “When Will I Learn.” That was a thrill, and got me hooked on recording.
Do you remember the first concert you ever went to?
Oh yeah, my folks were great about going to see stuff. We’d go to a place in DC called The Carter Barron Amphitheater, a famous place. I saw Gordon Lightfoot, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Sergio Mendes, Tom Rush, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner. It was really cool. During high school I saw the Rolling Stones, the Mamas and the Papas and even Bob Dylan at the old Uline Arena. And I saw James Brown — wow!
What have you learned from your decade of teaching at OLLI?
Well, I've definitely learned a lot about the subject matter and I've learned to appreciate even more these people who — along with baseball players — were my heroes when I was growing up. The guys who played on the Motown record — also known as the Funk Brothers — nobody knew their names. To me they were like gods. And there were the Memphis and Muscle Shoals musicians who played on Stax/Volt records, the Wrecking Crew in LA, and versatile pros that played on the great country music records, the Nashville A-Team. If it weren't for all these amazing records over the decades, we wouldn't know about any of this stuff. It would have just disappeared into the wind.
At the end of the day, teaching these courses has reaffirmed my childhood love and passion for music. I still worship these amazing musicians, singers and songwriters as much as I did as a kid. How can you not?