ALBUM REVIEW: Amy Rigby Carves Out Her Own Definition of Cool

What does it mean to be “cool” after 60, and does it even matter? Amy Rigby is getting to the heart of it on her latest record, Hang in There With Me, expressing the universal feeling that one is always just their younger self trapped in an aging body, looking around wondering, “How the hell did I get here?”

Amy Rigby (photo by Bert Eke)

A series of events over the past few years, including the passing of both her father and her good friend David Olney (tragically onstage, just beside her) and her husband Wreckless Eric’s close-call heart attack, plus the release of her excellent memoir Girl to City, left Rigby face-to-face with her own mortality. But just as she always has, Rigby comes to grips with getting on through a set of vulnerable, witty, fresh songs that ultimately prove she is not only still cool, but also still one of the true masters of her craft.

Rigby’s signature wry humor guides her through songs like “Hell-Oh Sixty,” a recounting of each critical decade of adulthood — her 20s through the titular 60s — and her place within it. Guitars thrash, cocooning her within impenetrable walls of pure rock and roll. Through a filter of fuzz and distortion on “Too Old to Be So Crazy,” she takes a hard look in the mirror, singing, “I should be kickin’ back / instead of gearin’ up to take another crack.” In the driving “Bangs,” Rigby goes deep on her chosen hairdo, finding inspiration and a “24/7 cool factor” in icons like Nico, The Ramones, and Julie Christie. “Don’t call it ‘fringe’ / that’s way too tasteful,” she sings with a wink, “I wanna channel Marianne Faithfull.”

Sweet and soft, “The Farewell Tour” takes listeners through the ghost towns of Rigby’s past, with all their lingering regrets and treasured touchstones. In Rigby’s hands, these probes about where one should find themselves in the cultural landscape at a certain age transcend the typical midlife crisis and instead become earnest anecdotes of genuine curiosity. When is it time to throw in the towel or even just slow down? How old is too old for a particular look? Rigby is like a rock philosopher, a prophet armed with the all-powerful guitar and journal, looking for answers.

But as Rigby reveals on Hang in There With Me, no matter how much wisdom is earned with age, questions will always remain. There will always be great unknowns, despite the misconception that at a certain point, uncertainty and insecurity just fall away like a layer of shed skin. Instead, it is resilience that develops over time, the ability to be unshaken by the chaos, like Bob Dylan that one time in Dubuque, Iowa. “Sometimes I play the martyr, but I mostly play myself,” she sings on “Dylan in Dubuque,” a self-truth that, like all of Rigby’s best songwriting, will never expire.

Amy Rigby’s Hang in There With Me is out Aug. 30 on Tapete Records.