But 65-year-old Memphis bluesman Mack
Orr—Daddy Mack, to his many friends and
fans—did not begin playing guitar until
he was 45.
“I was listening to the radio in my auto-
repair shop,” Orr says. “They were playing
an Albert King song—‘Walkin’ the Back
Streets and Cryin’—and it sounded real
good.” The down-home groove spurred
Daddy Mack to fulfill a long-deferred dream:
“I went down to the pawnshop, got me a
guitar and amp,” he says. “And I carried
that guitar everywhere I went. If I went to
work, I carried it with me. If I went fishing,
I carried it. I stayed on it day and night.”
It seemed like a mighty challenge
for a middle-aged man. But Daddy
Mack knew a thing or two about hard
work. He had toiled in the cotton fields
of Mississippi in the 1950s and worked
as a heavy-equipment operator when
he moved to Memphis in 1965. Along
the way he also got married, raised
four children, and opened his own
business, Mack’s Auto Repair.
PORTRAITS
OF THE ARTISTS
Watch their creativity in
action at aarp.org/genius.
Aging. “In fact, we can master new
skills and be creative all our lives.”
Nor are we genetically hardwired
with artistic gifts—or a lack of them.
Environmental factors and willpower
are just as important. “Genes impact
our lives,” says David Shenk, author
of The Genius in All of Us, “but our
lives also impact our genes—the brain
changes shape according to the expe-
riences it has.”
The implications of this are pro-
found, he believes: “Most of us don’t
understand that our true inner po-
tential is quite extraordinary. Not
just at age 20 or 40 but well into our
elder years. The main reason people
stagnate is that they limit themselves
through their mind-set or habits. Or
they simply set their sights too low.”
OPENING SPREAD AND THIS PAGE: JIM WRIGHT (PRODUCER: ANTHONY MOSCHINI; WARDROBE STYLIST: ANGELA HASTINGS; SET DESIGN:
JESSE NEMETH; HAIR: MAKO MOKIN; MAKEUP: KIM WHITE); THIS SPREAD, DESIGN ELEMENTS: MARK LUND HOMEROOM (STYLIST: LISA EDSÄLV)
MACK ORR IS PART of a groundswell of
older Americans finding deep fulfillment through the arts and immersing
themselves in new pursuits later in
life. Some do it just for fun; others
have won public acclaim.
Studies of brain plasticity—the life-
long ability of our gray matter to adapt
to changing demands—are proving
that our creative horizons need not
narrow with age. “We never lose the
potential to learn new things as we
grow older,” says Gay Hanna, head
of the National Center for Creative
THOUGH I T’S NATURAL to mourn what
we lose as we age—be it our hearing,
our hair, or our house keys—older art-
ists offer vivid proof of what we may
gain in wisdom, insight, and purpose.
