Minneapolis musicians play oldies that senior-home audiences remember from their younger days

The first song was "Everyday," by Buddy Holly and the Crickets. Heads started bobbing among the several dozen residents gathered to watch the recent show at Towerlight Senior Living in St. Louis Park. Some people mouthed the words, silently singing along.

Next, the Floras launched into Holly's "That'll Be the Day." Now there were some hands clapping, feet tapping, fingers snapping. When the musicians started Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," a woman and a man with a walker got up and danced.

Mark Flora played an electric guitar and sang. His wife, Lisa Flora, played a standup bass and harmonized. The Floras mostly play senior residences, and a lot of them — about 140 shows in 30 places over the past 18 months.

The couple also play in a rockabilly and '50s band called the Holy Rocka Rollaz, with drummer Matt Alexander, playing car shows, festivals, clubs and fairs, including the Minnesota State Fair.

Lisa sang lead, while strumming the bass, on Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces," "After Midnight" and "Crazy." George Linkert, Towerlight's activity director, moved around the audience, clasping people's hands and encouraging them to dance or just bob around in their chairs if they were unable to stand.

The Floras played the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie." Elvis Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes" and "That's All Right," plus Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues."

Mark shared back stories of some of the songs: The title of "That'll Be the Day" came from a line John Wayne said in the movie "The Searchers." "That's All Right" was discovered accidentally when a Sun Studio executive overheard Elvis and his band playing it between recordings and instantly recognized a hit.

Towerlight residents in attendance might not have known the back stories. They might not remember having seen "The Searchers" when it came out in 1956. They might not even know that Eddie Cochran was born in Albert Lea, Minn.

But they sure knew the songs.

The bobbing heads and snapping fingers were evidence of a phenomenon well known to researchers: As people age, music can be therapeutic.

Psyche Loui, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Northeastern University in Boston as well as a violinist with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra in Boston, has studied how the parts of the brain that relate to music interact with brain regions controlling learning, memory and emotions.

Human brains are hardwired to anticipate familiar rhythms and melodies, according to Loui. Music releases dopamine in the brain, which connects with the brain's medial prefrontal cortex, which processes memories.

"If I'm listening to music that I've enjoyed throughout my life, and that I find familiar, then the auditory system is active, but it's also communicating and connecting with the medial prefrontal cortex," Loui told the National Institute on Aging in 2023.

When LaVerne Wilger and Herbert Wensmann, both 95, got up to dance at Towerlight, they didn't need any information about brain chemicals or the prefrontal cortex to know how they respond to music. They couple take any opportunity to dance, they said, even to YouTube videos in their apartment in Towerlight.

"Oh, honey, I've danced forever," Wilger said. "For 63 years with my husband, eight with my boyfriend [Wensmann]. He has a beat that doesn't quit. A lot of people don't have a beat. He's never had lessons, but he's got a beat."

Although the Towerlight audience was responding particularly to tunes from the 1950s, on other occasions residents have enjoyed folk, classical and other kinds of music, Linkert said.

"There's something really deep within us that responds to music," he said. "You can be with someone who doesn't say a word for minutes or hours, and they'll start singing a song they know without a moment of hesitation."

Embedded memories

Music was what brought Minneapolis residents Mark, 60, and Lisa, 49, together in the first place.

"If you want to go way back, my dad was a musician, my mother's a singer," Lisa said. "I started singing in nursing homes when I was about 5. My dad was in a country gospel band that did everything from nursing homes to fairs and festivals."

Both were living in South Dakota, where Mark worked as a reporter for the Clark County Courier, a weekly in tiny Clark, S.D.

He had graduated in 1987 from Iowa State University with a degree in journalism. But he moved from Ames, Iowa, to Minneapolis, home of his favorite band, the Replacements. He played in a band called the Law, opening for popular local rockers like the Jayhawks, Soul Asylum and the Gear Daddies.

When he quit the Law, he took the reporting job in South Dakota.

He was covering Clark's centennial festivities when he came upon Lisa and her father performing. A guitar fanatic since childhood, he admired the Telecaster that Lisa's dad was playing. The older man invited Mark onstage to play a couple of tunes. The rest is history. Mark and Lisa started dating when she was 18 and got married when she was 20.

Mark tired of covering Clark County's school board and city council. So in 1993, he returned to Minneapolis "with nothing but a credit card." He played briefly with a band called Plum and worked day jobs. He recorded a solo CD.

When Lisa moved to Minneapolis in 1994, they started the Holy Rocka Rollaz.

"I was 46 and I still had my job downtown, and I had the classic midlife," Mark said. "I told Lisa I just want to play in a rockabilly band before I get too old. ... I'm a huge nut for that stuff, and Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis, Sun Records. So that's been our flagpole."

About 15 years ago, a friend who was an activity director in a senior residence asked the Floras to sing for the residents.

"It was so much fun, I don't know who got more blessed, us or them," Mark said. "And he handed us a check after it."

They went on to line up more senior residence appearances on their own.

"We found out it didn't hurt to just walk into these places with some candy and a business card," Mark said. "The return rate on those was about 60%."

When COVID hit, the performances ground to a halt, of course. But since then they've ramped back up quickly. Combined with gigs for the Holly Rocka Rollaz ("our bread and butter," Mark said), the Floras find themselves working up to six or seven times some weeks.

"Three more [gig offers] rolled in this morning," Mark said. "We're starting to do double headers now."

They get occasional requests for "newer music," like Neil Diamond or Jimmy Buffett. But residents mostly enjoy the '50s tunes, Lisa said.

"We're able to make them feel young again; [they'll say] 'I remember when I was 18 and I was swing dancing and doing the jitterbug," she said.

And music seems to come back with more ease and clarity than other kinds of memories.

"In memory care, for example, you wouldn't think they'd remember all the lyrics," Lisa said. But they'll start singing right along: "'Well, it's one for the money, two for the show ...'"

Researchers have found that songs stay embedded in the brain. Even people with dementia who no longer remember their children's names can still sing along to old tunes.

And, of course, each generation has its own favorites. Musicians at senior residences of the future may be covering the Rolling Stones and Neil Young. Or Pearl Jam and Green Day. Or Eminem and Jay Z.

"If I'm 80 and I see a Ramones act coming in, I'm going to be elated," Mark said.