DAZE WORK: Retiring Gass says he can’t separate Greencastle, rock music memories

Recently retired as a music professor at Indiana University, Greencastle native Glenn Gass goes out like he came in — surrounded by the music icons who shaped his childhood, adolescence and his entire career as a trailblazing teacher of rock ‘n’ roll who came to be known as “Dr. Rock.”

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Just as John, Paul, George and Ringo eventually went their separate ways, so too is it time for Indiana University and Beatles expert Glenn Gass to do the same.

With college campuses caught up in the COVID-19 climate this spring, little if any pomp or circumstance has been paid to things like retiring professors but that’s just what Greencastle native Gass has become on the Bloomington campus.

Gass, son of late DePauw professor Clint Gass and his wife Myrtle of Greencastle taught at IU for more than 40 years and is known for establishing the first college class on rock ‘n’ roll offered by a school of music.

Arriving at IU in the fall of 1978 to start on a doctorate in composition and a career as a composer, Gass needed a way to finish paying for graduate school. So he revived the rock history class from his early days teaching in Wisconsin.

After teaching a class on The Beatles at IU’s Collins Living-Learning Center in the fall of 1982, he taught his first History of Rock ‘n’ Roll Music class the following spring. Early on it wasn’t easy.

“There was an old guard here,” Gass has said. “It was an outrage to teach rock ‘n’ roll at the world’s greatest music school.”

But Gass – aka “Dr. Rock” -- pioneered the incredibly popular rock history and Beatles courses at IU’s Jacobs School of Music. And his work has opened the door for other, similar courses at IU and beyond.

“I teach courses on The Beatles and Bob Dylan and general survey courses on the roots of rock and ‘50s and ‘60s rock,” Gass told the Banner Graphic.

With a colleague teaching the music of later rock eras, Gass “got to ignore all that and continually relive the music of my youth. And it is still great.”

“How lucky we were to have such a great soundtrack for our lives,” he passionately continued, “and I feel so fortunate to have been able to turn my passion into a career. I would never have dreamed that I would have, much less retire from, such a dream job, or that The Beatles would still sound so great and mean so much. They really were rock’s Beethoven.”

Even as a veteran professor of music closing out his career at Indiana University, Glenn Gass essentially remains the wide-eyed music fan he was as a second-grader, when he wrote a fan letter to the Beatles.

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Ever since bringing home his first Beatles record from Downbeat Records as a Greencastle teenager, he’s been enthralled with the Fab Four.

The Beatles have even found a way to worm their way into Gass’ personal life, not to mention family photos like one emulating The Beatles crossing Abbey Road. Oldest son Mathew was born on John Lennon’s birthday, while youngest son Julian is named for Lennon’s son.

And his age at retirement? Sixty-four, of course, as in The Beatles lyric, Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I’m sixty-four?

“Sad to say, I turned 64 in April so I did not even get to play it in class and have some fun with it,” Gass lamented. “ I just remember how old that sounded in 1967. My sons made a video present for me, and that certainly helped soften the blow.”

While he did not get to have his family on hand for his final rock ‘n’ roll class, Gass was surprised by a drive-by retirement party in his honor last month.

Retirement, Gass suggests, “would have been strange enough in normal times, but very strange in a void like this, teaching online -- which was thoroughly joyless -- during a pandemic.”

“I already feel lost without classes to plan for,” he said, “and almost called the dean to unretire but I’m glad I didn’t as the fall semester looks like it is going to be a real mess, in any scenario. So I will definitely be giving talks and teaching any way I can around here and, I hope, Greencastle.”

IU communications and public affairs specialist Barbara Brosher is well aware of Gass’ affinity for his hometown.

“Glenn is so proud of being a Greencastle native – he’s mentioned it just about every time I’ve talked to him,” she noted.

“Gosh, Greencastle …,” muses Gass, who it is estimated taught his class to 60,000 students over the years. “I certainly hope that occasions will continue to arise as I always love giving presentations there -- they are always very special to me.

“It was especially moving when my folks were alive and sitting there listening to me talk about the music they complained about and blamed for leading me astray. But it is always so special. So many friendly and familiar faces always in attendance. You’re right that the landscape has changed with (DePauw’s) Ken Owen and Dave Bohmer gone, and my parents’ generation passing on, but hopefully I can find ways to keep going home.”

Indiana University Provost Professor of Music Dr. Glenn Gass watches a video clip of James Brown performing during a History of Rock Music II class at IU Bloomington on Tuesday, March 10.

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Often voted the most popular professor at IU, Gass says Greencastle memories are attached to nearly every song he plays in class.

“Watching The Beatles on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ with my parents,” he reminisces, talking with my friends about them at school the next day -- and for the next decade -- buying ‘Meet The Beatles’ and everything after at Downbeat Records. I’ll never forget waiting in line and finally walking in and gasping at all the racks of ‘Sgt. Pepper.’ Seeing the endless White Albums at Downbeat was a similarly overwhelming experience.

“When The Beatles broke up, I thought my musical life was over,” Gass admitted, “but right on cue came Crosby Stills Nash and Young, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and all the singer-songwriters who helped me make sense of my teenage emotions. As Todd Rundgren sang, ‘This one’s for the girls and they know who they are…’”

Gass says he still gets “a sublime joy” out of hearing “On the Beach” or any Neil Young album on a Putnam County country road.

“Time stops out there,” he says. “When my Mom passed away in 1999 in the middle of the night, my wife and I headed out to Crowe’s Bridge and the roads beyond, listening to songs that gave me a soothing sense of continuity, no matter what wrenching changes may come. Driving out toward Bainbridge, or the roads off West Walnut, it could be 1971, 1979, 1984, 1990, 1999, 2009, 2014, 2020 … there is no time out there, at least not in my memories and psyche.”

Gass shares that he cannot separate his original memories and emotions from the music he still loves and teaches.

“Which means I cannot separate it from Greencastle, ever,” he said. “The music I teach is completely inseparable from my memories of growing up in Greencastle, and I feel so fortunate to live close enough to relive those memories, over and over.

“And, as my class reunion classmates agreed, so fortunate to grow up in Greencastle in the heyday of small-town America. Everything seemed perfect then, and I think it was. It was a great time and place to grow up, and a great and safe place and time to be a rebel -- long hair and rock and roll was all it took. I still get a lot of mileage out of that -- or at least the rock and roll part.”

And it’s been much the same in Bloomington, he says.

“It has been great to go from a small-town rebel/freak to a provost professor rebel/freak at IU. Not much difference, and only an hour away … There may be nothing remotely rebellious about the music or times anymore, but I will always feel 14 when I am in Greencastle -- a reassuring feeling.

“‘When I’m 64,’ for real! “