It’s been said that life begins at 40. For Tahoe City local Diana Turnbloom, a new life began 3 years ago at age 59 when she became the lead singer of what would become Sonik Rewind, the Tahoe-based classic rock and blues cover group whose sexta- and septuagenarian members seem to have found the fountain of youth.
Led by Turnbloom’s power-filled voice and charismatic moves, the band is known for good times and getting the dance floor going. At their shows you’ll hear tunes from Creedence Clearwater Revival or the Kinks, Deep Purple or the Pretenders; Pat Benatar, Bonnie Raitt, Bad Company, Blondie, The Beatles, and others.
And they rock the heck out of “White Rabbit.”
“I like Jefferson Airplane songs because they have some belty vocals to them,” said Turnbloom.
Listening to the band play, you’d think they were all career musicians who came together to form a Sierra Nevada swansong supergroup. But for the most part, they’re just getting started.
Before she retired from her career in real estate, Turnbloom’s husband of 40 years swears he had never heard her sing a single note. Steve Turnbloom, 72, hadn’t owned a drumkit since high school and is now the band’s drummer and core member. Retired special ed teacher turned rhythm guitarist Gary Burnell, 72, hadn’t really played since he was a teenager, either.
Also ringing in at 72 , Chris Retta’s bass guitar keeps the band on point when he’s not motocross racing, and lead guitarist Mike Hudson, 65, is a self-described winter paddleboarder who loves working on his off-grid high Sierra desert cabin. The band even found their sound guy, fellow 72-year-old Jim Calhoun, through chance conversation. “I mentioned how I once owned a private recording studio, and Diana got really excited,” he said. “Even though I hadn’t done it in 40 years, I thought, ‘What the heck?’”
That seems to be the attitude for this group of retirees who became rock stars — a sort of collective “why not?”
“There’s more to retirement than the traditional hobbies,” Turnbloom said. “Art, cooking, gardening, and travel weren’t doing it for me. But music — it just gave me so much joy and peace. I couldn’t ignore it.”
Sonik Rewind fans are sure glad Diana didn’t ignore it. And while her natural talent is undeniable — as is the entire band’s — it is the members’ devotion to craft that has elevated them into the upper spheres of the Tahoe music scene. They practice weekly as a band at their Incline Village studio and most days on their own. Unlike so many other musicians trying to make it who have to serve food or sling drinks to make ends meet, the fact that most of the band is retired affords the free time necessary to hone their skills.
Hudson is the only member of the band who still works, but a wound-down schedule at his roofing business affords plenty of time to pick and strum. “All the new stuff we are learning challenges me to be a better guitar player, which is exactly what I wanted to achieve,” he said.
Diana’s desire to find her best voice saw her claw her way into the final opening of a class taught by a vocal coach she felt called to work with. “The application said you needed 5 years of professional experience [as a singer] and 5 years of experience as a student,” she said. “I told her I didn’t have that, but what I did have was age, wisdom, and time to practice. I told her that I would not disappoint her.”
Diana was accepted into the exclusive vocal class run in Pleasant Hill, which she attends online. But when she began she didn’t even know the musical lingo and had to learn pretty much everything on the fly. And yes, she was just about the oldest student in the class.
“I love music and I love the band,” she said. “But it does take its time. A 2-hour gig is a full-day thing — loading up the equipment, setting up the stage and the drum kit; soundchecks, playing, breaking down. Sometimes we don’t get home ’til after midnight.”
For Sonik Rewind, it seems to be a labor of love that’s paying off. The band played Pete n’ Peters in Tahoe City in late April, opened Incline Music on the Beach May 23, and held down the Sunday afternoon set at Memorial Day Weekend’s Made in Tahoe Festival. Their most recent gigs were on the deck at South Lake’s Steamers Bar & Grill May 31 and a private event at Tahoe Park Beach June 8, the first of two summer shows at the location.
The band takes a bit of a summer sabbatical for vacation days and family visits over the Fourth of July holiday and gets back at it July 19 at Alibi Ale Works Truckee Public House.
Other gigs already on its summer schedule (which continues to fill) are at Tahoe Backyard in Kings Beach on July 26 and Donner Music by the Meadow August 30.
“We love sharing our music,” said Diana. “Playing shows and seeing the audience dance like crazy makes it all worth it.”
“ Music fell into my lap.”
Growing up, Diana wasn’t super into music. She took choir for a year in high school, but that was it. When she got married, she had children. “And that’s what I did,” she said. “That’s what my generation (of women) did. I didn’t do things I wanted to; I was making sure my kids were doing what they wanted and asking myself, ‘Is my husband happy?’”
When her children left home and she was able to retire from real estate, Diana was finally able to start exploring. She set out on a spiritual journey for herself, not knowing what she would find. She was about to find music.
“Steve had retired, too, and he was sitting around the house a lot. ‘You can’t just sit around,’ I told him. ‘You used to drum when you were in high school. Why don’t we get you a drum kit and start you drumming again?’”
It wasn’t long after that at a potluck party one night when Steve and a guitarist were jamming with the Turnbloom’s son when they started playing “House of the Rising Sun.”
“All of a sudden,” said Diana, “I just started singing along. At the end of the song, I felt really good. Steve looked at me and said, ‘Hey, that was pretty good. Do you want to sing some backup?’”
She said yes, and didn’t stay behind the band for long.
New take on old hits
Sonik Rewind’s catalog of classic rock songs is not without its own interpretation and style. Take their version of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love.” While Rewind appreciates the studio version, it opts to cover a unique live version recorded in 1968 at the Filmore in San Francisco.
“We like how they did it that night,” Diana said. “It’s definitely a little different, and we like the intro, too.”
Still, the band knows its audience and acknowledges it has to take care not to change things up too much or too often. “We don’t want a fan saying, ‘Hey, what are you doing to my favorite song?!” she said.
Striking a balance is key. But to find it, sometimes one has to get way out on the edge of the teeter-totter, like the band does with Leslie Gore’s 1963 hit, “You Don’t Own Me.”
“The song is about, ‘hey, just ’cuz I’m going out with you doesn’t mean you own me,’” Diana explained. “It was pretty controversial for the time. We do that one grunge style.”
At Sonik Rewind shows, you’ll hear tunes from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s that you know and love. They’ll be played with soul and belted out with force. And when you look up from the dance floor to the lead singer, you’ll be looking at a sort of magic — the type of magic that shows us that while we can never go back and do it all over again, we can, from this moment on, move forward in any direction we choose.
Even if that direction is to finally go out and become a rock star.
For more information on show dates and times, and to see videos of the band performing, visit sonikrewind.com.
