95-year-old YouTuber rejects generational norms

Bryan Mitchell cites a handful of key ingredients as the secret to living a long and healthy life. Chief among them for the 95-year-old are an active social life and hobbies you enjoy.

“Mine is music — listening to it, then participating,” Mitchell said, seated in the living room of his Senita home. “I always loved music. In high school, I was in the boys’ choir. I have been in church choirs all along, and I am in the church choir now.”

It wasn’t until he was in his 90s that he decided it was time to expand his skillset. Mitchell now sings solo for the first time. And to top that, the world can check out his performances on the Bryan and Friends YouTube channel.

Mitchell met his friends, Terry and Bonnie Oldfield, through the Maricopa Lutheran Church. The Oldfields were featured in the May issue of InMaricopa as Terry waited 60 years, fully supported by his wife, to see his dream fulfilled of marching as a bagpiper in the Tournament of Roses Parade.

“Terry and Bonnie played music almost every day and I just joined them,” Mitchell disclosed. “Somehow, we got the idea we could play together. I would choose the music and drop it off to them. That’s how we got going.”

As far as the web-based part of the equation, Mitchell said, “We did some entertaining locally.”

Local performances were primarily through an annual Spring Fling event at his church, but “some friends encouraged us to do more.”

Making the music happen
Thirty-five videos were uploaded between March 2021 and the end of last year. Mitchell and Terry have continued to make content despite Bonnie tragically passing away in January, weeks after their long-awaited Rose Bowl experience.

The end product typically features Mitchell singing three songs. But there is much work put in before a recording takes place.

“I choose the songs,” offered Mitchell, who listens to a Phoenix oldies station for ideas and says he prefers songs from the 1970s through the 1990s, although both older and newer tunes have been included at times. “It’s got to appeal to me, and I have to be able to sing it properly.

“I get the music from my son. I print it out and get it to Terry. I copy down the words because they have to be a good size so I can read them,” he continued. “If I don’t have the song on my iPod, I play it through Alexa. I work on it until it becomes second nature to me.”

The trio, now a duo, come together most Sunday afternoons and play as many as 15 pieces.

“We are always working ahead. When we get three that I like, we plan to record it,” Mitchell added. “There’s no special schedule. We just record when we’re ready.”

Showtime!
This writer was privileged to view the recording of episode No. 37 in mid-May. Bonnie Oldfield handmade the quilt that serves as the backdrop. Terry the modest but impressive stagehand with two lights on tripods, a camera, microphone and computer setup for recording and eventual distribution.

Oldfield played the trumpet in high school and the bagpipes in his Rose Bowl parade appearance. The banjo, mandolin and ukelele are also in his repertoire, but it is the guitar that accompanies Mitchell’s tunes — selections that day included songs from the Beatles and Bread, and Don McLean’s “Vincent.”

It took three takes — one or two more than normal — on this occasion to complete the three-song set.

Mitchell said he is a big fan of duets and enjoys his group’s annual Christmas specials. Duets have included an early performance of “Devoted to You” with Bonnie Oldfield, an episode with Mitchell’s son Michael, who has had a long career in music and performing in Chicago, and two with his great-granddaughter Ryan, most recently Elton John’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.”

Mitchell informs friends locally when a new recording is posted, and family members do the same. The feedback, he said, is usually encouraging with helpful tips also part of the mix.

“My oldest daughter [Debbie] in Seattle said she liked the music but there was a lighting challenge,” he reported. “Sometimes there are problems with the sound, like clocks or phones. And we have to make sure we put the dogs away.”

Mitchell adds some commentary at times and says he “likes to make it folksy.” He admitted to taking a few liberties with the words at times, changing a phrase in a Grateful Dead song, for example, from its original iteration to “gosh darn.”

“I don’t do anything that refers to drugs or is off color.”

Outside the studio
Mitchell worked as a controller for a large company in the Chicago area before taking early retirement several years after a move to New York. His second career consisted of 28 years as a real estate broker in that state, before stepping away at age 86.

When his wife died in 2012, his youngest daughter Susan, who moved to Maricopa about seven years earlier, came to stay with him.

“She was a Godsend,” Mitchell confided. “She stayed a year and never pressured me to come out here. But when I finally retired in 2015, I told her I’d come here.”

In addition to his three children, Mitchell has seven grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. He rented a house in Glennwilde for five years before purchasing his forever home in Senita.

Asked what he likes best about Maricopa, the concise answer was “the weather.”

He elaborated: “I watch the news every night and they always talk about the weather problems all over the country. Every time I see that, I thank God I am here.”

As for his musical career, he’s not sure how long it will last — he had a pair of strokes in recent years and has a pacemaker — but there are no plans to stop.

“One of the strokes took my voice away,” he revealed. “I have trouble enunciating at times. But it didn’t take my signing voice. I don’t understand it but I’m happy it didn’t.”

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