- She rocked harder than you ever will
Former Plain Dealer rock critic Jane Scott celebrates her 91st birthday today.
Now living in an assisted living facility in Lakewood (where she graduated from high school in 1937), Scott continued to cover the music scene until her retirement from the PD in 2002.
Frequently referred to as “the world’s oldest teenager,” Scott was one of the first daily newspaper writers to write about rock ’n’ respectfully. She covered the Beatles in 1964, treating them seriously at a time when most newspapers assigned a curmudgeonly Dick Feagler-like columnist to mock them as a stupid adolescent fad.
Over the years, she became a beloved figure to rock stars and fans for her fair and open-minded reporting. She was also the first woman to cover rock music regularly and remained one of only a handful until the early ’90s.
In 1987, the paper tried to push her off the music beat, a stand it had to reverse thanks to a public outcry led by people like Cleveland rocker Michael Stanley.
The upside was that it brought her a spate of national publicity that included stories in The Wall Street Journal and People magazine.
Until recently, Scott was still attending concerts by personal favorites like Bruce Springsteen and Lyle Lovett. —Anastasia Pantsios
