By Sean Dedalus
Sedona, AZ — I was talking to the Sedona.biz writer/publisher the other day, Tommy Acosta, and learned that our common friend Fernando Rivera of North Carolina passed away. It was reported that life and time caught him and then overcame him and his heart quietly and suddenly failed.
Acosta often uses the term “Baby Boomers” in some of his articles on music and rock and roll bands. This term refers to the “baby boom” that unfolded when the boys came home after World War II and gave birth to 7.4 million babies from 1946 to 1964. That means the youngest of them will be 61 in 2025, while the oldest will become 79 in 2025.
“Another one bites the dust” lamented Acosta. I understood what he meant as it seems that so many of our friends and family members are dying lately. Some died in Vietnam, some died from drugs and suicide and now people seem to be dying because of old age and the infirmities that accompany aging.
We feel the same inside this container but when we look in the mirror, reality registers. We are older. We have pain in our knees, arms and neck. We layout our Metformin, Glipizide, Metoprolol and Satins next to our Magnesium, Potassium Vitamin B-1, D-3 and Baby Aspirin.
We remember driving our parents to the doctor’s office and to the drugstore to pick up their prescriptions. Now we are taking ourselves to the doctor’s office and much of our social messaging concerns the cost of prescription drugs.
“Another one bites the dust,” echoed again in my head. What did Tommy Acosta mean by that? Was he talking about our mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers that passed away? Our friends? Our heroes like John Lennon or Muhammad Ali?
Fernando Rivera was as American as American could be. He played drums on Acosta’s Rock Opera Rock and Roll Anything Goes and he was a band member in the group Mozart’s People. Mozart’s People sounded like the super band Yes. And sure, enough Fernando was a great fan of Yes drummer Bill Bruford. Mozart’s People also consisted of the Smith brothers. There was Richie, Tommy and Joey Smith. For all practical purposes, Fernando was a Smith brother. In sum and substance, Mozart’s People was an extraordinary band. Great vocals, great musicians and they had one of the best drummers I ever heard.
Fernando did a few shows with Tommy Acosta’s band Savosta back in the day and made everybody sound much better!
Fernando was a handsome young man. He had a great sense of humor and was full of levity and energy. He grew up in the Bronx and could be sassy and a wise guy. But he was a lover and not a fighter and quick to avoid fist fighting. In the last few years, he was very opinionated about national politics and we spent time bantering about the elections.
I flashed to the album Rock and Roll Everything Goes, written by Tommy. It was a rock opera and demanded a constant punch. The album demanded Power, Speed, Precision and perfect timing. That’s what Fernando was all about. What a performance.
As an artist, Fernando was very critical of himself and pushed himself to always be magnificent. He was an introspective drummer. He was explosive and controlled at the same time. He also demanded other people in the group to rise to a professional level of performance. He was just great and funny.
“Another one bites the dust.” In my head I heard a different song. I heard, In My Life by the Beatles. But of all these friends and lovers, there is no one compares with you. Yes, Acosta was not talking about the bullets flying everywhere on the Queen song.
Acosta was talking about getting older in America. That the Youth Generation of the 60’s was now the old generation of 2025.
The Baby Boomers are dying and Acosta was talking about himself. He is a Baby Boomer. I am a Baby Boomer and Fernando was a Baby Boomer. First our grandparents, then our parents and them some of our siblings and close friends. Acosta was saying this generation of Americans would soon pass away and Acosta was not talking about Fernando in particular.
He was talking about how quick we change from young to old.
Fernando’s death reminded Acosta of his own mortality. He was afraid of confronting his own death. He was sad. Fernando was a free spirit, a fire fly that was consumed by the blackness of the night.
Acosta was afraid of the night.
Editor’s Note: The author is a regular editorial contributor for Sedona.biz and a great friend and band member during our youth, having grown up together in the Bronx. He is a superb musician and songwriter as well. Rather than being afraid of the night. I would rather see Fernando in the light of our shared youth and experience, drumming away with the greats in Rock’n’Roll Heaven.
Featured Photo Above:
Left to Right: Gerry Savage, Fernando Rivera (kneeling), Tommy Acosta, Sandi Lusk, Tommy Smith, and Michael Savage… The Savosta Band.
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There’s a moment when the lights dim and you realize you’re not center stage anymore. Not really. You’re off to the side, maybe holding a clipboard, maybe just watching. And that’s okay. It’s not sad—not always. It’s just the truth, and if you’ve made peace with truth before, you’ll find your footing again.
We—the Baby Boomers—once thought the world spun for us. And maybe for a while it did. We marched, loved hard, built empires out of ideas and mistakes. We made noise. Some of us are still making noise. But there’s a silence underneath it now. A pause. A reckoning.
Mortality has a way of simplifying things. It strips you of the false. You stop pretending. You see your hands for what they are—weathered, maybe shaking, still beautiful in the way that old guitars are beautiful: scarred but resonant. You feel time as a tightening circle. Not cruel. Just honest.
And here come the new ones—bright-eyed, fast-talking, wired into everything. They’re fearless in ways we weren’t, and blind in ways we hope they’ll grow out of. We want to help. We want to be asked. But often we’re not. So we watch. And sometimes we ache with the knowing they don’t yet have.
But then again—we’re still here. We’re still loving. Still learning. Still writing songs, starting revolutions, telling stories no one else can tell. We don’t fade—we deepen. And if we’re lucky, we become the quiet voices in the wings saying, “Go on. Fly. But remember where the wind comes from.”
Because someday they’ll be where we are—squinting at the horizon, holding hands with the unknown, hearing the applause fade and feeling something even better: the deep, resonant echo of having mattered.
As a millennial, it bothers me as to what you did to our world. What you left us.You were the golden generation—born into the boom, raised on dreams, crowned with possibility. You had music that roared like rebellion and marches that thundered with justice. You had the wealth, the education, the numbers, the voice. You had the chance to change everything. And yet… here we are, sifting through the wreckage you left behind.
The air we breathe is poisoned. The oceans choke on plastic. The forests that once stood like cathedrals are gone, carved up and sold for profit. You knew. You knew what was happening and still, the engines roared louder, the corporations fatter, the wars more endless.
You taught us to believe in freedom, then locked us into debt. You told us to fight for truth, then fed us distractions. You turned protest into profit, love into marketing, and the Earth—our only home—into collateral damage.
We watched you build a world on fire, and now we’re the ones left to put it out. And we’re tired. Bitter. Some days, hopeless. Not because we don’t care—but because it feels like you didn’t care enough.
We’re still here. Picking up pieces you refused to face. And it hurts. Because it didn’t have to be this way.
Very interesting. It’s interesting to see how writers, musicians and songwriters think about each other . That’s why I am glad I live in Sedona . It’s an artist colony!