I’m eternally fascinated by musicians that I grew up with who just left the industry despite fame and went and did something else because there’s an assumption that you’d stick with it if you were at least popular enough. But the whole industry just wasn’t for some people. There are a surprising amount Here's a few.
Take Bo Hansson for example; he essentially retired from the public eye and music industry in the late 70s, though it wasn't a formal, announced retirement - he just quietly withdrew.
After his huge international success with Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings which was a hit all over the world and has since been sampled by hip hop artists. His keyboard landscapes were very inspirational and after a few follow-up albums in the 1970s, a couple of things caused him to pull back completely.
Hansson was inherently solitary, mercurial, and uncomfortable with fame. Even at the height of his success, he almost never performed his own solo music live. The pressure of the music industry and touring didn't suit his personality at all. His late 1970s albums didn't perform as well on the charts, which naturally gave him an exit point from the mainstream music business.
He spent his final decades living a very quiet, reclusive life in a small apartment on the island of Södermalm in Stockholm. In his latter years, he was reportedly incapacitated by illness. He died in 2010 aged 67.
In the 1970s and early '80s, Bill Withers was a soul music powerhouse, writing timeless anthems like "Lean on Me", "Ain't No Sunshine", and "Lovely Day".In 1985, at age 47, he walked away from the music industry and never recorded another album.
He didn't enter the music business until he was over 30, after serving nine years in the US Navy and working in aircraft factories. Because he had a mature perspective on life, he had zero tolerance for record label executives telling him how to write or dress. He decided he was rich enough, comfortable enough, and didn't need the stress. He spent the rest of his life happily doing woodwork, raising his kids, and enjoying his retirement.
John Deacon of Queen last played in Queen in 1997 after which he just opted out of the business though remains a partner in Queen.
Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane retired from rock music in 1990 at age 51, stating that "all rock-and-rollers over the age of 50 look stupid and should retire." She’s spent her later years painting.
Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet): After releasing avant-garde rock masterpieces in the '60s and '70s, he abruptly quit music in 1982 to become a highly successful, reclusive abstract painter in the Mojave Desert.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Enya became a global phenomenon with her lush, multi-tracked Celtic synth soundscapes, selling over 75 million albums worldwide with massive hits like "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)". Despite being one of the wealthiest and most successful female artists in music history, Enya lives an incredibly low-profile life. She does not tour, rarely gives interviews, and is almost never spotted in public. She bought a Victorian castle in Killiney, near Dublin, where she lives a highly private life with her cats. She quietly records music at her own pace every few years, avoids the internet, and enjoys her solitude, completely detached from the celebrity world.
In the 1980s, Talk Talk and Mark Hollis was a highly successful synth-pop band with massive international hits like "It's My Life" and "Such a Shame". However, Hollis grew tired of commercial pop and completely pivoted the band's sound and made deeply experimental, quiet, and brilliant albums like Spirit of Eden (1988) and Laughing Stock (1991).
After releasing one self-titled solo album in 1998, Hollis vanished from the music industry entirely. He famously stated that he chose his family over fame, saying, "I choose for my children. I can't go on tour and be a good dad at the same time." He lived quietly in the English countryside until his death in 2019.
