KISS makes it to the R-n-R Hall of Fame

[mmcquain]

It's official... KISS has made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Kiss, Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel + More Voted Into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

 

[Shadowplayer]

took long enough

 

[Stevie 202]

Next up; the Banana Splits!

 

[albertlespaul]

Kiss, Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel, Nirvana, Hall & Oates and Cat Stevens have been elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame‘s 2014 class.

That means Deep Purple, Yes and the Zombies are among the nominees who were not chosen this year.

Really?

 

[TKOjams]

Mixed feelings about it..
.

 

[Tenacious T]

Needs a name change....too many non-rock 'n roll players in there already.

 

[EasyAce]

Really?

And once again the Butterfield Blues Band got snubbed.

 

[EasyAce]

Needs a name change....too many non-rock 'n roll players in there already.

. . . without a lot of whom there'd have been no rock and roll, or no rock and rollers trying other ways to do things.

 

[Howard2k]

Dammit… Can't find the vid of Gene telling the R&RHOF to kiss his arse.

EDIT: Found it, I think:

www.youtube.com/embed/Iek0PE4qZQY

Won't embed. 1:50 for what it's worth.

 

[Groove Toad]

Now, Gene can sell more KISS chachkies, lunch pails, and action figures.

 

[indeedido]

Finally!

 

[nicolasrivera]

they waited until Ace's house went on fire.....

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/bac...leys-yorktown-heights-house-catches-fire.html

 

[mmcquain]

Kiss' Ace Frehley on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction: 'I Don't Foresee Any Bad Blood' | Music News | Rolling Stone

 

[Tenacious T]

. . . without a lot of whom there'd have been no rock and roll, or no rock and rollers trying other ways to do things.

...but it is called "The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame".

ABBA, Madonna...don't seem very RNR to me.

The Music Hall of Fame seems more appropriate...but really, who gives a shit.

 

[EasyAce]

...but it is called "The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame".

ABBA, Madonna...don't seem very RNR to me.

I wasn't even referring to ABBA and Madonna. (Nor, for that matter, was I referring to Cat Stevens or Linda Ronstadt, two more new inductees who aren't exactly rock and roll though each did have their influence upon it for better or worse. Not to mention James Taylor, a previous inductee, who's about as rock and roll---never mind rhythm and blues---as a paper doll even if I like some of his music.) But I was thinking of a truckload of people who have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who would appear at first or after several glances to have not all that much to do with rock and roll qua rock and roll.

Let's look at the year the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame went into serious business in the first place, 1986. There were sixteen inductees and only five of them could be considered rock and rollers. (Six if you count Little Richard, who was more rhythm and blues and that's not a knock by any means.)

Whom among that inaugural class would someone care to remove and thus deny the influence they had upon what became rock and roll, simply because they weren't themselves rock and roll?

James Brown?
Ray Charles?
Sam Cooke? (Who'd also be elected in due course as part of the Soul Stirrers, the great gospel singing group who would be elected as early influences.)
Fats Domino?
Alan Freed? (Who first started calling rhythm and blues "rock and roll," perhaps in a bid to make that naughty race music boatloads of white kids were picking up on and loving circa 1953.)
John Hammond? (Impresario whose discoveries didn't stop with the jazz and blues greats he discovered pre-rock and roll and included some of rock's major figures to come.)
Robert Johnson? (The blues may have had the baby they named rock and roll---and the kid could still be tried by jury for attempted parricide---but you could make the case that Johnson among all the pre-electric bluesmen wielded the most influence on the genre-to-be.)
Sam Phillips? (Without his Sun studios there's no Kings of Rhythm, Jackie Brenston, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and several others.)
Jimmie Rodgers? (Like it or not, country has its influence on rock and Rodgers certainly did.)
Jimmy Yancey? (You don't think boogie-woogie had a big fat polyrhythmic hand in it?)

Or, 1987, year two: Twenty-two inductees and only five you might consider proper rock and rollers, Eddie Cochrane, Bill Haley, Rick Nelson, Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins. Whom among the other 1987 non-rock and rollers would some rock and roll chauvinist care to purge regardless of their influence upon rock and roll:

Leonard Chess? (Don't get me started on how many rock and rollers have plundered---if not raped---his label's blues and R & B catalog.)
The Coasters?
Bo Diddley? (You could swing either way with Bo, musically speaking, of course.)
Ahmet Ertegun? (Not only did he found the most widely successful early independent R and B label but, when the post-British Invasion era commenced, he provided a home to some of the more forward looking rockers of the late 1960s---I can remember it being said Atlantic was getting the young weirdo rock acts Columbia Records wasn't, at the time---including but not limited to Vanilla Fudge, Buffalo Springfield, Cream, the Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin, and more.)
Aretha Franklin?
Marvin Gaye?
Louis Jordan? (Whose jump blues style, arguably, was the final irrigation of what became rhythm and blues.)
B.B. King? (If I have to explain his influence, boy am I in the wrong forum.)
Lieber and Stoller? (Arguably the R & B songwriting team with the widest early influence on rock among their 1950s peers.)
Clyde McPhatter? (Don't get me started on how many R & B shouters and early white rockers were influenced by his semi-histrionic vocal style with the original Drifters and on his own.)
Smokey Robinson?
Big Joe Turner?
T-Bone Walker? (See B.B. King.)
Muddy Waters? (You may care to note who presented him posthumously upon his induction: Paul Butterfield, who himself belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame even if he, too, would now be a posthumous induction---in fact, he died just a few months after inducting Muddy Waters.)
Jerry Wexler? (Atlantic's chief A&R and production man, and a lineup of whom he produced in his heyday would make a serious music lover's---rock or otherwise---teeth revolve.)
Hank Williams?
Jackie Wilson? (Who was probably one of Clyde McPhatter's more attentive R & B disciples, come to think of it---in fact, he replaced McPhatter as the lead voice in Billy Ward & the Dominoes at first. Who often enough made Elvis the Pelvis look like a kiddie pageant performer. Who made Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard resemble corpses---good God at his best Wilson made James Brown resemble a zombie. He could have performed the likes of Kiss right under the table at his best; I know, because I saw both live in my earlier life, and Kiss would have gone running home to mommy if they'd gotten a real gander at Jackie Wilson in his prime. If Wilson had a flaw, it's this: his vocal talent was too often undermined by inferior material or recording arrangements. Nelson George in The Death of Rhythm and Blues probably said it best: "The fact is that Brunswick Records [Wilson's label] only sporadically sought out writers and producers who could truly showcase Wilson's talent. Wilson spent the 1960s wading through crap like "Danny Boy," and he only rarely ascended to something as sublime as "Higher and Higher," always without any coherent direction . . . During the 1960s, an era of rising black self-awareness, one would think that Wilson should have demanded more control over his own career. Maybe he did. But he never got it." Of course, you could argue likewise for Elvis demanding more control over his career once he got done with the Army, but he didn't, either. As Elvis was bound and gagged to Col. Tom Parker, Jackie Wilson was bound and gagged to Nat Tarnopol, who'd taken over as his manager when his original manager died unexpectedly at the beginning of Wilson's recording career. He was Tarnopol's cash cow and that was that. Tragically.)

That's just the first two years of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I won't accuse the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame of being flawless by any means (I thought it was slightly foolish to induct James Jamerson one year and Benny Benjamin a couple of years later, instead of giving the Funk Brothers rhythm section teammates their real due and bringing them in together, and you don't want to argue they didn't influence rock and roll, do you?); but then, I cringe when I see people (and they're out there, poor darlings) argue that the like of Chet Atkins, Howlin' Wolf, and even the Ink Spots (as early influences likewise; their quartet singing style may have paved a path for the early doo-wop R and B harmony groups equal to the influence of the great gospel singing groups) should be purged.

But any Hall of Fame that doesn't acknowledge the roots and the shepherds and the external forces that helped to birth and perpetuate that which it purports to honour is a Hall of Fame even more unworthy of being called one.

The Music Hall of Fame seems more appropriate...but really, who gives a shit.

Apparently, more people than either of us think!

 

[Shadowplayer]

YES shoulda made it in

 

[Coldacre]

And once again the Butterfield Blues Band got snubbed.

who??

 

[EasyAce]

who??

Does this answer your question?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv1ioq_vGas]The Butterfield Blues Band, "Blues With a Feeling" (1965)[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2J1B0ktfm8]The Butterfield Blues Band, "Born in Chicago" (1965)[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0FVO8H93IM]The Butterfield Blues Band, "Screamin'" (1965)[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO2JAA47Mgk]The Butterfield Blues Band, "Work Song" (1966)[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaV-S5ivX3E]The Butterfield Blues Band, "East-West" (1966)[/ame]

They pretty much kicked off the original blues revival of the mid-1960s and had a huge influence on what followed them. (They also launched the touring careers of two guitar legends, Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop . . .)

 

[Gargamel647]

I think I can hear Eddie Trunks head inflating.