Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame Nominees for 2010

The usual R&R Hall o' Fame nominee nonsense begins again. Another list of obvious and questionable contenders. Never know what the 500 person voting committee will do.

There are certain folks past and present (Seymour Stein, Ahmet Ertegun) who have held a lot of influence and have gotten perhaps some less deserving people in while other, more seminal, artists remain shut out. Alice Cooper, The Stooges, The New York Dolls not in Hall, but Percy Sledge and Ritchie Valens are? I am always baffled by exactly what the criteria is to get into this goofy museum. It seems having the right lobbyists helps.

Would love to see such cult-ish types as Love and The Zombies in there, but I am probably dreaming.

The list:

KISS -- Love em' or hate em', they should have been in there long ago.

Genesis-- Same as above.

Stooges-- The godfathers of punk not in Hall, but Sex Pistols and Ramones (both directly influnenced by Iggy and co.) are? C'mon, dummies!

Laura Nyro -- Great songwriter. Cult-ish type artist who is certainly worthy, but not exactly rock and roll. If she makes it, then where is Harry Nilsson?

The Chantels -- Output is pretty slight, even by girl group standards, though they are credited with being R&R's first great female group.

The Hollies -- Great and underappreciated 60's pop group who had tons of hits. If they make it, well deserved.

Donna Summer -- This is disco or R&B, but the "Rock and Roll" moniker hardly seems to apply for this organisation. Miles Davis is in there, for god sakes! Miss Summer certainly sold a ton of disco records in her time.

ABBA -- Again, not what one would call Rock and Roll, but considering they have sold more records than anyone but the Beatles and the fact they cranked out a string of pop classics that for better and worse continue to influence pop music, they should be a shoo-in. If Madonna is in there, then ABBA should definitely be in there.

Red Hot Chili Peppers -- This one may ruffle a few feathers too, but they have had a 25 year career of critical and commercial success. I know, there are those who hate them with a passion, but I have liked some of their stuff and the musicianship from Flea, John Frusciante and Chad Smith is phenomenal. Now if the voting committee can just forget about the socks on cocks episodes or some of Anthony Kiedis' raps, they should be in there.

LL Cool J -- WTF. Another example of the East Coast bias of this organisation. How many rap acts are you going to include in this thing? And if I had to pick 5 or 10 of them for inclusion, I don't think Ladies Love (who has had his moments) would be one of them. Grandmaster Flash and Run DMC are in. Wouldn't The Beastie Boys or Public Enemy be the most obvious next choice?

Darlene Love -- Great girl group singer. Not sure she has accomplished enough to get in, but you never know.

Jimmy Cliff -- This would make reggae artist number two in the hall behind you-know-who. If called upon to induct another reggae artist,would not be my next logical pick. That would probably be Toots & the Maytals. He had a few gems in the early 70's and helped to popularize reggae on an international level, but I just don't think his work warrants inclusion here.

Why should we care? It is a tourist trap that celebrates a populist history of,well not even rock exactly, but popular music of the last 50-odd years. I would like to check it out some day,but would never make a special trip to see it. Strange to see such vibrant music reduced to a stuffy museum exhibit. Does not take into account all of the glorious one-offs or notable but not best-selling acts that have made the music so interesting over the years.

Still, it is nice to see the music taken seriously and some of those old timers commemorated somehow. You and I know Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and so on,but future generations may need some guidance. Will they be looked upon with the same interest or relevance that such legandary but mostly forgotten Baseball Hall of Fame players as Pie Traynor or Tris Speaker are today? At least the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members have something that will endure and can be experienced:their music.

Video Diary: Love Sculpture, "Sabre Dance"

Yep, that's Dave Edmunds back in '69 tearing it up on guitar.

Song of the Week: "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago", The Yardbirds

The Yardbirds are one of those bands whose shadow is larger than the actual profile of the band. They are a band that is revered by musicians and musicologists alike. They were inventive, musically stylish, aggressive, unpredictable and explosive. They are also known for spawning three of the greatest guitarists to step into the limelight in the nascent era of guitar heroes. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page would all be birthed from the ranks of The Yardbirds. But any real follower of The Yardbirds bristles when the group is remembered for this selection of alums alone. The Yardbirds were much more than these three guitar legends.

The Yardbirds started in London with a fine young guitarist at the helm, Anthony "Top" Topham. Top Topham's parents (he was 16) thought little of his future and forced him from the supposedly deadbeat group. Good thing for the other members -- vocalist and harmonica player Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, bassist Paul Samwell Smith, and rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja -- they new this introverted and moody kid from art school that used to play at the coffee house. He even was rumored to have a killer record collection. So off the 4 went courting their classmate. That classmate was none other than one Eric Clapton. The year was 1963 and the up and coming band made a play to get the residency at the Crawdaddy Club that was being vacated by a group who had to leave the residency to start touring. That group is of course, The Rolling Stones. The Yardbirds quickly built a following of blues enthusiasts who were attracted to the band for it's overdriven versions of obscure blues songs and the stellar finger work of their young lead guitarist as seen here performing Louise. Clapton was with the group when they recorded one of their finest works, a cover of the Billy Boy Arnold song, I Wish You Would. But Clapton bristled at requests to do the pop song, For Your Love, and departed the group for browner fields in the middle of the recording of their first album.

Half way through the recording of their first album, in steps publicly unknown guitarist Jeff Beck. While Beck was also a blues enthusiast, unlike Clapton, he was not a purist. Jeff Beck ushered in the era of musical experimentation that became the pinnacle of The Yardbirds' existence. The Yardbirds began drawing inspiration from disparate sources such as blues, jazz, country, raga, and rockabilly. (See this Flip-Side post from December, 2008 for an example of Beck's guitar work.) The result was a sonic explosion that sounded like nothing else in the UK or the US and had a tremendous impact on fellow musicians from Love to Jimi Hendrix to Aerosmith. Bassist Paul Samwell-Smith stepped forward as the group's primary songwriter, arranger and eventually producer. With Beck the group was at top form, as seen here in this live rendition of Bo Diddley's I'm A Man.

Shortly after producing the group's second album, Paul Samwell-Smith, tired of the touring, departed the group. In steps session guitarist Jimmy Page to replace Samwell-Smith on bass. The idea was to train Dreja how to play bass and have Page move over to guitar, giving the band perhaps the greatest guitar duo in history. That's where we pick up today's SoTW. It is the best of the three songs the two guitar legends recorded together. The song is Happening Ten Years Time Ago. It features Beck and Page and session bassist, John Paul Jones on bass. It was recorded in the summer of '66 and features some of the finest guitar tone you will ever here as Page and Beck duel with their Fender Telecasters through the lead as we hear distant voices under the siren swells.

This line up lasted for only three recordings and one film session, which can be seen here. Beck began to crack under pressure and left the group while on the road in California. Jimmy Page was left to carry the load for the band, and did a more than able job as the lone guitarist.

But all was not well in Yardbird land. Bad management, the loss of Jeff Beck coupled with the loss of Samwell-Smith and the changes in the music market, saw The Yardbirds playing a high school dance in Illinois one night, and a double theater show performance in Alabama the next night. With little enthusiasm left, in 1967, Relf and McCarty quit the band they founded.

Jimmy Page was still fresh and soldiered on for contractual purposes with The New Yardbirds, morphing the band into his new lineup he called Led Zeppelin (after The Who's Keith Moon stated that trying to keep the band afloat would go over like a Led Zeppelin). They would continue on with The Yardbirds set-list for a few months (as seen here) and eventually, become their own group and have one or two hits on their own accord.

Click here to listen to The Yardbirds perform Happenings Ten Years Time Ago.

Video Diary: Pete Townshend, "Drowned"

Song of the Week: "Strollin' With Bone", T-Bone Walker

Can it get any better? Nope. Today we listen to T-Bone Walker, one of the most influential guitarists of the 20th Century.

Aaron Thibeaux Walker grew up in Dallas, Texas in a very musical family and at a very early age began busking on street corners for change. On the streets Walker worked as T-Bone (a play on words from his middle name) and supported and competed with guitarists like piedmont style guitarist Scrapper Blackwell, the jazzy, inventive and sadly overlooked Lonnie Johnson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, for whom Walker apprenticed. Walker would often accompany Jefferson on guitar but he would just as often perform as the warm up act, the MC, the dancer and the pass-the-hat guy for Mr. Jefferson. T-Bone Walker began working more and more on his own and even recorded for Columbia Records in Dallas as early as 1929!

Walker's guitar and singing skills had him traveling around the country spreading his skills. After a short stint in the Count Basie band, Walker Settled in as the guitarist for the Los Angeles based Les Hite band where Walker started using an amplified guitar as early as 1939. (Some say this is the first instance of an amplified guitar in recording. Others say it is Walker's Dallas protege, Charlie Christian. I don't know.) Regardless, T-Bone Walker was soon using his amplification to get heard in the band and start taking leads (previously the guitar had been purely a rhythm instrument) and began singing leads as well. The writing was on the wall and T-Bone Walker was now a frontman of his own band and his own blend of big band jazz and blues which was newly christened West Coast Blues. Walker's blues was an upbeat, swinging blues with a strong reference to the nascent jazz movement. A style that Lonnie Johnson had been hinting at years earlier. In 1947, T-Bone Walker hit it big time composing and recording a song that has become a "standard". That song is the ubiquitous Stormy Monday Blues, which you can see Walker performing here. Walker was quite the act to catch. He would play with the guitar behind his head while performing the splits and playing leads with the guitar facing straight up as if it was laying flat on a table.

Our SoTW is one of the most rollicking songs of the pre-Rock-n-Roll era that you will ever here. It's the Walker-penned instrumental, Strollin' with Bone. Not only is the guitar work just stellar, but the entire arrangement is just wonderful. The bouncing piano, the exclamation mark of the multiple horn breaks and the jazzy drums. And dig that guitar digging in with those bends at 2:04 right after the third horn break. Do you think Chuck Berry may have owned this record?

Click here to listen to Strollin' With Bone.