When I Come Around

While you were getting ready for or celebrating the holidays, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame  announced its list of inductees for the class of 2015.  They are Green Day, Bill Withers, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Lou Reed, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.  The Beatles' Ringo Starr will also be honored not as a solo artist but with an award for musical excellence, while R&B quintet The "5" Royales will be recognized for their early influence on rock and roll.

Okay, you can start questioning the choices.  Go ahead and say that Bill Withers is too mellow; I think he belongs on the list because of his R&B credentials.  What I want to know is, why isn't Ringo Starr being inducted as a solo artist?  (Wasn't his 1973 solo album good enough for that?)  I can see it now; people will say he's only getting this award to compensate for the fact that he's the only Beatle not inducted for his solo work.  Some will likely question why Ringo is being honored for musical excellence when there are rock drummers far better than he is, even though his drumming is indeed excellent.  In fact, when I was in high school, kids who were into drummers idolized John Bonham and Neil Peart.  Also, Ringo never made it in the "Best Drummers" polls in Creem magazine in the early eighties.  Gina Schock of the Go-Go's (the female Beatles) did.  Keith Moon, despite having died in 1978, did, too.  Peart, of course, was always voted number one (no argument here). 

There are other issues.  Rap fans will be incensed that N.W.A. was nominated but not voted in, and, as this article from the New York Daily News indicates, metal fans aren't too happy that their music gets short shrift.  But then, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board has its critics.  Literally: the Hall has its share of professional record reviewers on its board, and rock scribes are known for their cavalier dismissal of metal for being too loud, too angst-ridden, and too white.  But I too can't understand the ongoing snubbing of Deep Purple despite the fact they're one of the few metal bands to be awarded classic-rock stature (and to be honest, Rainbow, the group Ritchie Blackmore founded after leaving Deep Purple, was more of a metal band than Deep Purple; its original frontman, the late Ronnie James Dio, was more of a head-banging screecher than Robert Plant or Ian Gillian could ever be).    

Though, if you think Judas Priest can ever get in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, you've got another thing coming.  

I won't do more than mention again the Hall's equally cavalier dismissal of non-American rock acts that didn't do big business here, except to say that waiting for Family to be inducted is like waiting for Amtrak to start running bullet trains - not likely to happen.  But then, maybe the best way for us rock fans who feel shortchanged by the Hall when some of our favorite performers aren't inducted is to honor them ourselves by . . . playing their records (or watching their videos; last night I continued a New Year's Eve tradition of mine by going to YouTube and by watching Family's 1970 "Beat-Club" performance of "The Weaver's Answer" just before midnight and watching, just after midnight, their performance of "Drowned In Wine" from the Kralingen festival in Rotterdam that same year, both performances representing some of the most ferocious rock and roll ever made).  

And if you thought the Hall was getting trivial by inducting novelty-act disco singers who got lucky, take note; recent exhibits at the Cleveland museum include costumes worn by current singers Bruno Mars and Katy Perry, both of whom barely make the grade as rockers.  Also, they're acts whose music has not stood the test of time.  As former Van Halen member Sammy Hagar famously declared, somewhat incoherently, "Only time will tell if we stand the test of time."  (Van Halen were inducted in 2007.)  And if Mars and Perry do stand the test of time, look for them to be inducted into the Hall in the future.  After all, a certain novelty-act disco singer was.

Okay, I've rambled on too long.  As for the particular merits of the particular inductees,  I'll save that for the occasion of the induction ceremonies on April 18.  Happy new year.