Well crap, after all the chatter last round, I was expecting a bunch of clearly unqualified people on this ballot. And if anything, it’s even tougher.
I’m continuing my policy of ignoring any strict definitions of rock and going by excellence and influence. The Godfather and Queen, James Brown and Aretha, are at the top for me, so I guess those two are easy.
BB King and Muddy Waters are clearly qualified. Smokey Robinson is as well, but I never really got into him. Ray Charles is another that I’d love to vote for. But there’s only one of the artists who’s been a mainstay on my Sunday morning playlists since I was in my 20s, and that’s Marvin Gaye. So I guess it’s Marvin for my third vote.
Little Richard and Bill Haley were shoo-ins for me. I flipped a coin on Bo Diddley and Roy Orbison. Roy won. I love the Queen and Godfather of Soul but they are R&R adjacent in my book.
It might be helpful to add a link to each poll in the 1st post. But I apologize for mentioning it, since you’re the person who would be stuck doing it each week. We can manage without if it’s a lot of work.
My #1 and #2 choices were easy: Aretha and Ray Charles. Then I had about a six-way tie for #3.
In terms of talent, I think Smokey Robinson would be on the list, but if you look at his career, he’s even greater as a writer and producer than he is as a recording artist. So I went with Marvin Gaye. Put Smokey in the songwriters wing.
I agree. I’m having trouble deciding whom to vote for, not because “Are they great enough?” but because “Are they ‘rock’ enough?” It goes to how wide a net you think a “rock and roll hall of fame” should cast.
I don’t think it’s quite fair to refer to Orbison as a one-hit wonder. Off the top of my head: “Oh Pretty Woman,” “Crying,” “Only the Lonely,” and “Blue Bayou” (not to mention his late career resurgence when he was with the Wilburys).
I strategically changed a vote for Roy Orbison to Bo Diddley to give Bill Haley a better chance at being included in the next poll. A R&R Hall of Fame without Bill Haley is like a Hip Hop Hall of Fame without the Sugarhill Gang.
So the fathers are nominated, but Sister Rosetta Tharpe isn’t a nominee? No disrespect to Aretha, but Sister Rosetta was a bigger influence. Same could be said of Big Mama Willie Mae Thorton.
Tharp, Thorton, Etta James, Wanda Jackson, LaVerne Baker, even Brenda Lee were bigger influences in R&R/Rock than Aretha. But it’s ultimately the Hall of Fame not the Hall of influence, or importance, or innovation.
I’m going to continue my quest of voting to keep as many of these folks on the ballot as possible (unless my vote seems like it will tip the top 3). I know most folks don’t consider Carl Perkins rock and roll, but I feel like you have to have some representation for rockabilly in the RNRHOF and who better than Perkins?
Also, Blue Suede Shoes and Matchbox are pretty iconic as far as early Rock and Roll goes.
So that’s my plug for anybody that wants to help me keep Carl Perkins on the ballot for at least one more week.
I’m looking at it as a 120-act hall. (3 per the 40 year they’ve been inducting folks). I guess it’s possible there are 120 more deserving acts for the Hall of Fame than Carl Perkins, but I’d like him to actually go up against more than just a few of the icons of early rock-and-roll before making that call.
I mean, Carl Perkins or Elvis Presley? Sure. But Carl Perkins or Albert King (to pick a random person from the class of 2013). That’s a more interesting question.
Or look at the class of 2016: Cheap Trick, Chicago, Deep Purple, N.W.A., and Steve Miller. I’m sorry, but none of them are more important to the history of Rock and Roll than Carl Perkins.
If you threw ALL the nominees for the last 40 years in one pot and then took the top 120 vote-getters, it’s possible Carl Perkins would be in there. But if you took only the top 15 artists from what I define as the Rock and Roll Era (which ended when Elvis quit performing live and turned to irredeemably bad movies and then The Beatles changed everything) it’s even more possible Carl Perkins might be in that group.
I think it’s fair that Carl Perkins be judged against his contemporaries. What isn’t fair to him is that we’re only picking groups of three.
Clearly we are looking at this from entirely different perspectives. IMO Aretha Franklin wasn’t just an “influence” on rock, she was an actual rock star. Hits like “Respect”, “Chain of Fools”, and “Think” all sound like rock and roll to me. She had 17 top ten singles on the “regular” pop charts, as compared to 20 on the R & B charts. Like many of the true greats, she was a crossover artist who had success in multiple genres, but she clearly belongs in the Rock Hall.
The same can be said for everybody on my list of influencers. Unlike them, Aretha Franklin didn’t have a major hit until well after (1967) the seminal period of R&R had ended.
