OK, good for Wonder.
Heart’s first album came out in 1976
Pat Benatar – “Hearbreaker” 1979
Van Halen – huh??? first album 77/78
I wouldn’t put Heart, Pat Benator, Styx, or REO Speedwagon in the RR HoF.
Van Halen, yes. They were very influential, hugely successful, and critically admired. The others, not so much.
But let me repeat: WARREN ZEVON.
Yes, Warren should be in!
Excitable Boy, Werewolves of London, Mohammed’s Radio…
I agree Styx, REO, Journey, etc… shouldn’t get in, but Heart? And I’m talkin’ 70’s Heart, not 80’s corporate sell-out fat-Ann Heart. Nancy was the first really serious girl guitar player wasn’t she? I would say she probably influenced a great many females to rock not only the mike but to actually play. I think Crazy on You, Barracuda, and Magic Man were very groud-breaking songs.
Except for Pink Floyd, they snubbed the entire genre of progressive rock. Nowhere to be found on the list are names like King Crimson, Yes, Jethro Tull, ELP, and Genesis. Prog has seen several resurgences in popularity since King Crimson popularized the style in the late '60s. It deserves more than just a token nod to the one band too popular to ignore.
The list of inductees skews toward the R&B and soul music of the '50s and '60s, and later artists whose music was heavily influenced by those styles. Comparatively dispassionate rock music (that is, the stuff my wife calls me “really white” for listening to) doesn’t seem to stand much of a chance
Exactly my point. That’s why I said they were worthy performers, but for rock, meh. Granted Motown and R&B were influences on rock, but influence on rock n roll doesn’t make it rock n roll.
I’ll listen to Legend from time to time, but I’ll never see how it’s rock.
And isn’t CCR seen as more southern rock than just rock? Why them and not Skynyrd?
Okay, the RRHoF is a total joke. I think we all know that.
Alice Cooper isn’t in. I mean, Alice Cooper!? How much more inventive, groundbreaking and original do you have to be?!
“Eighteen” came out in '71, so it’s not the twenty-five year thing. Heck, even “Welcome To My Nightmare” has been around since '75, so he’s eligible with and without his original band.
He’s still putting out records. “Dirty Diamonds” will be released in May or June. He’s still on tour. Matter of fact, this year he’s doing Europe, including England, Australia and North America. He’s doing a five hour, five day a week radio show. You can’t get much more active than that! Heck, he’s even mainstream enough to have been featured in a Staples ad last fall! C’mon, there’s just no exuse!
Oh, and Skynard is being massively ripped off too.
Let’s not forget Roger Fisher in all that. Heart wasn’t a girl-group, not that there’s anything wrong with those.
And CCR weren’t actually southern, maybe thats a consideration. And of course '60s > '70s.
Agreed. But CCR can be in southern rock as much as any other category. Born on the Bayou, Lookin’ Out My Back Door, Down on the Corner, Up Around the Bend, et al. Even if they weren’t from the south, I’d argue they were at least going for a southern rock sound and were pretty good at it. Hell, Green Day are some kids from Frisco being laudably compared to English punk groups.
I’ll choose to stand by CCR being worthy.
Oh, and Alice Cooper? When I made the previous list I just knew there was an obvious one I had forgotten. Thanks, zoogirl.
Not argung worthiness, just why CCR got in. Being from the SF-area in the '60s helped. And they were very, very popular. Seven #2 hits over 19 months!
I’m pretty disappointed that Chicago hasn’t made it in yet. According to, I believe, Billboard, they’ve sold more albums than any other American group, excepting the Beach Boys.
While they weren’t the first to use a horn section in rock, they were certainly the most popular group to employ it in more than one single; plus, if you ask me, they did the best work with it.
And instead of sticking with the same formula decade after decade (they’ve managed to chart albums in five consecutive decades), they’ve changed course with their music numerous times.
Focus, people, focus. We’re talking about Lynyrd Skynyrd. 
That whole song is misinterpreted, and I’m sure that’s a big part of the reason they’re kept out. Nobody understands irony. (I offer Alanis Morissette as proof of this last proposition.)
I was never a huge fan at the time, but have come to appreciate them more. I’m with you on “Curtis Loew,” and am also really fond of “Simple Man” and “All I Can Do Is Write About It”. You can’t listen to those songs and still write them off just as a bunch of rednecks.
Well actually, I guess you can. The Hall of Fame voters seem to be doing just that.
“Simple Man” was covered by Shinedown last summer, it was on the radio in heavy rotation. Seems like LS has had at least some influence all the way up to the present.
I guess alot of people miss the more sensitive, thoughtful songs in favor of the two over-played ones, and then they take those at face value. It’s not like they are a very complicated band to “get”. That’s, to me, what makes Ronnie Van Zant a true poet and artist, as rough around the edges as he was. He wrote about what he knew, which was the world outside his backdoor, and he stayed true to it.
That’s the mark of any great artist.
I have been boning up on a bit of LS history, and I read that he wrote Gimme Three Steps in about 15 minutes following the incident that inspired it, and that Simple Man was written about one of the gutarist’s relationship with his mother, Curtis Loew is a composite of many of the old black bluesmen Ronnie was exposed to growing up. Those songs ring so true because they are about real things, real feelings.
That Smell is eeriely prophetic, as is Freebird. Swamp Music tells of the simple pleasures of life in the country, and Working for MCA and Don’t Ask Me No Questions deal with record industry issues. So real, and very touching.
Imagine the sheer joy of a Hall of Fame all-star performance of “Sweet Home Alabama,” should Lynyrd Skynyrd ever be inducted. The opening strains alone would send the crowd into a frenzy. I bet Neil Young would jump at the chance to handle the vocals.
Here’s a link to that old USA Today column about Lynyrd Skynyrd’s exclusion from the HoF. From that article:
I hate Lynyrd Skynyrd and I love Warren Zevon, but I’d put LS in the Hall of Fame and probably not Zevon.
Warren Zevon was great, but in terms of popularity and influence he isn’t in the Top 1000 of rock and roll acts, and his songs were not examples of instrumental genius a la Steve Vai or even Van Halen. I think you have to base your decisions on more than just “I personally think this guy rocks.”
The “House of Bogus” as I call the RRHOF, lost me whan they inducted the Bee Gees, but have failed to include the likes of Warren Zevon, and Skynyrd.
Please explain to me why the Bee Gees (the people who the saying "Disco Sucks" was designed to target) have made a more significant contribution to something called rock and roll, than Skynyrd.Speaking of which, is there any love for Dire Straights?
Get thee to an otologist
You know, the fact that so many possibly-worthy groups aren’t in may explain why some of them aren’t in there. Five performers per year for 20 years is going to leave some people out.
Bingo. The RRHOF is just playing catch up, and it will take decades, possibly centuries, for this to happen at a 5/year rate.
They should do a mega-super-induction every 4 years or so like the Olympics, throw a massive party, and roll in a couple dozen groups.
If I had my druthers, I’d rename the whole building into the “Alice Cooper Hall of Pretenders to the Throne.”