Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Page: 7
The nominees for this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class were announced on Wednesday (Feb. 1) — and unlike last year’s group, which featured mostly previously nominated acts, eight out of the 14 artists featured in the 2023 crop are first-timers, including two in their first year of eligibility.
As has been the increasingly common trend over the last 10 years, the “rock” qualifications of this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Famers are becoming increasingly flexible — this year, encompassing rap legends, pop superstars, country icons, R&B hitmakers and artists who are not easily classified under any one specific genre. There are still a handful of more traditionally rock-based acts recognized as well, but none of the Baby Boomer bands that have essentially comprised the Rock Hall’s foundation for most of its 35-plus-year existence.
The artists voted into the Rock Hall last year further suggested that a singular sound and legacy was more critical to induction than down-the-middle rock credentials. Dolly Parton, Eminem, Lionel Richie, Carly Simon and Eurythmics were all granted Rock Hall entry, despite none of them hailing from any traditional rock background. (Even the two most “rock” of the inductees — Duran Duran and Pat Benatar — were early MTV-era stars whose induction would’ve been unimaginable for most of the Rock Hall’s lifetime, as they were afforded little respect from the traditional rock media during their commercial peaks.)
Will the nominees from this year follow a similar path? Let’s break the 14 artists down, from our picks for least likely to most likely to get inducted later this year.
The Spinners have been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three other times — in 2012, 2015 and 2016. But for sole remaining founding member Henry Fambrough, being on the ballot has not lost its thrill.
“It’s a pleasure being selected by this,” Fambrough tells Billboard from his current residence in Virginia. “We’ve been in this position over years and years, but we just haven’t won anything yet. But it’s a pleasure being selected like this. When you’re nominated like that, at least someone is thinking about you. You’re not sitting at home not hearing anything — you know what I’m saying?”
The spinners were named on Tuesday as part of a class of nominees that also includes Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Iron Maiden, JoyDivision/New Order, Cyndi Lauper, George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, Soundgarden, A Tribe Called Quest, The White Stripes and Warren Zevon.
The quintet, which formed during 1954 and has been known at varying times as the Detroit Spinners and the Motown Spinners, has logged 17 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, insuring immortality with R&B chart-toppers such as “I’ll Be Around,” “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love,” “The Rubberband Man,” “Then Came You” with Dionne Warwick and others. The group received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1976 and was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.
It started out recording for manager/group member Harvey Fuqua’s Tri-Phi Records, then became part of Motown when Fuqua sold the company to his brother-in-law, Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. Its successes there were only modest, with just two R&B chart Top 10s from a pair of albums. “We didn’t have our own producer at Motown, like the Supremes and the really big stars did,” Fambrough recalls. “We’d get (the songs) they didn’t do, or get the other producers who were trying to get in.” The Spinners did tour, often supporting Marvin Gaye and other Motown acts. And the group members had other jobs at Motown, including working in the record packing plant or tour managing other acts. Fambrough, meanwhile, served as chauffeur for Gordy’s mother.
Despite the limited success, however, Fambrough feels the Spinners were well-served by their Motown tenure. “Harvey Fuqua and Cholly Atkins, our choreographer, they taught us,” he says. “(Executive) Maurice King, he told us, ‘Look, we’re gonna build you guys, so once your hit records stop coming you’re gonna be able to work. People are gonna want to hire you because of your act.’ “We hung on to that, and it was true. When our hit records stopped coming we were still going to Vegas and on the cruise ships and stuff, ’cause people wanted to see us.”
The Spinners real success came when it signed to Atlantic Records during the early 70s, at the suggestion of Aretha Franklin. There the group met up with producer-songwriter Thom Bell, who started with “I’ll Be There” and promised the group that “a year from now, you’re gonna be the No. 1 group in the country,” according to Fambrough.
“And we were like, ‘Yeah. Right. Thank you’ — but it was true.” Teamed with Bell, and with the lead vocal triumvirate of Fambrough, Bobby Smith and Philippe Wynne, the Spinners reeled off a hit parade that left its Motown years in the dust and put the group on par with fellow hit-makers such as the O’Jays and Earth, Wind & Fire. The fertile stretch lasted into the late 70s, declining after Wynne left the group and the Spinners subsequently stopped working with Bell.
But the group has never stopped — and doesn’t intend to, according to Fambrough. During 2021 it even released Round the Block and Back Again, its first album of original material in nearly 40 years.
“We made a pact with each other, back in the beginning,” Fambrough says. “We said, ‘We’re gonna make it or we’re not gonna make it, but whatever we do we’re gonna do it together.’ And when one of the guys would pass away we would get somebody else to come in who was thinking like we thought and had the idea of the future that we wanted and just keep it going.
“I’ll stay with them as long as I can — I might be on a stool, but I’ll be on stage,” he adds with a laugh. “And if I’m not on stage, I’ll still be with them. The other guys…are gone, but they’re still with us any time we sing. This group’s bigger than any one of us.”
Peter Hook says news of Joy Division/New Order‘s joint nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame “made me smile all day” after he learned the news on Tuesday (Jan. 31). It also made him chuckle a little too.
“To be honest with you, we were always against this sort of thing when we started,” the two groups’ founding bassist tells Billboard via Zoom from his home in England. “It was the old punk thing — we hope we die before we get old and destroy all the old musicians, etc. etc. and what rubbish awards ceremonies are. Then all of a sudden you get one, and as you get older you realize… yeah, it’s a wonderful thing. I’m humbled, I really am. It’s nice, and it’s fun to be appreciated.”
The groups were named on Tuesday as part of a class of nominees that also includes Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Iron Maiden, Soundgarden, Cyndi Lauper, George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, The Spinners, A Tribe Called Quest, The White Stripes and Warren Zevon.
And, he adds, “I will be rooting for us. Ever since we started as Warsaw, I’ve always felt great competition towards other bands. You want to do better than them, you want to achieve something. So this really appeals to me.”
The nomination marks the first inclusion on the ballot for either band. Joy Division has been eligible since 2004 and New Order — formed by Hook, Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris (with Gillian Gilbert) after Joy Division singer Ian Curtis’ suicide in 1980 — since 2006. It’s not the first time the Rock Hall has put two bands together as a unit; the Small Face and Faces were inducted jointly back in 2012. And Hook feels that the commonality between Joy Division and New Order makes their pairing both acceptable and appropriate.
“It feels OK to me,” he explains. “It was an odd thing. Joy Division was such a wonderful, powerful entity, and it was so sad the way it ended. But the three of us — Bernie, Stephen and I — got real strength from starting New Order together. We started (Joy Division) after seeing the Sex Pistols, and we’ve been banging our heads against walls and doors and kicking them down musically since then. We were always the square peg in a round hole as Joy Division and very much a square peg in a round hole as New Order. (The Rock Hall) is a hell of an accolade, but my God, I think either band has earned it. We are definitely up there without a shadow of a doubt.”
The potential of a Joy Division/New Order induction does come with the specter of some possible drama. Hook — who’s written two memoirs about his life and in outside of music — has been at odds with Sumner, Morris and Gilbert since 2011, when New Order reformed without him after a four-year hiatus. The resulting lawsuit was settled out of court, but Hook says the musicians “still haven’t spoken, personally in 11 years. We’re still fighting hammer and tong, tooth and nail… I think we’re going for the record for the longest group fallout in history. It’s very tragic.”
But he’s hopeful that, if inducted, all parties will put aside their differences at least for one night.
“It will be a difficult awards ceremony if we get there, but as my wife said we’ve got to rise above these things… and be nice and be courteous and think the best,” Hook says. “Maybe this is the olive branch that we may need to end the injustices that were done with New Order in the end. It’s a very strange position to be in but, y’know, we’re not the first group that’s been ostracized by each other, and we won’t be the last.”
Since the schism New Order has released two studio albums along with several live sets and the 2020 single “Be a Rebel.” On Jan. 27 the box set Low-Life was released, compiling New Order 12-inch singles and filmed live performances. The group will play a set of shows in Texas during March, including an appearance at South By Southwest.
For more than a decade, meanwhile, Hook has led his band, The Light, in performing Joy Division and New Order albums in their entireties. He returns to the road in March for The World is a Vampire Festival in Mexico and starts a U.K. tour in April, playing both of Joy Division’s studio albums (Unknown Pleasures and Closer), a variety of New Order songs and the Substance compilations from both bands.
“It’s all about music,” says Hook, who launched a music business master’s degree program at the University of Central Lancashire in England during 2012. “The reason it’s OK to be playing Joy Division was the fact I thought it needed celebrating more, and for me not to celebrate it I felt was wrong. So it’s been wonderful to do and it’s been wonderful to keep on celebrating New Order music, and probably I will be doing it until I die — and beyond.”
Soundgarden‘s Kim Thayil was caught unawares when he learned about the band’s second Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination on Tuesday (Jan. 31).
“It was not no my radar,” Thayil, who co-founded the group during 1984 in Seattle, tells Billboard. “I hadn’t been thinking about it, so it’s a very pleasant surprise. Very cool.”
The nod comes three years after Soundgarden’s first nomination, in 2020, and Thayil says that taught him — along with surviving bandmates drummer Matt Cameron and bassist Ben Shepherd — about the regard and relevance the band enjoys nearly four years after it ended in the wake of frontman Chris Cornell‘s suicide following a concert in Detroit.
“What was cool about (2020) was just the recognition of the acknowledgement,” Thayil explains. “If you’re involved with your bandmates and fellow musicians in your peer group, you can sometimes get isolated from the general historical context of how the band has evolved and became part of the broader community of music and musicians. So I think that acknowledgement and that recognition was a reminder that, hey, they work that you did with your partners was part of a continuity and a history of music. That’s kind of cool.”
Thayil adds that it was Cornell who helped Soundgarden get some appreciation of the Rock Hall after he inducted Seattle rock precursors Heart in 2013. “He lived the experience and said the enthusiasm of the fans was eye-opening for him, and understanding how important that was… And Matt seconded it. And I think that’s always been a context in which Soundgarden would understand its work; we always wanted to be the kind of band for our fans that we looked up to and inspired us. We wanted to be that kind of band would make decisions with regard to that community that had supported us or that we had worked to build, and I think we did a great job of that.”
Soundgarden were named on Tuesday as part of a class of nominees that also includes Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Iron Maiden, JoyDivision/New Order, Cyndi Lauper, George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, The Spinners, A Tribe Called Quest, The White Stripes and Warren Zevon.
During its 34-year run, Soundgarden released six studio albums, including the six-times platinum Superunknown in 1994, and won two Grammy Awards. The group was the first of the Northwest grunge bands to sign with a major label (A&M Records in 1989) and spearheaded a movement out of Seattle that also included Rock Hall inductees Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The late Cornell also released five solo studio albums and joined members of Rage Against the Machine in the band Audioslave during Soundgarden’s 1997-2010 hiatus.
A Soundgarden induction this fall could be tricky, though. Cornell’s widow, Vicky Cornell, has two pending lawsuits against the band. One is over seven unreleased recordings Cornell worked on before his death that she claims belonged to him and not the band and another charges that the surviving members have undervalued the estate’s share in the band in a buyout offer and was withholding money that was owed. Soundgarden has denied the allegations.
If voted in, can everyone put aside the differences?
“I think our interest and dedication is to that work and that legacy, and that would involve honoring our beloved partner and his legacy as well,” Thayil says. “I think this (nomination) is part of the recognition of our work, of our career and of the material we produced. And I think the band wants to continue and has always wanted to continue with attending to that legacy, and that’s the way we can honor Soundgarden and honor Chris.”
Thayil, Cameron (who’s part of Pearl Jam) and Shepherd did reunite to play a pair of songs at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert last September in Los Angeles. “It was an unusual experience to feel that combination of sadness and reverence and enthusiasm. It’s really odd,” Thayil recalls. “It’s always great to play with Ben and Matt, and it’s great to play the material that we worked on and recorded and promote… and to address the legacy with our work and to honor the band and Chris.”
On his own, Thayil is continuing to work with 3rd Secret, a band that includes Cameron, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and others; he says the group was recently “in the studio doing a little bit of writing and recording. I think that’ll kid of continue as long as that’s fun for us and rewarding, and it has been. It’s the same sort of situation — someone has ideas, ‘Hey Kim, Matt, come here. I want to show you my song. What do you think of it? Do you want to play it? Do you have any ideas?’ — just the way Soundgarden was like, really.”
Despite their treasure chest of songs, style and, in their late-80s heyday, the ability to fill stadiums a long way from home, INXS is one of many bands waiting for a Rock Hall nod.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
A dedicated group of fans is trying to change that.
A change.org petition, simply titled “Induct INXS into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” is well on its way to reaching its target of 15,000 signatures.
At the time of writing, more than 11,000 fans have joined the petition, which declares: “After many years of amazing music and dynamic “live” performances, it’s time to ensure the legacy of one of the greatest bands in the world – INXS!”
The campaign was established by “Team Induct INXS,” comprised of fans Dina Ghram, Shanon Steele and Jim Skivalidas.
“All three of us are big music fans and have a deep appreciation of bands that have touched our lives and inspired us throughout the years,” the trio write in a message to Billboard.
“INXS is at the top of all three of our lists – we’ve grown up with them, seen them ‘live’, bought all their albums, and come to think of INXS as a family of sorts.”
Alongside the Rock Hall petition, the team invested in a website at inductinxs.com. “We wanted to make sure that the fans knew we were taking this induct campaign seriously,” they explain.
Despite Australia’s renowned pedigree in rock music, few acts from the great southern land have graduated to the Rock Hall.
The Bee Gees and AC/CD are both immortalized, as is Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player Flea, who was born Michael Balzary, in Melbourne. The Bee Gees, AC/DC and INXS are all members of the ARIA Hall of Fame.
Formed in Perth, Australia in 1977, and fronted by the charismatic Michael Hutchence, INXS kicked on to become one of the most popular alternative rock bands of the ‘80s.
Across their career, the new wave act sold over 60 million record sales worldwide, according to their label, Petrol, and bagged No. 1s on both sides of the Atlantic.
The rockers scored six U.K. top 10 albums (including a best-seller with Welcome To Wherever You Are from 1992) and five U.S. top 20 albums.
The 1987 album Kick went on to become the group’s highest and longest-charting album in the U.S., with a peak of No. 3 on the Billboard 200. It remained on the survey for 81 weeks, and four of its singles cracked the top 10 on the Hot 100: “New Sensation,” “Never Tear Us Apart,” “Devil Inside” and the “Need You Tonight,” which led the chart.
INXS was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2001, four years after the death of Hutchence, aged 37. The band has been eligible for induction into the Cleveland, Ohio-based Rock Hall since 2006, though, to date, their name hasn’t been called.
Though the surviving members of INXS have called time on touring, a popular podcast, INXS: Access All Areas, led by Haydn Murdoch and Bridgit “Bee” Hewitt, explores the band and their many hits, which include “Original Sin,” “What You Need,” “Don’t Change,” “Burn For You,” and others.
The recently-inducted 2022 Rock Hall class included contemporaries Pat Benatar, Eurythmics and Duran Duran, who tapped Nile Rodgers to produce their 1983 hit “The Reflex” after hearing his slick sonic work on “Original Sin.”
“We are not stopping this campaign until INXS is nominated and inducted,” note Team Induct INXS. “This should have happened years ago.”
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is gearing up to celebrate its class of 2022 with the public on Nov. 19, and on Thursday (Nov. 10), a trailer for the upcoming special was released.
In the nearly two-minute clip, snippets from the 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony earlier this month flash across the screen. Rock hitmakers Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo, new wave chart-toppers Duran Duran, hip-hop heavyweight Eminem, synth-pop duo Eurythmics, country legend Dolly Parton, R&B hitmaker Lionel Richie and pop singer-songwriter Carly Simon are all seen accepting their prestigious honor, along with introductions from star-studded attendees. Judas Priest and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis also joined the Rock Hall with the “award for musical excellence.”
“Rock and roll is not a color,” Richie is seen saying in the teaser. “It’s a vibe!”
Artists are eligible for Rock Hall nomination 25 years after their first commercial recording came out. Of this class, Eminem, Duran Duran, Richie, Simon and Parton see induction after appearing on the ballot just once. This is also Eminem’s first year of eligibility; 2022 marked the second nomination for Eurythmics and Benatar.
The 2022 ceremony also marked the first time in the Hall’s 37-year history that six female acts — Benatar, Parton, Simon, Cotten, Robinson and Annie Lennox (who comprised Eurythmics with her partner Dave Stewart) — were inducted in one class.
Watch the trailer below, and be sure to catch the 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, streaming November 19 on HBO Max, which you can sign up for here.
Eminem has famously taken a number of pretty vicious swipes against his mother Debbie on songs such as “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” and “My Name Is” (before offering a mea culpa on 2013’s “Headlights”). But that all appears to be water under the bridge now that Marshall is officially a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
After the Detroit Don took his place among the rock gods over the weekend at the 2022 RRHOF induction ceremony, Debbie Mathers recorded a congratulations video that was pure proud mama. “Marshall, I want to say, I could not let this day go by without congratulating you on your induction into the Hall of Fame,” said Debbie in a video shared on Monday (Nov. 7) by a friend.
“I love you very much. I knew you’d get there. It’s been a long ride. I’m very, very proud of you. And also I’m very proud of [granddaughter] Hailie Jade, my big girl. I want to tell you Hailie, great job on your podcast and God bless you guys. I love you very much.”
After years of contentious back-and-forth — including a 1999 $12 million lawsuit filed against her son accusing him of slander, which they settled two years later for $25,000 — the sweet message was the perfect cap to a big weekend for Slim Shady. The rapper, joined by daughter Hailie at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles for his big night, alluded to his unusual rise to the occasion in his acceptance speech.
“So I’m probably not supposed to actually be here tonight because of a couple of reasons,” he told the crowd. “One of them that I’m a rapper, and this is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And there’s only a few of us right now that have been inducted in already, but there’s only a few of us… I had to really fight my way through man to try and break through in this music, and I’m so honored and I’m so grateful that I’m even able to be up here doing hip-hop music, man, because I love it so much.”
Em was inducted by his longtime mentor and producer, Dr. Dre, who said he never lost faith in the MC, praising his “raw, dark and humorous lyrics coupled with an impeccable cadence.”
Check out Debbie Mathers’ sweet congratulations video below.
Late Monday (Nov. 7), Alanis Morissette responded to “mis-informed rumblings” about her absence from Saturday’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, saying at this point in her career, she has no need to “spend time in an environment that reduces women.”
In an early event rundown witnessed by Billboard, Morissette was listed as performing “You’re So Vain” with Olivia Rodrigo in tribute to Rock Hall inductee Carly Simon at the ceremony, but her name wasn’t on the final set list. According to a Page Six report, Morissette had rehearsed the duet with Rodrigo on Friday, but in the end, the 19-year-old pop star performed the track on her own.
Morissette began her statement Monday by saying how much she adores Simon and Rodrigo and the other women performing on Saturday’s bill, but she added that she had “sucked it up on more occasions than I can count” and apparently wasn’t willing to do it this time.
“I have spent decades in an industry that is rife with an overarching anti-woman sentiment and have tolerated a lot of condescension and disrespectfulness, reduction, dismissiveness, contract-breaching, unsupportiveness, exploitation and psychological violence (and more) throughout my career,” Morissette shared on her Instagram Story. “I tolerated it because nothing would stop me from connecting with those whom I cared about and resonated with. I live to serve and connect with people and so over the years I sucked it up on more occasions than I can count in order to do so. It’s hard not to be affected in any industry around the world, but Hollywood has been notorious for its disrespect of the feminine in all of us.
“Thankfully, I am at a point in my life where there is no need for me to spend time in an environment that reduces women.”
Morissette’s involvement hadn’t been announced before the event, which will broadcast on HBO later this month. A spokesperson for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame hadn’t responded to Billboard‘s request for comment at press time.
Simon was among the Rock Hall class of 2022, which also included Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, Duran Duran, Eminem, Eurythmics, Dolly Parton and Lionel Richie. Other inductees included Judas Priest and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis for musical excellence; Harry Belafonte and Elizabeth Cotten for early influence; and Allen Grubman, Jimmy Iovine and Sylvia Robinson for the Ahmet Ertegun Award.
Read Morissette’s full statement below:
There are some mis-informed rumblings about my not performing at The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony this past weekend. Firstly, I have to say how much I adore Carly Simon and Olivia Rodrigo and Dolly Parton and Janet Jackson and Pat [Benatar] and Sheryl Crow and Pink and Brandi Carlile and Sara Bareilles—and all the amazing people and artists who were there.
I have spent decades in an industry that is rife with an overarching anti-woman sentiment and have tolerated a lot of condescension and disrespectfulness, reduction, dismissiveness, contract-breaching, unsupportiveness, exploitation and psychological violence (and more) throughout my career. I tolerated it because nothing would stop me from connecting with those whom I cared about and resonated with. I live to serve and connect with people and so over the years I sucked it up on more occasions than I can count in order to do so. It’s hard not to be affected in any industry around the world, but Hollywood has been notorious for its disrespect of the feminine in all of us.
Thankfully, I am at a point in my life where there is no need for me to spend time in an environment that reduces women. I have had countless incredible experiences with production teams with all genders throughout my life. So many, and so fun. There is nothing better than a team of diverse people coming together with one mission. I’ll continue to show up in those environments with bells on.
Voting time! I love you,
alanis
This year’s inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame all gave heartfelt speeches from the stage of Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater detailing what the honor meant to them. And when a number of the Class of 2022 stopped backstage to Billboard’s one-on-one booth, they were able to share even more.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Duran Duran
Before speaking with Billboard’s, the band stopped in the general press room where Duran Duran lead singer Simon LeBon talked about how he felt reading former bandmate Andy Taylor’s letter on stage about having stage four prostate cancer — a diagnosis that had not been previously made public. “It is devastating news to found out that a colleague — not a colleague, a mate, a friend — is not going to be around for very long,” LeBon said. “It is absolutely devasting. We love Andy dearly. I’m not going to stand here and cry. It wouldn’t be appropriate, but that’s what I feel like.”
On stage, LeBon delivered an emotional take on the band’s 1993 hit, “Ordinary World,” which he co-wrote about trying to cope with the death of his best friend. He told Billboard even nearly 30 years later, the song takes him back every time he sings it. “I think of my dear friend Dave Miles and what it means to me to be able to free myself of his death. That’s what the song was,” he says. “I was imprisoned by my feelings about him. I couldn’t continue on. I couldn’t develop. That song was a way of freeing myself. A way of saying goodbye, letting something go. That is in my heart every time I sing it.”
Duran Duran won the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame fan vote in April garnering nearly a million votes from fans. The support of their Duranies means “everything,” says keyboardist Nick Rhodes. Bassist John Taylor, who befriended Rhodes when Taylor was 12 and Rhodes was 10, says the band can still relate. “We were fans. Not just music buyers. Nick and I used to go hang out backstage, listen to the band do their sound check,” he says. “We love the fan culture. We love identifying with fans through music, so we’ve always had a love for our followers. We get them. We are them.”
This year’s class is one of the most musically varied in the Rock Hall’s history and each member of the band named a different honoree when asked whom they would most like to collaborate with. For LeBon, it was Terry Lewis & Jimmy Jam. Roger Taylor chose Judas Priest, Rhodes picked Dolly Parton and John Taylor selected Annie Lennox. Rhodes came up with the perfect solution: “The thing to do would be to get us and Judas Priest to do the track together and Dolly and Simon to sing with Jam & Lewis producing.”
Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo
November is a big month for Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo. Not only did the couple, who celebrated their 40th anniversary this year, get inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but on Nov. 22 their newest project, Invincible–The Musical, will premiere at the Wallis’ Bram Goldsmith Theater in Beverly Hills (it runs through Dec. 18). They began working on the play, which is a retelling of Romeo & Juliet through the pair’s catalog and new songs, five years ago. The pandemic ended up providing a burst of creativity. “We had done four stage readings prior to the pandemic,” Benatar says. “At first it seemed like the momentum was going to be lost, but it turned out that being home and not touring gave us so much time to work on it. It wound up being something really great and when we finally did come back together to work, we were so much further ahead. That’s why we’re in full production right now.”
For the couple, writing songs is one of the few things they do apart — at least in the early stages. “I write mostly on piano,” Giraldo says. “Sometimes I start with words, sometimes I start with a title or a chorus, and I hand it off to Patricia. Then she adds to that and I go, ‘Oh my God, that’s great,’ and that inspires me. So I do more and then she hears what I do and goes, ‘Oh my god, that’s great.’ That’s how it goes.”
“We don’t really write in the same room at the same time,” Benatar continued. “We take pieces of things. If I have a story that I’m thinking of, I give it to him and he puts music to it. It goes back and forth and we don’t do it at the same time until we get further along and then we come together with our individual ideas and put them together.”
Lionel Richie
As one of several of the inductees who performed their songs at the event, Lionel Richie had the crowd on its feet and dancing during a joyous version of his signature hit “All Night Long.” As he told Billboard, he has reached a place in his life and career that is all about uniting people. “Do you know how wonderful it is to walk into a room and people start smiling?” he says. “ I’m not playing. I’m walking into a dinner, I’m walking into a restaurant, I’m walking my kids to school. What I’m saying is I don’t know how you get this blessed, but it’s a moment in time when you realize the songs have translated over into this thing called love.”
He touched on another love: country music. It’s been 10 years since Richie released Tuskegee, his wildly successful album reimagining his greatest hits as duets with country artists including Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney and Jason Aldean. Richie, who also wrote Kenny Rogers’ smash, “Lady,” says he promises his own country record of new music is coming. “Country is so solid with me and the answer is it will happen,” he says. “I’m a gigantic procrastinator, so [when] it hits me over the head or runs over me is when I go, ‘Ok, I’ll get on it,’ but [my manager] has been pushing me. Tell Nashville it’s coming. It won’t be too long. I promise.”
The Eurythmics
Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox wore identical black suits in an intentional homage to the Eurythmics‘ early days. “All through the years, Dave and I, especially with [1983 breakthrough hit] ‘Sweet Dreams,’ we had very small budgets. We didn’t have any budget, actually,” Lennox says. “We’d buy second-hand things and put them together. We wore the suits at the very beginning with ‘Sweet Dreams.’ There was a sense for us of being equals, of being like twins. There was something about the unit of being one and one makes three. It was always what we felt. I always loved it because it wasn’t an overtly feminist statement at the time, but nevertheless it gave me permission not to have to be a pretty kind of accessory. That was where it came from.”
Added Stewart, “There was a conscious decision to try and step away from anything that was happening at all and make ourselves like a single unit. United front.”
The duo also performed at their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame earlier this year (postponed from 2020), but say they can go years without playing together. When they do, muscle memory kicks in. “We’ve played so much in the past, we know instinctively, ‘OK, this is this song, we can do this,’” Stewart says.
But any thoughts of reuniting for a tour are not realistic, Lennox clarifies. “There’s always a certain joy that does come from performance and all singers’ bodies are their instruments and, for me, I actually did have a quite serious thing happen in my back,” she says. “I have certain health issues and the thought of doing a long tour is really arduous. In my time in life, it’s like, ‘What’s best to do?’ We do enjoy playing together. I very much enjoy playing with Dave. He’s great. One of the best musicians in the world.”
For Lennox, preparing for the energetic Rock Hall performance helped pull her out of pandemic doldrums. “I kind of lost a lot of my will to live,” she says. “I’m kidding. I just had to say that. Throughout the pandemic, I just didn’t feel like going out. I didn’t feel like exercising, but this gave me a motivation to go back and get fit again, which was a great bonus for me.”
Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have more No. 1s on Billboard charts than any other songwriting and production team — and they aren’t slowing down. The pair are at work on Volume 2, their follow up to to 2021’s Jam & Lewis, Volume 1, which paired them with Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Toni Braxton and more.
They wouldn’t spill any names for Volume 2 just yet, but from their Rock Hall class, the two acts they’d most like to collaborate with are Lennox and Duran Duran, “because we just had a discussion with them about ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ influencing [Janet Jackson’s] ‘Escapade,’” Jam said.
Friends since their teens, Jam and Lewis have always operated on a handshake deal and split everything 50/50. “We don’t really worry about the money or the budgets or any of that kind of stuff, it’s just about the creativity,” Jam says. “We’re free to individually do what we want to do…Sometimes there will be a song that came out on the radio and it sounds great and I’ll be like, ‘Terry, when did you do that?’ But I got 50 % of it, so it doesn’t matter and it eliminated about 99% of anything creatively that we could ever disagree about… It’s not my way or his way, it’s the best way.”
Now they’re all gone. With Jerry Lee Lewis‘ death at age 87, which was announced on Friday (Oct. 28), the last survivor of the inaugural class of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has passed on. Lewis became the sole survivor upon Don Everly’s death on Aug. 21, 2021.
That inaugural class in 1986 consisted of nine solo artists and a duo, The Everly Brothers.
Three of the first year’s inductions were made posthumously. Buddy Holly had died in a plane crash in 1959 at age 22, Sam Cooke was shot to death in 1964 at 33, and Elvis Presley had died of cardiac arrest in 1977 at 42.
Eight of the inaugural inductees were alive at the time of the first Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Jan. 23, 1986, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York but have since died. Ray Charles died in 2004 at 73, followed by James Brown in 2006 at 73, Phil Everly in 2014 at 74, Chuck Berry in 2017 at 90, Fats Domino in 2017 at 89, Little Richard in 2020 at 87, Don Everly at 84 and now Jerry Lee Lewis at 87.
Here’s a quick look at the inaugural class, showing the artist’s highest-charting hit(s) on the Billboard Hot 100 (or predecessor charts) and the name of the person who inducted them into the Rock Hall. For the five artists whose highest-charting hits occurred before the inception of the Hot 100 on Aug. 4, 1958, we also show their highest charting Hot 100 hit.
Chuck Berry
Top hit: “My Ding-a-Ling,” No. 1 in 1972
Inducted by: Keith Richards
James Brown
Top hit: “I Got You (I Feel Good),” No. 3 in 1965
Inducted by: Steve Winwood
Ray Charles
Top hits: Three No. 1 hits: “Georgia on My Mind” in 1960, “Hit the Road Jack” in 1961 and “I Can’t Stop Loving You” in 1962
Inducted by: Quincy Jones
Sam Cooke
Top hit: “You Send Me,” No. 1 in 1957. Top Hot 100 hit: “Chain Gang,” No. 2 in 1960
Inducted by: Herb Alpert
Fats Domino
Top hit: “Blueberry Hill,” No. 2 in 1957. Top Hot 100 hits: “Whole Lotta Loving,” No. 6 in 1959, “Walkin’ to New Orleans,” No. 6 in 1960.
Inducted by: Billy Joel
The Everly Brothers
Top hits: Four No. 1 hits: “Wake Up Little Susie in 1957, “All I Have to Do Is Dream” in 1958, “Bird Dog” in 1958 and “Cathy’s Clown” in 1960. Only the latter song reached No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Inducted by: Neil Young
Buddy Holly
Top hit: “That’ll Be the Day” (The Crickets),” No. 1 in 1957. Top Hot 100 hit: “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” No. 13 in 1959.
Inducted by: John Fogerty
Jerry Lee Lewis
Top hit: “Great Balls of Fire,” No. 2 in 1958. Top Hot 100 hit: “What’d I Say,” No. 30 in 1961.
Inducted by: Hank Williams Jr.
Little Richard
Top hit: “Long Tall Sally,” No. 6 in 1956. Top Hot 100 hit: “Baby Face,” No. 41 in 1958.
Inducted by: Roberta Flack
Elvis Presley
Top hits: 17 No. 1 hits from “Heartbreak Hotel” in 1956 to “Suspicious Minds” in 1969. Seven No. 1 hits on the Hot 100.
Inducted by: Julian and Sean Lennon