Rock Hall reveals class, and I think of young me and Lou Reed back then

/ December 16, 2014

Mulling over the list of inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 2015 class of inductees announced today, Lou Reed pulls my thoughts like a magnet.

(From rockhall.com)

(From rockhall.com)

New York connection, dating back to my Wonder Bread years, when I’m pretty sure my parents did not know that this Velvet Underground character had made it onto my penny-weighted turntable with “Sweet Jane” from 1970 and then solo in 1972 with “Walk on the Wild Side,” they of the drug and tranny reputation. Well, maybe my father did. He had an open musical mind and a desire to keep in touch with life out toiling as a white collar guy 9 to 5 and a weekend warrior drummer in a polka wedding reception band on the weekend to make ends meet for his family he’d moved from Brooklyn to Long Island. Me?I just liked the way his songs sounded. Oh, there’s the Syracuse connection, too, where I’ve lived for 31 years and Reed went to college 50 years ago and people proudly still noted that tie when he passed in October, 2013.

And I thought of Woodstock II, the well-intentioned 25th anniversary concert in 1994, when I stood in the mud watching Green Day on a stage put up in a field in Saugerties, N.Y., and the crowd grew and grew to listen and watch the raw power of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool as Green Day rocked out with that special punk attitude. The band was igniting with the album “Dookie,” but it wasn’t just the songs “Longview,” “Basket Case” and “When I Come Around” that marked this set forever in my musicial memory bank as I wrote about the festival for the big daily back in Syracuse. There was the mud fight, as Armstrong and Dirnt exchanged clumps and dollops and cascades of wet, brown mess with the howling masses out front and down below. I was close to the stage. I was hit. When I went home at the end of a weekend of field camping and makeshift showering dead tired and extremely dirty, I adopted a saying: I didn’t cover Woodstock ’94, it covered me. Thanks in some major part to the growing fame of Green Day.

Joan Jett, I saw with her band the Blackhearts numerous times, before my music critic duties because, well, I do love Rock ‘n’ Roll, as her most famous song declares, and during, because, well, I still did and do. And it looked like she still did and does. “Cherry Bomb” is always going to be fun to sing along to for me.

Ringo Starr will receive the award for musical excellence. No, I can’t say that I saw him with the Beatles. No such luck when I was a teen. But I did see his traveling All-Star show, the edition that had the late Jack Bruce of Cream who passed this year, RIP, on bass. Ringo on drums swore “It Don’t Come Easy” but the front man role looked like did and does, really.

Speaking of singing along, do you know how many times Bill Withers sings the words “I know” in his classic song “Ain’t No Sunshine,” perhaps? I didn’t, but many sources declare it’s 26 times in the 1971 original, and I will take them on their word. And then I’ll go search for his soulful “Use Me” and “Lean on Me” to listen to them quite happily, too.

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble can be said to have started the blues-rock-country stew on guitar that lives on in the name of Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes and many many more players of today. “Pride and Joy” and “Cold Shot” are classics, carrying on his electric guitar fire and vocal grit past his tragic death in a 1990 helicopter crash.

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band fired out of Chicago with Mike Bloomfield, and Elvin Bishop was part of the original lineup, too. At the infamous 1965 Newport Folk Festival when Bob Dylan went electric, he took Bloomfield and the Butterfield Blues band rhythm section on stage with him.

The “5” Royales won the early influence award for pioneering work in the 1940s, bringing gospel, jazz and blues together into secular pop and the 1950s.

Here’s the source for the photo collage of the inductees.

Do you have memories of the work of the 2015 Rock Hall inductee class you’d like to share? What are your favorite songs from this class, and why? Have you been to Cleveland to visit the hall, and if so, what were your favorite exhibits and why?

Related posts

36 thoughts on “Rock Hall reveals class, and I think of young me and Lou Reed back then”

  1. I have a friend who did a lot of drumming for Joan Jett. She’s awesome! I’ve only seen Ringo once and while I love him always, I was a little disappointed that it was more his friends and less him playing. I wish you’d have posted photos of you covered in Green Day’s mud! 🙂 How cool you are!

    Like

    Reply

  3. Love, love, love Lou Reed.

    I prefer to refer to that institution as the “Rock and Roll” Hall of Fame. Or, The General Music Hall of Fame.

    Like

    Reply

  7. I love Green Day, Mark, but Lou Reed, Ringo, and Joan Jett had to wait this long for induction and Green Day gets in this early in the band’s existence? That seems a little weird, don’t you think?

    Like

    Reply

  8. You captured all of the inductees and helped me to remember their best and genres, too. So glad you posted this, especially glad you mentioned wonder bread years….you get my thoughts going backwards and memories start coming up, Mark! I would have loved to go to Woodstock, the wild and crazy moments, too. (I definitely think Beth and I would have been taking off our bras, being loose and free.) I am so happy that Stevie Ray Vaughn got on the list, finally! Also, amazed that Lou Reed weren’t already inducted… too bad and yet, not too late. It is so exciting that you saw almost all of these fine artists, especially telling a little background about Ringo and Green Day. I did not ever see them, nor any of these fine artists…

    Like

    Reply

  12. Oh, Lou Reed. I do love some Lou Reed (and Velvet Underground). I think “The Gift” has to be my favorite. 🙂

    And much respect for Green Day, though my punk roots always make me cringe a bit about their “mainstream” success, I realize that’s a silly reaction. I love their music. 😀

    All of the inductees are fabulous musicians who deserve to be honored!

    Like

    Reply

    • It’s OK that Green Day’s songs found mainstream success, I believe, Nerdy, because that lifted the whole scene up. That’s interesting how your instincts run, though, because a lot of the true punks didn’t want that light at all. 🙂 I agree your statement about loving the music. That’s the nub of it for me, always.

      Like

      Reply

  14. I have to say that you put my memories to shame with this particular group. Of course among these, Joan Jett and The Beatles changed my life (if not Ringo Starr directly) and I’m sure Green Day will be up there in my son’s formative years. Nice tribute to the inductees.

    Like

    Reply

  15. Mark, I had the bootleg album. If I remember correctly it was banned in the US not Canada

    …I said hey babe…take a walk on the wild side… so controversial at the time and listening to it again just now, it might be even more controversial today!
    Diana xo

    Like

    Reply

  16. I’m having musical shivers, darling — I love that you know so much about all this. Thought it was a little early for Green Day to be inducted, and The Smiths got passed over…. and I’ve never been a Ringo fan (I blame him for the fact that the Beatles never had a perfect album) but love Bill Withers, Lou Reed, and SRV. Didn’t realized it was the Paul Butterfileld Blues Band that backed Dylan on the “Judas event” — I thought it was the Band, pre-Band. But it makes sense — Bloomfield played the famous organ riff on Like a Rolling Stone, right?

    Like

    Reply

    • Yes, you know your stuff, Helena. Good job, my friend. Yes, Bloomfield went to Woodstock, N.Y., to record that song wit Dylan.

      I too thought is was early for Green Day, but hey, they made punk OK in the U.S. again. There was a whole decade of kids who had forgotten about the wonders of angst and FU as delivered by UK bands like The Clash.

      The Smiths will get their day. The voters should come around. Maybe next year, is how the saying goes.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.