The inclusion of hip-hop in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has meant not just contemporary artists making the cut, but also the artists who influenced them.
Gil Scott-Heron was inducted this year in the “Early Influences” category, acknowledging the impact his work had on early rap acts. Scott-Heron’s blend of spoken-word poetry over jazz and soul backgrounds in the 70s helped pave the way for hip-hop artists in the 80s and beyond.
The title track of Johnny Cash’s 1971 album Man in Black, today’s random SOTD offers an explanation for Cash’s drab wardrobe.
While the song paints an evocative picture of a man who has seen too much injustice in the world and made a sartorial choice to reflect his disapproval, Cash has reportedly said that he started wearing black because it was easy to keep clean on tour.
I bought Pernice Brothers’ 2001 album The World Won’t End at Los Angeles’ Amoeba Music during a family trip in the summer of 2013.
I know that because I posted about it during a week recounting my purchases at Amoeba on that trip.
Though this album comes highly recommended, and I’ve liked everything I’ve heard on it, I think this is the first time I’ve heard one of its songs since that post eight years ago.
Singer-songwriter and producer Todd Rundgren has been eligible for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame since 1996, but wasn’t nominated for the first time until 2019. He failed to get in on that ballot, and again in 2020, but finally made the cut this year.
Rundgren’s inclusion feels overdue, especially as the Hall shifts its definition of “rock & roll” to account for the emergence of hip-hop in the 20th century. Here’s an old-school pop-rock artist who has been churning out creative, influential records since 1970. He’s exactly the kind of talent who fits the traditional mold of the Hall of Fame.
Today’s featured 2021 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee is not Ozzy Osbourne. He has yet to be inducted as a solo artist, though he was inducted with Black Sabbath in 2006.
No, today’s highlighted artist is Randy Rhoads, the lead guitarist on this song and many other iconic heavy metal classics. Just listen to the fantastic riff on ‘Crazy Train’ and it’s hard to argue that the man responsible belongs in the Rock Hall.
