Dire Straits is the next inductee from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2018. The English blues rock band first became eligible for inclusion in 2003 but was nominated for the first time last year.
The band was remarkably consistent during their 13-year life span. They released six studio albums between 1978 and 1991, every one of them going platinum in their native UK and all but two going platinum in the U.S. (those two went gold).
Four months ago I wrote a series of posts about the latest inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I considered the idea of covering each new slate of entries working backward through the years.
This week, I’m taking my own advice and posting about the six inductees into the Rock Hall Class of 2018.
First up (alphabetically) is Bon Jovi.
It seems like Justin Bieber has been a thing forever now, but 2019 marks only the 9-year anniversary of his debut album, My World 2.0 (he had released an EP titled My World a year earlier).
In fact, my Song of the Day blog is older than Justin Bieber’s recording career, which probably says more about how long I’ve been doing this than it does about the Biebs.
My final example of (alleged) musical copyright infringement is the curious case of John Fogerty’s ‘The Old Man Down the Road,’ a song he was accused of stealing from… himself.
Fogerty, the lead singer and principal songwriter of Creedence Clearwater Revival, had an acrimonious break-up with the band in 1972 before going solo. He was still tied to a shit-show of a contract with Fantasy Records. His first solo album underperformed, which Fogerty blamed on Fantasy’s lackluster promotion, and he refused to record anything new. Fantasy sued him.
Here’s a copyright infringement tale that goes a few layers deep, and one I think is a neat illustration of how similar elements can lead to completely different songs.
In 1972, singer-songwriter Albert Hammond released the song ‘The Air That I Breathe’ on his album It Never Rains in Southern California (the title track of which is his best-known hit). He wrote the song, which is embedded below as today’s SOTD, with Mike Hazelwood.
Meet Me In Montauk 