Talk about waiting a long time to get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Charley Patton released his first song in 1929, making him eligible for induction in 1954, 41 years before the Rock Hall opened.
Patton, known as the Father of the Delta Blues, was inducted as an Early Influencer, honoring the role he played in mentoring and inspiring countless other blues artists.
LL Cool J is another in what promises to be a long line of rappers inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I already touched on that trend in my post about Jay-Z’s induction, so I won’t revisit it here.
LL Cool J was nominated five times for the Hall before making it on his sixth attempt. He was inducted in the Musical Excellence category, which differs from the Performers category in ways I have yet to understand. From what I can tell, the difference is that Performers have “changed the face of rock & roll” while those in Musical Excellence have “had a dramatic impact on music.” OK.
German electronic band Kraftwerk formed in 1969 and over the next decade released seven albums that helped define the electro-pop and rap music of the 1980s. Without Kraftwerk, there would likely be no Depeche Mode, Human League, OMD or Soft Cell.
Depending on your taste, that might not be a ringing endorsement. But their impact is undeniable, and so they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the ‘Early Influence’ category, reserved for acts that might not have made a huge splash commercially but helped pave the path for others.
Here’s a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction that should have happened years ago. Carole King has been eligible for inclusion since 1986 and has been nominated only once before, in 1989. More than three decades later, she’s finally in.
To be fair, King has been a member of the Hall of Fame as a songwriter — alongside former co-writer/husband Gerry Goffin — since 1990. But she has now earned an additional spot as a performer. This makes King one of only three women inducted into the Hall twice (alongside Stevie Nicks and a woman I will post about next week).
Given the 25-year lag between an artist’s first published recording and their eligibility for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, we’re starting to see the sea change in popular music that took place in the late 90s and early 00s reflected in Rock Hall inductions.
It was around the turn of the millennium that rap and then pop became the dominant forces, while traditional rock faded away. If the Rock Hall hopes to remain relevant and honor artists who debuted after 2000, its membership will start to look less and less like the rockers of years past.
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