The Go-Go’s have been eligible for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame since 2006, but received their first nomination this year.
The Los Angeles-based punk/New Wave band broke ground and opened doors, becoming the first all-female band (who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments) to top the Billboard albums chart.
They remain the most commercially successful all-female rock band of all-time.
Over the next two weeks, I’ll feature songs from the latest batch of inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This year’s crop is one of the biggest yet (maybe the biggest ever?), with 12 performers earning inclusion in the Hall.
Kicking things off, alphabetically, are Foo Fighters, who made the cut in their first year of eligibility. The band was founded by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl in Seattle in 1994, following Kurt Cobain’s suicide and the subsequent disbanding of Nirvana.
Our final inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 2015 class is the soulful singer-songwriter Bill Withers, who recorded a handful of enduring classics during a career that spanned just 15 years. Withers retired abruptly in 1985 over his frustrations with record executives trying to micromanage his career.
Withers released eight studio albums during that span. His three best-known songs — ‘Ain’t No Sunshine,’ ‘Lean on Me,’ and ‘Lovely Day’ — are the sort of soulful staples people list among their all-time favorites. He also wrote and recorded the yacht rock classic ‘Just the Two Of Us’ with Grover Washington, Jr. on sax.
I don’t know much about Stevie Ray Vaughan, but the few minutes I spent reading about him and watching him perform in order to write this post made me an instant fan.
Vaughan is credited with leading the blues revival in the 80s, and is considered one of the greatest guitar players of all time by, well, the greatest guitar players of all time.
As such, he’s a no-brainer for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and made it in the first time he was nominated, in his sixth year of eligibility.
Ringo Starr is the next inductee from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class of 2015, and his inclusion is certainly an example of the Hall getting sentimental.
Starr was the last of The Beatles not in the Hall as a solo artist, with John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison having been inducted in 1994, 1999 and 2004, respectively. Harrison made it in three years after his death, and I could see the Hall wanting to avoid another posthumous ceremony.
Meet Me In Montauk 