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The envelope please ... Who are these people?

By DANIEL DULLUM
Staff Writer

Published: Thursday, October 6, 2011 4:15 AM MST

“And the nominees are ... “

Nothing unites and separates music fans quite like the annual announcement of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees. This year is no exception, along with the usual number of snubs from Jann Wenner’s private club in downtown Cleveland.

From classic rock, we have Heart, The Small Faces/Faces, Donovan and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. Laura Nyro represents singer-songwriters; from the world of soul, R&B and disco, we have Rufus with Chaka Khan, The Spinners, Donna Summer and War. And more recent acts including Beastie Boys, The Cure, Eric B. & Rakim and Guns ‘N Roses are on the ballot, along with pioneer blues guitarist Freddie King.

In a canned statement, Joel Peresman, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said the nominees “embody the broad scope of what rock and roll means. ... this group represents the spirit of what we celebrate at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

Really?

The criteria used by voters for this operation is often vague, but seems to favor obscure artists with one hit or less. To be eligible for nomination, an individual artist or band must have released its first recordings 25 years prior to whatever year they’re nominated. The 2012 nominees, for example, had to release their first recording no later than 1986.

Well, there are deserving performers who have been eligible since 1986 (and before) who are still waiting for the phone call.

While cases can be made for eventual induction for the Beastie Boys, the Cure, Guns ‘N Roses and Red Hot Chili Peppers, as newer acts, they can wait. There’s an incredible backlog of performers that need to precede them.

From this year’s nominees, that grouping includes Heart (eligible since 1998), led by talented sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. For four decades, Heart has crossed metal, hard rock, pop and folk while carrying on the fine tradition of Pacific Northwest rock started by the Ventures, Wailers, Kingsmen, Sonics, Raiders and Jimi Hendrix. Donovan (1990) started out as a folkie in the Bob Dylan vein, then went electric and pioneered psychedelic, flower power pop rock, recording classic tracks like “Hurdy Gurdy Man” with Led Zeppelin’s rhythm section and “Goo Goo Barabajagel” with the Jeff Beck Group.

Then there’s Laura Nyro (1993), a talented, underrated singer-songwriter whose career suffered greatly from Jackie DeShannon’s Disease (consistently recording the original version of someone else’s hit). The Fifth Dimension (“Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Sweet Blindness,” “Save The Country”), Blood, Sweat & Tears (“And When I Die”) and Three Dog Night (“Eli’s Coming”) all benefited from her compositions, and when Barbra Streisand needed a breakout single for her much-anticipated 1970 “rock” album, it was Nyro’s “Stoney End.”

Along with the Who, the Small Faces (1990) personified the mid-’60s Mod scene in Great Britain, and, like Donovan, they transitioned smoothly to psychedelic rock with hits like “Itchycoo Park” and “Lazy Sunday” and their 1968 magnum opus, Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake. After guitarist Steve Marriott left to form Humble Pie, he was replaced by Ron Woods, they dropped “Small” from the name and backed Rod Stewart for the better part of three years, a stretch that included the classic 1971  album A Wink Is As Good As A Nod ... To A Blind Horse. Among others, Pearl Jam, Oasis and Guns ‘N Roses cite Faces as an influence.

Rock and roll, by its very nature, is music’s mutt – a melting pot of just about every form of music. So if Donna Summer (1999), the indisputable queen of disco, is on the ballot, put her in. And there should be room for longtime soul legends like Rufus featurimg Chaka Khan, The Spinners and War (with and without Eric Burdon), all of whom have the track records to back up their nominations. But where’s The Miracles, Chubby Checker, or Mary Wells – the original first lady of Motown? Sylvia Robinson had hit recordings as a performer and later, as a producer and executive, founded Sugar Hill Records and got in on the ground floor of hip hop and rap. Where’s her nomination? It should be forthcoming, now that she’s passed away.

Eric B. & Rakim were nominated for their pioneering efforts in hip hop/record scratching, and considered by critics as one of the most influential MC/DJ combos from hip hop’s golden age of the mid-1980s. Take that away, and they’re another one-hit wonder (“Friends” with Jody Watley), albeit with one platinum and two gold albums. Maybe it was a concentrated lobbying effort from the turntable and stylus industry that secured their nomination as a gesture of gratitude.

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, essentially, are an opening act compared to those who are annually snubbed. For example, let’s put Jett on a hypothetical bill with the Moody Blues, Guess Who, Heart, Rush or Kiss. Who opens? 

For the record, Guns ‘N Roses had six top ten singles, seven of their eight albums went platinum (one million or more sold). Their debut album, Appetite For Destruction, sold over 18 million copies. Their hit “Welcome To The Jungle” has become a stadium anthem for sporting events. All things considered, that’s a pretty solid run. 

But on The Spaghetti Incident – a 1993 collection of glam and punk covers – they also covered a Charles Manson composition, “Look at Your Game Girl,” which was hidden as an unadvertised bonus track. Though vocalist Axl Rose insists the media doesn’t understand his fascination with Manson, there’s fine line between being edgy and displaying poor taste. Recording a Manson song may not keep Guns ‘N Roses out of the Hall; after all, it’s the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of nice people.

There are no less than 50 singers and bands that meet the nomination criteria and are deserving of induction, and that’s not counting another dozen or so producers and songwriters. Depending on  how one stacks that list of omissions, the exclusion of Dick Dale is, at this point, inexcusable. Dale invented the surf guitar sound, and his status as the world’s loudest guitar player hasn’t diminished as he continues to rock at age 74, rattling windows and blowing out amplifiers wherever his tour bus stops. The next time you hear “Miserlou” being sampled by the Black-Eyed Peas, remember where they found it.

Any band with six platinum albums, eight gold albums and a list of hits that stretch from 1965 to 1988 should be a shoe-in, but it hasn’t been enough for the Moody Blues (1989) to garner as much as a token mention. Being the top Canadian rock band of its day with great compositions by Randy Bachman and an incredible vocalist like Burton Cummings hasn’t made friends at the HOF for the Guess Who (1990).

And there’s many more. But with the Hall now skewing toward  the 1980s and 1990s (not unlike corporate oldies radio), the outlook for induction is increasingly bleak for deserving artists from rock’s first two decades.

So where is Rush, Kiss, Jethro Tull,  Johnny Rivers, Joe Cocker, The Monkees, The Turtles, Deep Purple, The Zombies, The Pretty Things, Tommy James & The Shondells, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Three Dog Night, Stevie Ray Vaughn or Grand Funk Railroad? And, at the very least, couldn’t Glen Campbell be nominated as a sideman?

Carole King, whose Tapestry is the acknowledged watershed singer-songwriter album of the 1970s, is in as a “non-performer.” That, in a nutshell, says all you need to know about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame voting process. Rock on.

Daniel Dullum is the host of Rock and Roll 101, heard on alternating Sundays on KQCK Radio, Queen Creek. www.kqcklive.com.

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