Outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, a state historical marker indicated that Cleveland WJW radio station disc jockey Alan Freed, 1921-1965, coined the term "rock and roll" to describe the uptempo black rhythm records he played in 1951. I read that the term for the new genre of popular music appealed to audiences on both sides of 1950s American racial boundaries and dominated American culture for the rest of the century. When Freed organized the first rock concert at the Cleveland Arena in 1952, there was a riot at the oversold show's first act.
When U2 kicked off a tour in late 1992, their multi-media extravaganza featured seven hanging Trabant cars from East Germany!
Also in the museum lobby was Bruce Springsteen's 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle that he drove around his native New Jersey with Toby Scott, his sound engineer on 18 albums and numerous live performances.
Another fun photo for my bathroom photo collection which began way, way back!
As you might imagine, the museum had plenty of memorabilia from rock and roll singers, including this vest, a Bob Marley hat, and this jumpsuit from James Brown who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1986.
One room was devoted to covers of Rolling Stone Magazine by photographer Baron Wolman who became interested in photography while serving in the Army as a counter-intelligence officer in Berlin. After selling his first photo essay there about life behind the then-new Berlin Wall, he pursued a career as a photojournalist in California after being discharged.
After the magazine was started in 1967 by 21-year-old journalist Jann Wenner, Wolman was hired to capture the icons of 1960s rock and roll: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, and many more. Each photo was accompanied by fascinating stories of Wolman's interactions with the artists.
Bill Haley was given this electric guitar after the success of Rock Around the Clock, the first mainstream rock and roll hit which reached Number 1 on the Billboard chart in 1955. He continued to use this guitar throughout his career and was inducted into the Hall in 1987.
Video monitors showed films of protests against rock and roll starting with the music's birth in the early 50s and continued on through the Beatles, heavy metal, and hip-hop. When Alabama preacher Robert Gray denounced Elvis Presley during his sermon in 1956, the singer responded "I'm not setting any kind of a bad example. I'm not trying to be sexy, It's just my way of expressing how I feel when I move around..."
Teenagers gathered at a 'Beatles Burning' in Georgia in response to a comment by John Lennon that the group was more popular than Jesus in 1966. The John Birch Society said, "The Beatles have loosed a veritable flood of musical trash on a generation of young Americans. Parents have been shocked to see their daughters charged in a state of hypnotic frenzy, clutching at the long-haired slobs who twang, screech and thump in a mixture of unrelated noise."
Lennon commented in 1972: " My role in society, or any artists's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all."
South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings said in a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in 1985, "By God, rescue the tender young ears of this nation from this, this rock porn ... It's outrageous filth, and we've got to do something about it." Did you notice that all the hooting and hollering was done by Southerners?!
Frank Zappa testified at a 1985 Senate hearing on record-label censorship, "Rock music was never written for, or performed for conservative tastes."
I probably should have known that when rock and roll music was born in the 50s, popular music was White music made by, and performed by, White Americans. The music that influenced rock and roll, however, did not appeal to the mainstream. Some of the styles, like rhythm and blues, were more urban while country and bluegrass were more rural. Gospel music came from the church while blues music embraced views despised by the church.
Many of these musical styles came from the American South and all had one thing in common - disenfranchised elements of US society, particularly Blacks and poor Whites. Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and other Fifties rock and roll pioneering artists liked these styles of music because there was an honesty, sense of reality, and passion that was generally lacking in popular music. Each of these artists borrowed elements from these uniquely American types of music to create their own styles.
One of these Early Influencers as the museum called them included Mississippi bluesman Robert Johnson whose music Eric Clapton described as "like my oldest friend, always in the back of my head and on the horizon. It is the finest music I have ever heard..."
Jimmie Rodgers, aka the "Singing Brakeman" and the father of country and western music, learned the blues from Black workers he worked with on the railroad. Johnny Cash commented that Rodgers' song Hobo's Bill Last Ride "felt so real, so close to home."
Janis Joplin commented that "Bessie Smith (the Empress of the Blues) showed me the air and taught me how to fill it. She's the reason I started singing, really."
It would be tough to argue that anyone but Elvis Presley was the undisputed king of rock and roll. Coming from a humble background, he launched the rock and roll revolution with his unique voice and charismatic stage persona. After walking into the Memphis Recording Service - home of Sun Records - at just 18, the owner was so impressed with his voice he teamed Presley up with a guitarist and bassist. The trio recorded blues and country songs that "established the blueprint for rock and roll."
Homage was paid to the five rock and roll cities - Memphis, Detroit, LA, San Francisco (or, more exactly, the Haight Asbury district), and London - which played pivotal roles in the musical genre. It was engrossing reading about each city's contributions and looking at even more memorabilia but also more than a tad overwhelming, too!
The exhibit I really, really liked was called the Halftime Show. The Super Bowl is the most viewed TV event of the entire year and more people watch the 12.5-minute show than the game. The estimated worldwide audience is in excess of 100 million.
Until I read the blurb about the Halftime Show, I hadn't thought about it's one of the few times now that people all over the world are all watching the same show simultaneously.
Watching the fast-paced shows felt like I had front-row seats to each Super Bowl! The music and performances by the world's greatest artists were riveting. It was sad, though, to see those who had passed.
Planning for the Halftime Show, the most watched musical event in the world, begins about eight months in advance. Two weeks before the big show in February, 25 tractor trailer trucks leave LA bound for the host stadium so that highly skilled production teams working on sound, special effects, video, and lighting can put their final touches on the show. When modern football began in the 196Os, college marching bands played during halftime while fans bought beer and peanuts and prepared for the second half of the game.
That didn't change until 1991 when the National Football League decided to change things up and booked New Kids on the Block to sing a few songs and had other featured acts including some Disney characters. As that was a huge success, the rest, as they say, is history and the Halftime Show was born!
There was a huge tribute to Prince, the Minneapolis prodigy who "tore up the rulebook, forging a synthesis of Black funk and White rock that became a blueprint for cutting-edge music of the Eighties. From the beginning, Prince and his music were androgynous, sexy, and provocative." He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2004 and died in 2016.
The purple vest was custom made for Prince in 1988 from his in-house workshop that created clothing based on his designs. Prince wore these gloves during his Purple Rain era.
Londoner Elton John was described as among the most successful musical artists of the modern era, and as a flamboyant showman and a talented pianist. He's compared to Elvis and The Beatles in terms of his popularity with rock and roll fans. He broke Elvis' record for the most consecutive years of Top 40 hits on Billboard's single chart in 1992 having been a continual presence since debuting in 1970 with Your Song.
Elton John wore this hat on stage during a performance at New York's Carnegie Hall and then threw it into the audience! He wore the full-length coat in the early 2000s and donated it and other garments at an event to benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
My favorite artists' exhibit was hands down The Beatles who rose to worldwide stardom in a career that lasted fewer than ten years. In that relatively brief period, they were monumentally successful changing the boundaries of what rock and roll's music and lyrics could be. In a testament to their greatness, their music is as popular now with new fans as it was with my generation when they began. One of music's big moments came when 70 million fans watched each of the group's four performances on the Ed Sullivan Show.
In April of 1964, The Beatles' Can't Buy Me Love became the first record to top the charts in both the US and the United Kingdom. They also held the top five spots on the Billboard singles chart that same month! The Fab Four became the first rock group to play at an outdoor sports stadium, at New York's Shea Stadium in 1965.
The Beatles wore three-button, collarless jackets on stage in England and Scandinavia in 1963. They also appeared on album covers. This one belonged to John Lennon.
This was a reproduction of John Lennon's Green Card that he finally received in 1976 after a four-year battle with the Nixon administration who had tried to have him deported for a marijuana conviction after his temporary visa expired.
One of the longest-running rock and roll acts is the Rolling Stones. Even as the Stones have aged, we still see clips of almost octagenarian Mick Jagger prancing across elaborate stages in revealing outfits! The band was inducted into the Hall in 1989.
Keith Richards wore this jacket on the Stones' tour of Europe in 1982.
Since this was one of the few items of 'Canadian Content' I saw at the museum, I hope you'll forgive my creative license to include this Toronto Rocks concert poster from 2003. Since I had moved away from Canada in 1982, it was news to me that the Stones began using Toronto as a base for tour rehearsals in 1994.
I imagine I spent a good half-hour or so watching the ageless Dick Clark introducing clips of famous musicians and artists on his American Bandstand TV show. I enjoyed that exhibit almost as much as the Halftime Show as it, too, was like a rock and roll famous hits countdown.
Clark hosted the show from 1956 until 1989 and, remarkably, never seemed to age one iota in all those years!
One of the funnier segments was James Brown attempting to show Clark some dance moves. Clark failed miserably just as I would have!
I finally tore myself away so I could learn about the eligible categories for induction into the Hall of Fame. They were Performers - artists who have changed the world of rock and roll with their mastery and artistic vision; the Ahmet Ertegun or Lifetime Achievement Award - a recognition given to non-performers who played a significant behind-the-scenes role in advancing rock and roll; Early Influence - the pioneers who pushed musical boundaries and generated the passion that gave birth to rock and roll; and Musical Excellence - performers, songwriters, and producers who have helped changed the music's history. Being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is rock's highest honor.
One of the museum's most unusual exhibits was this one depicting English songwriter Roger Waters's angst after realizing he was getting too full of himself as a performer. I don't know nearly enough of the man or his group, Pink Floyd, to understand why it had such a high-profile place in the Hall of Fame.
Before we left, there was even an opportunity to listen to a small live band performing in Studio A at the Hall!
Vermont jam band Phish used this hot dog prop to fly above the crowd at New Year's Eve performances in both Boston and Florida. I hate to think what their insurance premiums had to have been!
Phil: I know from your posts you're a huge music fan. I could only imagine how much you and Michaela would love to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland if you ever get a chance. Steven and I were probably there for close to three hours and were captivated from the moment we entered until we left. If you're a rock and roll fan, there's no better place to go!
Outside the Hall was Johnny Cash's tour bus from 1979 that he used for the last two decades of his career. Cash started out driving the long distances between shows with his band in private cars. When his fame grew, he owned several motor homes but they weren't built to withstand the constant traveling. In 1979, he bought the 40-foot shell of a Greyhound bus and had it custom-fitted with four compartments at a cost then of over a half-million dollars!
Next post: Wandering down memory lane(s) in Steven's old stomping ground of Cleveland.
Posted exactly two months later on August 22nd, 2021, on our last night in Grayton Beach State Park in the Florida Panhandle until we return, hopefully, next summer. Since we discovered the park by chance over a dozen years ago, we have returned every summer for a couple of weeks for some blessed R&R on the magnificent beach.
