List announced for the R & R Hall of Fame

[Shawn]

From Rolling Stone

In an about face from last year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which saluted such punk and New Wave acts as the Clash, Elvis Costello and the Police, this year's crop of inductees is mostly meat and potatoes rock. The nineteenth annual induction ceremony, which will take place on March 15th at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, will honor late Beatle George Harrison, pop legend Prince, singer-songwriter Jackson Browne, Texas blues rockers ZZ Top, psychedelic pop band Traffic, Detroit rocker Bob Seger and vocal group the Dells.

In his first year of eligibility, Prince will be honored for twenty-five years of funk, soul, rock and experimental pop albums that made him, along with Madonna and Bruce Springsteen, one of the biggest stars of the 1980s. The enigmatic singer, who has played and produced most of the music on his twenty-plus albums, released his pop soul debut, For You, in 1978 and reached his commercial pinnacle with 1984's Purple Rain. He has also written songs for artists including the Bangles, Sinead O'Connor and Sheena Easton.

George Harrison will become the third member of the Beatles to be inducted as a solo artist, joining John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Harrison, who died of cancer in November 2001, was the first to go solo, with his 1970 Phil Spector-produced triple album All Things Must Pass. The intensely spiritual Harrison followed the album with rock's first big charity event, the Concert for Bangladesh, which took place at Madison Square Garden in 1971 to raise money for the famine-stricken nation. After recording sporadically, he returned to the charts in 1987 with his Cloud Nine album and joined Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison in 1988 as the Traveling Wilburys.

Jackson Browne was among a group of quintessential Seventies singer-songwriters that included James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. He began his career in the late Sixties writing and recording with various groups and as a solo act and co-writing the Eagles' first hit, "Take it Easy." But it wasn't until 1976's The Pretender that Browne broke through on his own. That album was followed by his blockbuster, 1977's Running on Empty, which featured the hit title track as well as "Stay/The Load-Out," a ballad that spawned a legion of copycat "hard life on tour" songs.

Motor City rocker Bob Seger has been the standard bearer for no-nonsense rock & roll for more than thirty years. Blending a love of garage rock with his lifelong devotion to soul and R&B, Seger began his career in 1961 playing in a series of garage bands before going solo in 1966, releasing his debut, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man, in 1968. He formed the Silver Bullet Band in 1975, with which he has released a string of indelible singles such as "Night Moves," "Rock & Roll Never Forgets," "We've Got Tonite," "Old Time Rock & Roll" and "Like a Rock."

Formed in England in 1967, Traffic were fronted by former Spencer Davis group singer-songwriter Steve Winwood. Over the next eight years, a revolving lineup of the band released a string of albums that melded the pop sensibilities of the Beatles with jazzy improvisation, folk rock and the jamming experimentation of such psychedelic peers as the Grateful Dead on songs like "Dear Mr. Fantasy," "John Barleycorn Must Die" and "Freedom Rider." The group's sound relied on the unusual combination of Winwood's organ playing and high, sweet vocals, mixed with Chris Wood's flute, Jim Capaldi's restrained drumming and Dave Mason's elegant guitar playing.

Texas boogie trio ZZ Top are almost as well known for their look as for their thirty years of blues rock classics. Guitarists Billy Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill sport the two most recognizable beards in rock, while drummer Frank Beard, ironically, is clean shaven, a tip of the hat to the band's legendary sense of twisted humor. The Houston-bred band formed in 1970 and quickly established a reputation with songs such as "La Grange," based on John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen" and "Tush," from 1975's Fandango. The band hit its peak in the early Eighties with a string of albums that mixed their bluesy sensibility with slick keyboards and even slicker videos filled with scantily clad women and spun off such hits as "Sharp Dressed Man," "Legs" and "Gimme All Your Lovin'."

Vocal group the Dells have had hits over five decades, making them one of the longest running R&B groups ever. More amazingly, the group, formed in Chicago in 1952, has had most of the same members the entire time, not having changed any since 1960. The Dells had their first big hit in 1956 with their signature tune, "Oh What a Nite," followed by such memorable singles as "Stay in My Corner" and "Thinking About You." They toured as Ray Charles' backing group in 1966 and had their first million-selling single in 1973 with "Give Your Baby a Standing Ovation." The band continued recording and touring throughout the Eighties and were hired as consultants on Robert Townsend's 1991 film The Five Heartbeats.

Artists are eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame twenty-five years after the release of their first record. Criteria for consideration includes "the influence and significance of the artist's contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll." The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is located in Cleveland, Ohio.

Among those on the ballot who did not make it this year are John Mellencamp, the Sex Pistols, the Stooges and Black Sabbath.

[DudeAsInCool]

An impressive roster. Nice post.

[baghdad_steve15]

They left out the best (Black Sabbath and sex pistols). Harrison deserves it

[Shawn]

Yeah, I would have put Sabbath and Mellencamp is there and left out the Dells and Traffic, but they'll get their chance.

[Shawn]

Reaction from inductees

"It's just very cool," ZZ Top bassist tells Billboard.com of his band's pending induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "I'm very excited about it and very honored. It's great company we're keeping." As previously reported, the 2004 class of Hall of Fame inductees will also include Jackson Browne, the Dells, the late George Harrison, Prince, Bob Seger and Traffic.

"I view it like Cooperstown," an ebullient Seger says. "I think about Al Kaline in the [baseball] Hall of Fame. I've played golf occasionally with Larry Bird, who's in the [basketball] Hall of Fame. Now I'm in my Hall of Fame."

"There wasn't a Hall of Fame when I started," he adds, "but to be in there with my heroes -- with your Little Richards, your Elvises, the Beatles, the [Rolling] Stones, [bob] Dylan, is just beyond words. It's wonderful. To suddenly be in that same pantheon is pretty heady stuff."

Browne, too, is humbled by the honor. "It's just really great to be acknowledged, to be recognized by a group of your peers and your contemporaries and by critics," he says. "That is just good. That feels great."

Seger says he and his Silver Bullet Band will definitely perform at the March 15 induction ceremony in New York, which will be taped to air on VH1 later that week.

Guitarist Dave Mason, a founding member of Traffic who was with the band through its first two albums, is hopeful he and fellow surviving members Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi will use the opportunity to reunite.

"It might be a great opportunity for the three of us to be together and do something maybe. Hopefully," he says. "The last time we did something was at [New York nightclub] the Bottom Line two years, three years ago," he adds. "And that was the first time in 30 years."

For several of the artists, it wasn't their first time on the ballot, or a few years had passed since they reached the 25-year-career eligibility mark.

"I hadn't spent much time thinking about it, not wanting to get too emotionally invested in the possibility," confesses Browne, who released his debut album in 1972. "I have a kind of ambivalent stance when it comes to it. I mean, the music has got to be its own reward. Doing it is the most rewarding. Being acknowledged later is really good though," he adds, laughing. "It's very cool."

Rounded out by guitarist Billy F. Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard, ZZ Top has been a part of the gala proceedings in the past, having been on hand to help induct Bo Diddley in 1987 and Cream in 1993, among others.

"Just to be a small part of that part was an awful lot of fun," Hill says. "Plus, you know, it tickles me to look around and see rock'n'roll guys sitting around, kind of all dressed up and trying to look legit. It's a gas."

But he says that it's too soon to say who might induct his band into the Hall. "We have a lot of very good friends and people we greatly admire, and I'm sure we'll get together and make the invitation and see if they're willing or able to do it," Hill says. "We'll put our three heads together and come up with something crazy."

Seger says his first choice for inductors are Glenn Frey or Don Henley of the Eagles, "because they're my oldest friends in rock'n'roll," but he said Kid Rock has also voiced a desire to do the honors.

[Kooperman]

Yeah, I would have put Sabbath and Mellencamp is there and left out the Dells and Traffic, but they'll get their chance.

Traffic was really, really big in their early to mid existance, and extremely influential. They were doing stuff nobody else was for quite a while, and Steve Winwood is still a productive musician, as his latest album shows. And don't forget that Dave Mason, who also had a stellar run as a solo performer, was in the group too. I think they belong.

[DudeAsInCool]

I agree. I love Dave Mason's Alone Together--he kinda just disappeared. Talked to him in Malibu at a little coffee house--quite friendly. And Traffic was hot for awhile; I even liked Blind Faith--Stevie Winwood was a teenwhen he was in traffic... very talented