Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees

If you're in Cleveland on April 14, you can drop by the ceremony and catch this year's inductees. (Cleveland, "city of light, city of magic," as Randy Newman once wrote.)

This year's inductees are Guns N' Roses (and much has been made on the interwebs recently about the feuding Slash and Rose), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Donovan, Small Faces, Beastie Boys, the Crickets, the Famous Flames, the Midnighters, the Comets, the Blue Caps, the Miracles, Freddie King, Don Kirshner, Cosimo Matassa, Tom Dowd and Glyn Johns. You can get data on all of them on this page. Some of them are obviously more well-known than others.

The Hall has also provided a list of 10 essential songs for some of the inductees, with YouTube links. (Why not all of them?) For some of these people, like Donovan, this can be an interesting history lesson. How many people under 40 have ever heard his songs, yet he was one of the first major breakthrough stars of 60s music. A little folky, a little rocky, a little jazzy, a little psychedelic, a little mystical; put that way, it really does sound pure 60s. Laura Nyro was more successful as a songwriter than a performer, but she was a trailblazer, one of the most influential women singer-songwriters of the day. Small Faces (later Faces) was one of the most British of the British groups. Their music transformed completely when Rod Stewart joined them (and for 60s people, this was the Stewart we like to remember, not the one who milks sings the American Songbook), but all of it was great. Small Faces released what I assume was the first (and close to last) round lp, "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" (it came in a plastic pouch). I hope that it's a collector's item, because I've got it in my basement somewhere. There's also 10 essentials for the Beastie Boys, Guns and the Peppers, all obviously from a later era.

Which reminds me of a magic trick. Get a group of your friends in your car and put "Paradise City" on the stereo. Then during the chorus, sing the words, "Take me down to the prairie dog city." Your friends will be amazed at how they'll never be able to get this out of their minds thereafter, and they will start believe that Axl actually is saying Prairie Dog City. And if they're Guns N' Roses fans, they may never talk to you again.