Thoughts on the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame

Southern Illinoisan, April 9, 2014

 The recent induction of Kiss into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, while on the same ballot the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was not selected, confirms the fact that the Hall of Fame cannot be taken seriously.

The Butterfield Blues band was one of the major influences in popularizing urban blues among white audiences, and its brilliant lead guitarists, Michael Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, "did as much as anything to establish the mystique and heroism of modern rock guitarists," according to the "Rolling Stone Record Guide." The band also backed Bob Dylan in his historic electric performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, one of the seminal moments in rock history.

Kiss, on the other hand, created mediocre heavy metal for pre-teens.

But then there always has been something disconcerting about this illegitimate child of black rhythm and blues and white country music being enshrined in so formal an institution as a Hall of Fame. The music's origins are deeply rooted in rebellion as an interracial art form growing out of an era of racial segregation. It rattled the walls and shook up the staid conformity of suburban homes in the fifties and was the soundtrack of the counterculture and antiwar movement of the sixties.

Of course, the music has long since lost most of its cachet of rebellion. It is now the soundtrack of commercials, and concert tickets for big name acts cost hundreds of dollars.

Not everyone has forgotten the music’s rebellious origins. The Sex Pistols, for instance, refused to attend their own 2006 inauguration into the Hall of Fame in protest of the high price of admission.

Several of the acts that have been inducted have little connection to the traditions of rock and roll. I’m thinking of acts like Neil Diamond and ABBA. Now before Neil and ABBA fans get angry, let me add that they are extremely talented at the type of music they play. I'm just saying it's not rock and roll. Let them create their own institution—we could call it the Hall of Fame of Slick, Well-Played Music that My Parents Might Have Thought Was Hip. They could be charter members with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

Here’s a modest proposal for eligibility to the Hall of Fame. Let’s begin by picking the quintessential rock and roll song. I’ll nominate “Louie, Louie,” though other songs—say, “Twist and Shout”—would work equally well. But “Louie, Louie” contains so much of the history of rock and roll in two and a half minutes—its interracial nature, its elemental simplicity, its subversive potential and, of course, its danceability. It was written in the fifties by a black rhythm and blues performer, Richard Berry. It’s composed of three chords; Gary Larson once drew a “Far Side” cartoon depicting two elephants sitting at a piano, with one saying to the other, "Smash your left hand down about right here three times, then twice up in this area, then three times right about here. . . . That's 'Louie, Louie'."

The song became a standard of almost every sixties garage band because one needed very little talent to play it. Or even record it, as one of the most popular covers, by the Kingsmen, was so poorly recorded that the vocals were incomprehensible, giving rise to the urban legend that they were obscene, thus prompting the FBI to undertake a two-year investigation to figure out the lyrics.

As humorist and former garage band member Dave Barry describes the song’s Dionysian qualities, “Over the years, musical and cultural critics have offered countless explanations for the song’s enduring appeal, but I would say, based on playing it hundreds of times in front of a wide range of audiences, that the key musical factor is this: Drunk people really like it.”

My proposal is that performers cannot be considered eligible for membership in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame unless one can imagine them playing a good cover of “Louie, Louie.” They need not actually have played it, but is it within the realm of imagination that they could have?

The goal here is not to freeze rock and roll within some rigid and static definition. For example, no band did more than the Beatles to expand the genre’s boundaries. And yet there is no doubt the Beatles could have rocked “Louie, Louie” (and did, in fact, a killer cover of “Twist and Shout”).

On the other hand, there is no way one can imagine Neil Diamond or ABBA rocking “Louie, Louie.”

Rock and roll is an expansive art form. It contains multitudes. But it all goes back to its roots.

Duh, duh duh. Duh, duh.