The Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame Becomes Shameful

As many of you know I have a special page on my Website The 60s Official Site dedicated to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. I thought the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame was a great dedication to the era Rock 'n Roll but now I am having doubts. I believe it is all for the self-serving interest of Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine. The selection of some who have been inducted have no rationale and really aren't Rock 'n Roll contributors. Madonna is not rock 'n roll and has no place in rock 'n roll history. There are many more deserving pioneers of rock'n roll that should be inducted. I have written in another entry in this blog that the Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame is becoming Rock 'n Roll Hall of Shame. Unless something is done now it will continue to beome a farce.

Below is an article from Fox News Service kind of substantiating what I am saying..

The ailing Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation puts on its show Monday night with John Mellencamp performing and Madonna preening in the audience as a rare non-performing inductee.

It’s an audience that pays up to $100,000 a table in some cases, and a minimum of $2,500 a seat for individuals. But how to explain the newly available actual finances of this corrupt, dying establishment created by Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner?

According to the 2006-2007 federal tax filing for the Foundation just published at guidestar.org, expenses are higher than ever while charity remains almost nil.
Consider that in 2006-2007, the Foundation — which claims assets of over $14 million — made just four charitable donations.

They were:
A mere $475 — the cost of a lunch at say Harry Cipriani — was sent to the T.J. Martell Foundation, the music business’s indisputable main medical charity and a key player in worldwide cancer research.
An equally astounding $500 to City of Hope, the important Duarte, Calif., cancer research center and hospital: $500. Yes, just $500.

A third donation, of $167,000, went to the Rock Hall Museum in Cleveland. This was not for the museum itself, which the Foundation doesn’t support. It was to pay for staff to maintain the Foundation’s archives, which are housed there.
The fourth donation was $25,000 to New York’s Fund for Public Schools. You might wonder what the motivation was there, since the preservation of rock 'n' roll probably isn’t on this group’s mandate.

But the $25,000 is well spent. This is where Wenner receives perhaps a twofer: socialite Agnes Gund, head of the Museum of Modern Art, is on the board. Her family’s foundation secured the original mortgage for the Cleveland Museum. Wenner also gets to play with big time New York socialites and moguls like board members Caroline Kennedy, Mort Zuckerman and Lenny Riggio (Barnes & Noble).

Then there’s the itchy-scratchy relationship between the Cleveland Museum and the Foundation. A Rock Hall source says that although it may not have shown up yet in the filings, the Foundation has pledged $8 million to the Cleveland museum. Of that, they say, $1 million has already been paid, although it’s not evident from the new filing.

Nevertheless, the Foundation’s coffers remain full while their attitude toward charity has been scant. For example, last year, according to the filing, the Foundation gave a measly $4,183 to indigent musicians. This total is actually broken down on the filing to food, shelter and clothing ($2,400) and medical, dental and hospital expenses ($1,783).

By comparison, in 2006, MusiCares, the arm of the Grammy Foundation that supports musicians, gave away $6 million in Specific Assistance to Individuals. This ranged from musicians with addictions to those who’d lost their homes and livelihoods to Hurricane Katrina to those who simply never had medical insurance and require it now.
An insider from the Rock Hall explains: “They’ve done away with the mandate of helping musicians. They’ve turned their attention now to scholarships for students in New York and Cleveland instead.”

Indeed, the Foundation’s latest PR effort is to offer four high school students in Cleveland and New York each $5,000 checks to study music or the music business.

What could the great charitable fundraisers of the rock world — like Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Bono and this year’s inductee, John Mellencamp, who helped start Farm Aid — make of this?
What’s even more outrageous is that -- given that they now report over $14 million in assets — the Hall of Fame Foundation also claims it finished $120,857 in the red for fiscal year 2007!
It’s hard to believe, but not after you look at their other expenses. Last year, the new head of the Foundation, former Clear Channel exec Joel Peresman, was paid a salary of $331,229. That’s double the salary of the former chief, Suzan Evans Hochberg.

That would be bad enough, but Evans Hochberg is still being paid nearly two years after she was usurped by Peresman at Wenner’s behest. She’s still getting $150,000 a year.
(For several years, Evans Hochberg was also paid $300,000 a year until this column revealed it. After that, her salary was mysteriously halved for reporting purposes.)
Yes, that’s just about $500,000 a year for two people, one of whom has been more or less “retired.”

They paid $80,000 in legal fees to the firm Grubman, Indursky, even though Alan Grubman, one of the top music attorneys in the biz, is on their board. (No discounts there!)
Another $80,000 went to “occupancy,” meaning rent, although their suites are within the Rolling Stone offices.

Just under $37,000 is attributed to Travel. But this isn’t travel for even past inductees to attend the annual ceremony. Hypothetically, if someone like Smokey Robinson or Elvis Costello wanted to come to the Waldorf Monday night, they’d be required to pay for their tickets and provide their own transportation. That’s why you rarely see, with the exception of Robbie Robertson of the Band, any alumni at the dinners.

In other words: some of Monday night's less wealthy inductees, like the Ventures or Little Walter, will not be returning anytime soon unless someone sponsors them.
Meantime, controversy continues to rage over who’s allowed into the Rock Hall anyway. Madonna was allowed in during her first year of eligibility presumably because she’d be a draw for the TV audience on VH-1. She refused to perform, it’s been suggested by sources, because she may have requested an in-kind donation to her own charity, the Kabbalah-based Raising Malawi, and was turned down.

And Madonna, whether you like her or not, is decidedly not a rock act. Still, as she steals the thunder of publicity Monday night at the Waldorf, consider again who’s not in the Hall of Fame yet after two decades of fabulous dinners and incredible “travel” expenses:
Neil Sedaka, Linda Ronstadt, Chicago, Carly Simon, Neil Diamond, Laura Nyro, The Moody Blues, Ben E. King, the late Billy Preston, Todd Rundgren, Kiss, Carole King, the late Mary Wells, Chubby Checker, Hall & Oates, Iggy Pop, Patti LaBelle, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Alice Cooper, Sonny & Cher, Glen Campbell, Leon Russell, Dionne Warwick, Ringo Starr (the only Beatle not in as a solo artist), Lesley Gore, Petula Clark, many famous record producers (Richard Perry, Phil Ramone), DJs (Cousin Brucie, Dan Ingram, Wolfman Jack, et al) who created the genre, or two dozen R&B or early rock doo-wop acts including the magnificent and tragically overlooked Little Anthony and the Imperials.

And this is really funny: Quincy Jones is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Luckily, he doesn’t need them as much as they need him. But that’s the whole story right there, isn’t it?

The 60s Rock at The 60s Official Site

The Rock ' N Roll Hall of Fame Is Becoming a Farce

The Rock' N Roll Hall of Fame began with the induction of its first class January 23, 1986 which included legends Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Elvis Presley. A great class of inductees!!!

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation was created in 1983. However, it had no home. The search committee considered several cities, including Memphis (home of Sun Studios and Stax Records), Cincinnati (home of King Records), New York, and Cleveland. Cleveland lobbied hard to be chosen, citing the facts that one-time Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed is widely credited with promoting the new genre (and the term) of "rock and roll", and that Cleveland was the location of the first rock and roll concert. Civic leaders in Cleveland pledged $65 million in public money to fund the construction. A petition drive was signed by 600,000 fans favoring Cleveland over Memphis, and a USA Today poll which Cleveland won by 100,000 votes. The hall of fame board voted to build the museum in Cleveland.

At the beginning the Hall of Fame began with great intentions but now especially after the 2007 vote and inductions it is clear that influence from Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone Magazine has undermined the concept of the Rock 'N Roll Hall of fame by overriding the vote and allowing Grandmaster Flash to enter the Hall of Fame just because the hall doesn't have a rapper inducted. Since when does Rap music fall in the same category as rock ' n roll? The induction of Grandmaster Flash insults the integrity of current members. The Dave Clark Five made the cut by making the top five vote but these results were overridden by Jann Wenner so the Dave Clark Five did not get inducted this year and allowing Grandmaster Flash to be inducted.

Currently, groups or individuals are qualified for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Nominees should have demonstrable influence and significance within the history of rock and roll. Four categories are recognized: Performers, Non-Performers, Early Influences. The sad part is that the original intent of the Hall of fame is being ignored. Now groups are being inducted 15 years after their first record and many acts who are better and more deserving are ignored because of personal taste of Jann Wenner and writers who don't even have a clue about the history of rock 'n roll .

The Dave Clark Five are now scheduled to once again to be voted on by the committee in 2008. There has plenty of foul play calling involved but perhaps the Dave Clark Five will finally arrive in the Hall of Fame where they deserve to be. As far as Jann Wenner, who started Rolling Stone Magazine in 1967, he needs to let the unbiased voting occur and his personal tastes be set aside or the now tarnished Hall of Fame voting will not matter at all.

Continued Criticism of The Hall of Fame

The main criticism is that the nomination process is controlled by a few individuals, such as founder Jann Wenner, former foundation director Suzan Evans, and writer Dave Marsh, reflecting their tastes rather than the views of the rock world as a whole. A former member of the nominations board once said:

"At one point Suzan Evans lamented the choices being made because there weren't enough big names that would sell tickets to the dinner. That was quickly remedied by dropping one of the doo-wop groups being considered in favor of a 'name' artist ... I saw how certain pioneering artists of the 50s and early 60s were shunned because there needed to be more name power on the list, resulting in 70s superstars getting in before the people who made it possible for them. Some of those pioneers still aren't in today — but Queen is." Money Money Money As everything else in today's society money drives the train not integrity. The honesty and legitimacy of the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame is at stake. I thought it was a great idea when it started but now I am not so sure.

Petitions with tens of thousands of signatures were also being ignored and some groups that were signed with certain labels or companies or were affiliated with various committee members have even been put up for nomination with no discussion at all. So perhaps money is being passed under the table? I don't know about that but this is destroying the Hall of Fame.

Another criticism is that too many artists are inducted, allowing for several lesser acts to make it in. In fifteen years, 97 different artists have been inducted. A minimum of 50% of the vote is needed to be inducted, although the final percentages are not announced and a certain number of inductees (5 in 2007) is set before the ballots are shipped. This constitutes fraud especially to those who pays the large fee to visit the Hall of Fame.

I think Jann Wenner and his cronies should let history tell them who gets in, not their own personal tastes and their monetary intentions.

Any comments? Feel free to leave them.

The 60s Official Site