Rick: Welcome to T2A chat for January 30th. We’re visiting the world’s first museum dedicated to the living heritage of Rock and Roll music, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, the institution that calls itself the preeminent home for the celebration and study of Rock and Roll music. The museum holds a permanent collection drawing from some of the most impressive and iconic Rock and Roll artifacts. President and CEO Terry Stewart is here to answer your questions so let’s start with one from Myr.
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Myr: What Rock and Roll artist brings in the biggest crowds?
Terry: If there is a performance scheduled usually the bigger names will draw the bigger crowds. But all artists have their own fans and will draw crowds as well. We're not about performances but in presenting the artifacts and history of the Rock and Roll era.
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Imo-Obong, Nigeria (email): Americans are well known for their pop, bluegrass, folk, blues, jazz, country and Rock and Roll songs. Why the special interest, attention, dedication, preference in establishing a Hall of Fame and Museum for Rock and Roll music?
Terry: All of these genres of music are incredibly important and are all in one way or another are part of the Rock and Roll legacy. There's no easy way to define Rock and Roll. The term shows up in recorded music as early as 1916. With its emergence in the 1950s as a new form of music it quickly dominated America's tastes and has gone on to do the same around the world. One has to understand that under the heading of Rock and Roll we include virtually all of the genres mentioned and induct artists from those categories. However, terminology of Rock and Roll when defined broadly continues to be the most influential art form in the world. This art form has provided a platform for many artists to effectively try to make this a better world. Take for example Bono from U2; throughout its history Rock and Roll has played an important part in civil rights, women's rights, the green movement, etc. As such we feel that it is the appropriate title for a museum that can memorialize an ever evolving genre of music that has much of its foundation in the rhythms of Africa and continues to challenge people around the globe and how they think, dress and act.
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A C Rathinavel, India (email): Tell us more about the Museum’s finest collections. Many thanks for your time to answer my question.
Terry: Finest is like beauty it's in the eye of the beholder. We've discovered that our constituents come here looking for all forms of memorabilia and artifacts and debris from and endless number of artists. By that I mean that some folks are turned on by guitars others by costumes some by original lyrics still more by film and audio material, so its very difficult to pick out what is the best or finest. If you're a blues fan we have guitars from the godfathers of Rock and Roll if you're a Beatles fans we have costumes, lyrics and instruments from John and Paul. If you're a Doors fan we have all kinds of stuff from all of the members of the Doors. In summary, it’s just not something that you can easily respond to. I would even recommend that those really interested to come and see some of the papers and documents from those such as Ahmet Ertegun who co-founded Atlantic records and the Museum.
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Kemal, Ethiopia (email): Tell us about the bridge between American Rock and Roll and Africa – as well as connections to other regions of the world.
Terry: As I have mentioned before most trace the real basic infrastructure of Rock and Roll to the rhythm and beats from West Africa, brought to America on slave ships. These beginnings evolve over time into field chants, ragtime, blues, boogie-woogie, gospel, race music, and Rhythm and Blues and in the 50's finally a new brand name called Rock and Roll. Subsequently we also always talk about the limbs on the trees after that period meaning soul, funk, disco, hip-hop, as well as all of the guitar driven variations of rock such as metal and so on. From this I think that one can see that the gene pool of Rock and Roll is flooded with the material that originated in Africa. In a similar fashion but to a lesser degree, other immigrants and even slaves from the islands of the Caribbean brought in a Latin influence that's of great import. Stuck in the middle of all of this is the collision of these forces with the music of Ireland and Europe. Much research is being done these days to demonstrate how all of these elements came together to create whatever someone defines as Rock and Roll.
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Larry (email): Why have Chicago, the Doobie Brothers, Lesley Gore, Huey Lewis NOT been inducted into the Rock & Roll hall of Fame with the number of hits, albums, and years meeting and exceeding the criteria, while the Romantics and Pretenders are??????
Terry: There's a much longer list of artists who have not gotten in to date that are contested by many fans versus the list that Larry gave us. Those artists are recommended to us via email, letters, carrier pigeon, whatever are artists that are loved and have impacted the genre. Everyone has his or her own list. For any artist that you can name that is not inducted that you feel is deserving I can find a hundred fans that would disagree with you. All of this is a way of pointing out how personal this whole process is for everyone. There's only one criteria and that is that you had to have a recording 25 years ago. As such, virtually anyone who ever made a 45 (record) for a major label or a custom press qualifies. The method that we've chosen to determine who is inducted consists of a nominating committee of approximately 30 individuals, which includes inductees, other artists, writers, critics, people in the industry, etc. This group meets annually and each is allowed to nominate three artists. The discussion of sales of recordings, popularity, number of gold records has no place at the table in this process all discussion must be about the impact, influence and innovation represented by these candidates. Again, this is very subjective and in no way can be quantified, unlike those who are nominated for the sports halls of fame. A series of votes are taken on those nominated and the list is narrowed down to a final ballot of anywhere from 10 to 15 nominees. This final list is then sent to approximately 600 voters consisting of writers, musicians, critics’ industry people, college professors and all living inductees. A candidate has to receive half of the votes cast in order to be inducted. Harkening back to what I said at the outset, everyone has their own opinion about who's important and who had what kind of impact on they have had, therefore its not surprising that there's no where near a consensus in the general public about who should be inducted. This discussion describes the process for the induction of performers into the Hall of fame. Three other categories are also considered, each of which is done by a separate committee. Those are non-performers, meaning writers, producers, disc jockeys, industry moguls, etc. There's also the early influence category, which has focused primarily on the African-American pioneers who preceded the period of the 1950's. But it also includes artists in other genres such as blues, blue grass, folk, and country. The final category is sidemen, which recognizes those who have often played on thousands of recordings and have gone unnamed. Overall when I'm asked this question, I often throw it back to the person who posed it and have them name five artists that absolutely must be inducted that they do not like. No one has ever responded to that challenge. I say this simply to reinforce the notion that most of us have a hard time being objective about who should be in the hall of fame. P.S. Larry, the Romantics are not inducted.
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Rick: Why is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland?
Terry: The concept was created in 1983 in New York by Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records, Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone magazine and a young lawyer named Suzan Evans. The first inductions were held in New York in 1986 at which time several of the artists inquired as to where the museum would be built. In order to facilitate that decision it was decided to have a competition of cities around America presenting their case for why it should be located in their town. 18 cities came to argue for the museum including Cleveland. Each made some sort of case for a historical underpinning for why the museum should be located at that particular location. Cleveland was probably the most surprising contestant. The little known story of Alan Freed was put forth as a historical justification. For those who don't know, Mr. Freed was a D-J who went on the air in Cleveland in 1951 to play what was newly titled as Rhythm and Blues as of 1949, previously known as 'race music'. In the spring of 1952, Alan and his partners put together what is widely considered to be the first Rock and Roll Show, called the “Moondog Coronation Ball”. This was an all black Rhythm and Blues show in an arena that held 11,000 people. Through a series of events too long to describe here 15,000 tickets were sold and another 10,000 people attempted to get into the building. The performances lasted only about 30 minutes, when a riot ensued and caused the whole venue to be shut down. Over the next 18 months Freed became more and more popular throughout Northern Ohio and even on the East Coast, via tapes of his shows from Cleveland. During this period, Alan started to use the term Rock and Roll to refer to the music. This African-American moniker dates back to the early 1900's and shows up in the title of a song for the first time in 1923. As such, Freed did not create the term but adapted it as a new nomenclature in describing this race/Rhythm and Blues music. All of this allowed Cleveland to have a seat at the table to compete for rights to have the museum in their city. In addition, Cleveland unlike the other competitors pulled together a team of financiers and strategists who constructed an extensive business plan on how the museum would be financed and operated. This latter element and the coming together of the citizens of the city far out distanced the efforts of any of the other competitors. In turn Cleveland was designated as the winner in 1986 and the museum opened in 1995.
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Rick: That wraps today’s T2A chat with Terry Stewart, President and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. Learn more at . Our thanks to Terry and to you for joining us. We hope you can come back on for a special edition T2a Chat on Friday, February 1st at 1900 hours UTC to discuss the upcoming Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. We’ll also discuss the history of Washington DC’s hometown team, the Washington Redskins. That’s Friday February 1st at 1900 hours UTC on voanews.com
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