The ROCK & ROLL Hall of Fame...

Now that I have a subscription to satellite radio, I'm listening to lots of 70's and 80's bands I may have known, but didn't actually listen to all of their songs back then. There is a channel called Deep Tracks that feature songs from famous groups that probably didn't get any air play or B-side material. Good stuff, just obscure from FM classic rock stations.

Between song breaks, the announcers (called disc jockeys from an earlier time) sometimes give history about the bands, albums with a little interesting trivia. On occasion, they mention artists who have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
A good example would be 3-time inductee, guitarist Eric Clapton. 1992 with the Yardbirds, 1993 with Cream and 2000 as a solo artist. His career spans more than 55 years!

There was a time I was influenced by the aura created by the R&R Hall... but little by little, I'd see Hip-Hop/Rap artists eclipsing some long time rockers. I mentioned this to a musician friend of mine about one band that were front runners to heavy metal and his comment was "It's political" as the singer in the band we talked about had a big mouth, especially when their albums received poor reviews. His mouth got the band black-balled.

Curious, I went to expecting to see some museum tours and memorabilia. Instead, it's a whole community of membership, classes, lectures, calendar events, swag and other stuff to buy... much more than I expected.

It's too soon to poo-poo the idea, so I won't write them off for now and one day if I retire and decide to take a road trip or an extended vacation to see my brother in Dayton, I'll have to head east to Cleveland, less than a 90 minute drive.