Posted on 03/10/2008 6:23:38 AM PDT by period end of story
Go back to ‘63 and you'll find a SEARCHERS album with “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and “All My Sorrows”. Go to late ‘64 and you'll find a 45 titled “What Have They Done to the Rain”. They were the first major band I can find playing ‘folk rock’.
There are too many groups/artists in the Hall who seem to be there because of record sales alone [Diana Ross and Madonna in, but not Darlene Love?].
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the DC 5 [Saw ‘em live once], but that doesn't mean they should have gone in the Hall, while their better contemporaries haven't.
The DC introduced a “brassy” sound to rock and roll. Now, it is presumptive to say groups like Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears were influenced by the DC5. Now, much early 1950s rock had a saxophone (usually an instrumental break), but the DC5 were the first to make it an intregal part of the single.
The Searchers singles you mention are indeed good...as a Brit Invasion fan I liked the “Rain” song.
Well, I feel they were innovative that unlike much of the Brit Invasion, they did write most of their own material. Dave Clark actually was one of the first rock stars to own all of his songs and publishing, which is why none of the group members were living in poverty.
They influenced Springsteen, Kiss (as admitted by Paul Stanley), Joan Jet covered Bits and Pieces.
They did not have a pretty voiced singer: they had an amazingly growly lead vocalist in Mike Smith, driving bass lines, stomping, high energy. They could do some good ballads as well, they slightly dabbled in psychedelic sounds. Pretty versatile band. They arranged it, they produced it, they performed it, and maybe not every time in the studio, they did play on recordings. They were some of the earliest versions of “hard rock.”
I think Paul Revere and the Raiders also should be in the Hall.
The industry continues now, as it always has, to kill rock and roll.
It was rushed off the stage in the late 1950s. And then again when the Beatles were told the guitar group sound was “out”. And again when pinko folkies got p*ssed at Dylan for playing an electric guitar. And again when “country” music infected the supposed rock and roll world after Woodstock. And again when disco and corporate rock rose in the 1970s. And again. And again.
Madonna claims that she had the Stooges play “as a protest” for their being excluded. But Ron Ashton is observant enough to know that it gets her press too.
Jann Wener can hold a grudge.
“I don’t recognize it as any sort of authority on the history of rock’n’roll.”
I made this point on the “boot the lame from the hall of fame” thread.
The history is false. We’ve been sold a false bill of goods.
Rock and Roll is not “kids junk” as it has been said in revisionist history. It was the sound of juke joints in the early 1950s. Adults gathered to drink, gamble, f***, and fight. It wasn’t written to “change the world with songs of golden protest”.
The Baby Boomers who were still in diapers when rock began have tried to use the false gods of Dick Clark, Bill Graham, Jann Wener, and a few others to tell us “who was cool” or “important” or “influential”. And if it came after their day (or was ignored by them in high school in their day) it didn’t “exist”.
Lester Bangs could put together a lot more essential list.
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