2013: Transitional Backfilling

6 Inductees: Heart, Albert King, Randy Newman, Public Enemy, Rush, Donna Summer

Yes: Randy Newman, Public Enemy, Donna Summer

Borderline Yes: Rush

No: Heart, Albert King

Of the six inductees in 2013, all but Public Enemy reflect backfilling from the 1970s and 1980s. These are artist who have been eligible for some time, and three of them do represent the transition from the classic period to the modern period that occurred in those years.

Blues guitarist Albert King and singer-songwriter Randy Newman are the most traditional inductees. King's style and approach proved most amenable to rock and soul fans, but his appeal was his most notable feature as his talent and track record do not merit inclusion. On the other hand, Newman has been overlooked year in and year out for two decades. Not just his sterling songwriting but his understated performances have formed an influential thread in the Rock and Soul Era.

Heart, Rush, and Donna Summer all exemplify the transition from one mode to another with Rush and Summer, in their respective genres, actually helping to effect that transition, Rush with its wedding of hard rock/heavy metal with progressive rock, and Summer with an eclectic approach that transcended 1970s disco and anticipated dance-music styles of the 1980s and beyond. Both efforts make them Hall of Famers. Heart managed to thrive in two careers, first as a hard-rock band in the 1970s and then as power-balladeers in the 1980s. Moreover, Heart was the first successful hard-rock band to be led by women, sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson, a notable accomplishment. However, Heart the band followed the trends of those two phases and was not distinguished or innovative; that does not rise to the level of the Hall of Fame.

Public Enemy represents the only modern (post-punk) rock and soul artist in the class of 2013. Its impact and influence extended beyond hip-hop and into popular music, combining a complex musical bed with an astute, committed lyrical outlook. Ironically given its forceful and sometimes controversial stances, it is the least contentious candidate of 2013.

Last year, I did a detailed evaluation of all 15 artists who appeared on the 2013 ballot including, obviously, the six who were elected from that ballot. So, if some of the arguments below seem repetitive, it is because I've covered this territory within the last year.

Ecumenical and Eclectic: Randy Newman, Public Enemy, Donna Summer

The three definite picks for the 2013 Hall of Fame class—Randy Newman, Public Enemy, and Donna Summer—help to symbolize the diverse and diffuse path the Rock and Soul Era has taken: Newman is a quintessential classic-rock singer-songwriter (admittedly hardly an underrepresented genre) with a decidedly singular approach while Public Enemy not just vital to the development of hip-hop but to popular music in general, and Donna Summer, the "Queen of Disco" whose style and approach transcended the genre, is similarly an influential artist in popular music. An unlikely grouping, but one that underscores how diverse and universal the Rock and Soul Era is becoming.

Randy Newman: The fact that it took 15 years for Randy Newman to get on a Hall of Fame ballot from when he first became eligible in 1991 sums up this singer, pianist, and songwriter's career in a nutshell: Newman has always been around—he just doesn't get noticed. His songs do, though, and they had been getting noticed early and often. Newman had begun penning hits for artists such as Jerry Butler and Gene Pitney in the mid-1960s before he released his first album in 1968. That was a modest precursor to a string of more successful albums—and even a hit single, "Short People"—through the early 1980s, when Newman began to concentrate on film scores. And although Newman was nominated for 2005, it took another eight years, until 2013, for him to appear on another ballot. Fortunately, he made it—and it is about damn time.

Why is Randy Newman's a legitimate induction? I could go on at length—and in fact I have. Not only did I make Newman's case in my evaluation of the 2013 ballot, but I presented an extensive case for Newman's Hall inclusion in 2011—to date the only article I've written for this site that concentrates expressly on one artist only.

To summarize, then: Apart from his film work, Randy Newman is best-known as a singer-songwriter, one like Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, and Joni Mitchell, whose compositions proved to be as successful for other artists as for themselves. But Newman was poles apart from that openly confessional style, his terse, understated, but finely-drawn observations, overwhelmingly in the third person, concealed his droll irony until after the final note evaporated; this left the listener to turn around to gape at the sly songster already halfway out the door. Newman's best albums are 12 Songs ("Suzanne," "Lucinda," "Mama Told Me Not to Come") and Sail Away (the title song, "You Can Leave Your Hat On," "Political Science"), both essential rock albums, and many of the rest from this period are not too far behind.

As an artist whose songs have been covered by acts from Three Dog Night to Joe Cocker to Linda Ronstadt to Bonnie Raitt to Harry Nilsson (who recorded an entire album of Newman's songs), Newman himself as a performer has provided the wryest commentary on the Rock and Soul Era than anyone else. In fact, his strength as a performer pushes him past Isaac Hayes and Laura Nyro and even Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, all artists whose songs often overshadow them. And although I stated at the top of this article that I don't subscribe to the relativist idea that an artist might be worthy of the Hall only if another artist is inducted first, Randy Newman really should have been inducted before any of them because he made their inductions possible in the first place.

Public Enemy: It is hard to overstate the importance of Public Enemy, not just as one of the greatest hip-hop bands but as one of the great bands of the Rock and Soul Era. Hip-hop had discovered its social and political consciousness by the time Public Enemy arrived on the scene in the late 1980s, but PE combined a social and sonic message that exploded from the speakers and established it as the premier commentator on the scene. Chuck D was one of the most commanding MCs to rock the mike, with Flavor Flav a canny comic foil, while DJ Terminator X supplied imaginative cuts and scratches in a rich, resonant production atmosphere generated by Hank Shocklee's peerless Bomb Squad.

PE's debut Yo! Bum Rush the Show was as much pose ("Sophisticated Bitch," "Miuzi Weighs a Ton") as promise ("Rightstarter (Message to a Black Man)," "Timebomb"), but It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back cashed in that potential to become an essential album not just of hip-hop but of the post-punk period. It bristles with brilliant manifestoes from "Don't Believe the Hype," "Bring the Noise," and "Prophets of Rage" to the tremendous "Rebel without a Pause" and "Party for Your Right to Fight." Meanwhile, "She Watch Channel Zero?!" was not only a scathing media critique, it was built on a heavy-metal sample (Slayer's "Angel of Death") that continued the cross-pollination of hip-hop and metal. ("Bring the Noise" was later re-done with Anthrax.)

Even better was Fear of a Black Planet as the production was richer and more intricate, bolstering the white-hot tracks "Burn Hollywood Burn," "Who Stole the Soul," and "Welcome to the Terrordome," and culminating with "Fight the Power," the keynote to Spike Lee's superlative film Do the Right Thing. By now, Public Enemy was being lauded and reviled in equal measures depending on which side of the street you stood; the sound snippets that lace Black Planet provide an incisive commentary on its circumstances and on the social climate overall. The follow-up Apocalypse 91 . . . the Enemy Strikes Black kept the streak alive, particularly on "How to Kill a Radio Consultant"—continuing the media critique from Black Planet—and the pounding "By the Time I Get to Arizona."

Then PE lost its broad pulpit by the mid-1990s as subsequent albums found the group preaching to the converted, although the group kept its intelligence and integrity intact. However, Public Enemy had already established itself as one of the guideposts for the Rock and Soul Era with its rich blend of sonic impact and social commentary. Its induction into the Hall is a foregone conclusion.

Donna Summer: A conspicuous face—and a pleasing one—in a genre, disco, that thrived on faceless anonymity, singer Donna Summer was never a great singer but she was decidedly an effective one who helped to define pop music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Thus, it is a lasting indictment of the Hall that Summer, eligible since 2000 and a nominee in four of the last five years before her 2012 death, had to be inducted posthumously.

But although Summer may be known as the Queen of Disco, her approach actually transcended such narrow categorization as she combined elements of rock, rhythm and blues, and burgeoning electronica with the basic disco template to create dance music that was more varied, more lasting—and often more soulful and spiritual—than the typical formula.

Despite this, Summer nearly pigeonholed herself early on when, with German producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, she released a racy novelty in 1975, the lengthy "Love to Love You Baby," which featured Summer's steamy moans and groans. Although a shortened version became a huge single, it took Summer a couple more years before she had a hit that big again, but when she did strike gold with the ahead-of-its-time "I Feel Love," the floodgates opened: "Last Dance," "MacArthur Park," "Heaven Knows," "Bad Girls," "Hot Stuff," "Dim All the Lights," "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" (her duet with Barbra Streisand), and "On the Radio" were all chart smashes that established Summer's supremacy; several of those were from Summer's 1979 album Bad Girls, the greatest disco album this side of the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever.

As the 1980s began, Summer showed her range and adaptability. Having reconnected with her Christian beliefs, she injected that sense of spirituality into a flavor of synth-pop that she, Moroder, and Bellotte had anticipated with "I Feel Love," yielding hits with "Cold Love," "The Wanderer" (both from another strong album, The Wanderer), and "She Works Hard for the Money," a giant hit in 1983 whose class and gender themes were especially conspicuous during the Reagan years.

Although Summer's career cooled after that, she had been a workhorse for a decade, her collaborations with Moroder and Bellotte paving the way for electronica and subsequent dance-oriented styles. Summer rightly takes her place as one of the pop divas of the Rock and Soul Era—and her inclusion in the Hall of Fame is marred only by her not being alive to see it.

Atlas Smugged: Rush

In a sense, Rush suffered a double whammy in its quest for the Hall: This Canadian power trio has featured the heavy-metal crunch since the beginning of its career, while the band quickly assimilated the lyrical and musical complexity of progressive rock. Neither genre has been warmly embraced by the Hall, and not only does the combination compound that indifference, but Rush's own technocratic elitism also conspired against it.

Beginning as meat-and-potatoes sluggers with blue-collar sensibilities ("Working Man"), Rush soon added drummer Neal Peart, whose instrumental expertise upgraded the band's skills, but it was his lyrics that began to set Rush apart from the hard-rock pack. A devotee of the philosophical and social ideas of Ayn Rand (as he noted in the liner notes to 2112), Peart introduced a libertarian bent to Rush's songs, initially tinged with science-fiction themes—the titular half of 2112 outlined a future society in which music was banned and transgressors punished (beating Frank Zappa to the punch by a few years). This may have given the band intellectual cachet but that soon evolved into smug elitism and social engineering.

With guitarist Alex Lifeson and singer-bassist Geddy Lee also honing their instrumental chops, Rush reeled off a string of technically polished, lyrically sophisticated albums from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s that contained mounting evidence that the band was stipulating a social order that positioned it on top: "Closer to the Heart" (from A Farewell to Kings), "The Trees" (Hemispheres), "Freewill" (Permanent Waves), "Tom Sawyer" (Moving Pictures), "New World Man" and "Subdivisions" (both from Signals), while "Limelight" (from Moving Pictures) whined about the perils of rock and roll fame. Listeners didn't seem to mind, perhaps because Rush's pounding dynamics wedded to its cool technical expertise became a progressive-metal touchstone, and because songs like the thoughtful "Red Barchetta," the compelling "Distant Early Warning," and the whirling "The Spirit of Radio," one of rock's great radio songs, exemplified both the band's brains and brawn.

All of them garnered Rush a devoted fan base, and the band has continued to play to that base, updating its sound while maintaining its core approach, ever since. Moreover, Rush's inclusion strikes two blows against the Hall's biases against hard rock and progressive rock. By-Tor and the Snow Dog!

Better in Concept Than in Execution: Heart, Albert King

With the induction of Heart, the Hall had its, er, heart in the right place—the band is notable for its female leadership, all but unknown in 1970s hard rock—but examination of the band's track record finds that it was a dogged survivor and not an innovative leader. Blues guitarist Albert King sported a flashy style that was attractive to rock and soul audiences, but his substance was not exceptional. Neither act should be in the Hall.

Heart: There is no disputing that, right from the start, hard rock has been a boys' game. So, for the Wilson sisters, singer Ann and guitarist Nancy, to not only have fronted Heart but to have been its driving force is undeniably noteworthy. But is it Hall of Fame-worthy? Only if the accomplishment is that the Wilsons led a hard-rock band to commercial success without recognizing that Heart in either of its two phases, an arena-rock act pounding out rockers in the 1970s and an arena-rock act pumping out ballads in the 1980s, was hardly exceptional or innovative.

In the 1970s, Heart's folk-metal approach found the band tagged as "Jethro Zeppelin," with "Dreamboat Annie" and "Silver Wheels" taking the acoustic approach while "Crazy on You," "Barracuda," and the supple, muscular "Magic Man" turned up the volume. In truth, Heart did have a hard time transcending its derivations—the band's live version of Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" is a too-faithful reproduction, while "Dream of the Archer" borrows conspicuously from Zep's "The Battle of Evermore." Nevertheless, rockers such as "Even It Up," "Kick It Out," and the droll "Bebe le Strange" had no problem mixing it up with other classic-rock staples.

Reviving its flagging market share in the 1980s, Heart discovered the power ballad, and helped by Ann's strong voice, it unleashed a string of hits starting with "What About Love" and moving through "These Dreams," "Alone," and a number of others, while songs like "Who Will You Run To" aimed for arena-rock grandeur. The band's polished production was similarly a departure from its previous lean attack. By the 1990s, women in rock were much more prevalent although the pioneering efforts of the Wilson sisters seemed to have been overlooked until now.

Thus, the questions remain: Is Heart in the Hall of Fame because it was the first commercially successful hard-rock band led by two women? Or is it in the Hall because it is a distinguished hard-rock band regardless of gender composition? The former seems more likely, and although the Hall has been fairly diligent about recognizing the distaff influence on the Rock and Soul Era, for good (Brenda Lee, Patti Smith) and not-so-good (Darlene Love, Laura Nyro), this is a gratuitous inclusion. Sometimes being first is not enough.

Albert King: Much like Buddy Guy, Albert King is a blues guitarist who had been embraced by rock fans and musicians. Indeed, with King playing his signature Gibson Flying V guitar left-handed and in a flashy style, he seemed more in sync with rock and soul than with blues. On his keynote Stax album Born under a Bad Sign he was backed by Booker T. and the MGs, and three standout songs soon gained currency among rock players: "Born under a Bad Sign" spawned versions by several artists from Cream to, er, Homer Simpson; Eric Clapton covered "Crosscut Saw"; and "The Hunter" became incorporated into Led Zeppelin's "How Many More Times."

Furthermore, even though he was actually two years older than his namesake B.B. King, Albert King didn't earn significant success until the Rock and Soul Era. But despite the flash and acclaim from the rock crowd, King seldom rose above the sum of his influences, which ranged from Lonnie Johnson to T-Bone Walker to B.B. King; after hearing B.B.'s "Three O'Clock Blues," Albert King Nelson dropped the "Nelson" from his name and went with "Albert King" as his stage name. King's blues-playing could be fiery ("Killing Floor," "Why You So Mean to Me?") if derivative, but when he ventured into rock and pop, such as on a string of albums for the Tomato label (Albert, Truckload of Lovin'), King seemed out to sea, awash in the ornate arrangements—unlike B.B. King, who brought his stylistic flourishes firmly within the framework of the blues.

Albert King might have been a favorite of rock players from Mick Taylor to Stevie Ray Vaughan to Joe Walsh, but like them, King was a high-powered guitar-slinger looking for something to say. And that is not the résumé of a Hall of Fame artist.

2011 – 2013: Coda

In the last three years of selecting inductees, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted 17 artists. The table below shows those 17 categorized as noted previously: Yes, Borderline Yes, and No. (I am not including the six backing bands inducted retroactively in 2012 as they are associated with artists already inducted.)

Breakdown of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees, 2011 – 2013
Year	Yes	Borderline Yes	No	Total Inductees
2011	0	2	3	5
2012	2	2	2	6
2013	3	1	2	6
Totals	5	5	7	17
Pct. of Total	29.4%	29.4%	41.2%	100%

In the expansive scenario, that the Borderline Yeses are justified, 10 out of 17, or 58.8 percent, of its inductees are worthy of induction, with 7 out of 17, or 41.2 percent, not worthy of the Hall. In 2011, the Hall did not have a sure-fire inductee, with only 2 inductees even Borderline Yeses.

In the exclusive scenario, that the Borderline Yeses are not justified, a mere 5 of 17, or 29.4 percent, are worthy of the Hall. Given the smaller than usual sample size, these percentages appear more extreme.