We don’t often discuss the Musicians Hall of Fame, and with all due respect, there is a good reason for it. Since its inception in 2007, the Nashville based Hall has only had six classes, including the one we are about to discuss.  After their third class in 2009, the city of Nashville took over their property to make room for the Music City Center and they would reopen in 2013 on the first floor of the Nashville Municipal Auditorium.  They would induct their fourth class in 2014 and fifth in 2016, thus bringing us to the sixth class announced yesterday.

Before we get to that class, let’s look at what the Musicians Hall of Fame is first.  Their mandate is to recognize the contributions of performers, producers in rock and roll, country music and beyond.  As it is based in Nashville, it is not surprising that there has been more of a country flavor to the inductees, but nevertheless, we love the idea of this Hall of Fame, so let’s look at the Class of 2019.

Alabama:  The headliners of this class can make a claim as the most successful country music band of all-time.  Coming into prominence in the 1980s, Alabama would sell over 75 million records and had 40 number one hits.  

Steve Wariner:  Wariner has charted on the Country Music Charts 50 times and has written number 1 hits for Clint Black and Garth Brooks.

Don Everly:  Don Everly was one-half of the Everly Brothers, who are Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees.  Everly enters specifically winning the “Iconic Riff Award” for the intro to their hit, “Wake Up Little Susie”.

Felix Cavaliere:  A member of the Rascals and Joey Dee and the Starliters, Felix Cavaliere is a successful keyboardist.  He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Rascals.

Owen Bradley:  Bradley enters posthumously in the Musicians Hall of Fame Producer category.  He was a large part of developing the “Nashville Sound” and bringing Country Music sound to the modern era.  He entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1974.

Billy Sherrill:  Sherrill enters by receiving the Musicians Hall of Fame Engineer Award. He led recording sessions for George Jones and Tammy Wynette among others.

The Surfaris:  The California surf music group enters by earning the inaugural Musicians Hall of Fame Instrumental Song Award for their 1963 hit, “Wipe Out”.

Three groups of sessions musicians are also being inducted.  They are the modern “A-Team” (Eddie Bayers, Paul Franklin, John Hobbs, Brent Mason, Michael Rhodes), The Original Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section(David Briggs, Jerry Carrigan, Norbert Putnam, Terry Thompson, Earl “Peanut” Montgomery, Joe South and Reggie Young) and The Muscle Shoals Horn Section(Aaron Brown, Harrison Calloway, Ronnie Eades, Charlie Rose and Harvey Thompson). 

The ceremony will take place on October 22.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate the newest members of the Musicians Hall of Fame and we are hopeful that there will be annual inductions in the future.

The Country Music Hall of Fame does a lot right, one of which we would like to focus us on is their regular exhibits on selected musicians in the country music industry.  They will be doing that again, this time focusing on Brooks & Dunn, starting on August 9, running until July 19, 2020.  This will coincide with the duo’s impending induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame this fall.

Titled, Brooks & Dunn: Kings of Neon, will display many of their trophies, custom guitars, stage wear and an early draft of their #1 Hit, “Red Dirt Road”.

While we here at Notinhalloffame.com will not be in proximity to view the festivities in Nashville, we again congratulate the Country Music Hall of Fame for being one of the most progressive in their institutional field.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have announced that former Cornerback, Less Browne will be inducted into their franchise Hall of Fame.

Playing his college ball at Colorado State, Browne would play for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats where he was a two-time CFL All-Star before joining the Blue Bombers in 1989.  He was only there for three seasons, but he was selected for two more CFL All-Star teams and helped Winnipeg win the 1990 Grey Cup. He would have 27 Interceptions for the team.

Browne would later become an Assistant Coach for the team.

He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2002.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Less Browne for receiving this honor.

Normally we don’t talk about retired numbers until it become official, but we will touch on this story as some more meat on the bone has been added.

Following the moves of Kevin Durant to Brooklyn and Andre Iguodala to Memphis, the Golden State Warriors announced that sometime in the future that they would retire their numbers.  Both were vital to the recent championships for the franchise so it is not unexpected, though this announcement does seem early.

When asked about this, former Warriors star, Tim Hardaway said that his friends had the following to say in an interview to SF Gate:  

I'm laughing because as soon as they said Kevin Durant's number's gonna get retired, here they go, he said, 'Man that's some BS.  How they gonna retire his number and he only played there for three years and you played there for six years, and you giving them all the sweat and tears and everything like that and they're not gonna retire your number.'"

But, you know they deserve it, you know they won championships, man. They won championships, they was there, not to say I shouldn't be up there, but you know I can feel what Joe Lacob is saying and he wanna bring them joy and show them gratitude for what they did for the city.”

In the interview, Hardaway wanted to make it clear that it was the opinions of his friends and not of himself.

Hardaway was a member of the famous RUN-TMC trio with Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond.  Mullin’s number has been retired, but he is also in the Basketball Hall of Fame.  As of this writing, Hardaway and Richmond are not.

At present, Golden State had retired six numbers: Wilt Chamberlain (#13), Tom Meschery (#14), Alvin Attles (#16), Chris Mullin (#17), Rick Barry (#24) and Nate Thurmond (#42).

We will definitely be paying attention to this one!