Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: A Mistake

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Before you start screaming at me, I’m not saying the concept of a hall of fame for Rock and Roll music is a mistake. I’m not saying that housing that hall of fame in a particular building is a mistake. My point is simple: Cleveland is NOT the place for such an important building.

What place would have been better suited to house this shrine to the boogie-woogie? Why Detroit of course.

Formation of the Hall

The idea for a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame came about in the early 80s. Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic Records, decided that some artists and producers should be honored for their contributions to the musical genre. He assembled a team that included: Jann Wenner (the publisher of Rolling Stone) record executives Seymour Stein and Bob Krasnow, and Noreen Woods, and attorneys Allen Grubman and Suzan Evans.

Starting in 1986 the began inducting people into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The exact methods of how they determine who is going to get in are unknown (at least to me) but they generally do a decent job of it.

Even though the list of inductees was growing larger by the year, they didn’t have a permanent home for their hall so they chose one.

The Mistake by the Lake

Cleveland, Ohio, a city most notable for somehow catching a river on fire claims to be the “birthplace of rock and roll”. Why is that? What makes them the birthplace of Rock and Roll?

Well, if you listen to an Ohioan they will tell you that it all starts with Alan Freed.

Alan Freed

Alan Freed was a disc jockey for WJW. His audience was mostly white and in the late 1940s and early 50s, white people were listening to Dean Martin (an Ohio native) and Frank Sinatra.

One thing they certainly weren’t listening to was “race music” which was what they called R & B and the early formations of rock and roll. That was music that only the black people were listening to.

However, Freed had a buddy named Leo Mintz who owned Record Rendevous, a local record shop. Mintz began selling “race” records to his white, teenaged, clientele and they ate it up.

Mintz told Freed that he should start playing the music on his radio show, which he did to much controversy.

In 1952, Freed hosted what is called the “first rock concert” and oversold the tickets by over four-thousand. This led to a riot when people couldn’t all cram into the small venue and the concert was canceled early. Way to go Freed!

Black and White

All that sounds like pretty good bonafides, I hear you thinking. Why shouldn’t Cleveland host the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Think about it. The “birth” of Rock and Roll is when white people started listening to it? Seriously. That isn’t the birth of the genre and its early formation had nothing to do with Ohio at all.

There is no clear consensus as to where and when rock and roll were born, but it’s clear that it came out of musical traditions that began in the southern U.S. and traveled up to cities like Detroit and St. Louis.

One thing is clear though, Alan Freed didn’t invent it. He just introduced it to whites in Cleveland and did it to try and make money with his buddy Mintz.

Detroit

So why is Detroit the true home for rock and roll? Where do I begin?

Let’s start with two sub-genres of rock that don’t get talked about often enough and deserve some love: punk and techno.

Detroit is the birthplace of both music genres.

I can see some hands going up right now telling me that punk was NOT founded in Detroit. Well, you are wrong. It wasn’t New York or London, it was good old Detroit, Michigan.

Punk

The Stooges (fronted by Iggy Pop) is one of the pioneers of punk music and they came out of Ann Arbor. Note for anyone not in the know: all of Michigan is just Detroit.

Their first three albums (The Stooges, Fun House, and Raw Power) featured stripped vocals, power guitar, and simple bass lines and drum beats.

They introduced the entire world to the punk sound and they did so coming out of a garage.

But The Stooges weren’t the only punk band that Detroit bore. The Motor City 5 (MC5) was another early punk purveyor who recorded “Kick out the Jams” at Detroit’s Grand Ballroom.

Neither band lasted a long time, being too far ahead of their time, but a few years later bands in New York and London picked up the sound, and the punk movement was born.

Techno

You probably don’t know about this style. That’s not me looking down on you. As I said in my other piece on music, it sometimes takes a while for people to embrace new trends.

Techno music was invented in Detroit by Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Jeff Mills, Blake Baxter, Mike Banks, and Drexciya.

Atkins is the most influential of the group and it was he who coined the term “techno”.

This music still isn’t popular in the U.S. but it’s very popular in Europe. For the lay-people, it’s music made from electronic sources. That can be by a synthesizer, computer, or various other methods. Atkins used science fiction elements in his techno music and the genre is popular at dance clubs in the U.K.

Motown

Of course, Detroit doesn’t just invent genres of rock and roll, it also makes them better.

Motown Records, founded by Barry Gordy, was a staple of the music industry from the 60s and the 70s.

Here are some names from the first five classes of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Aretha Franklin, Bill Haley (born in Highland Park) Marvin Gaye, Smoky Robinson, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, and on and on and on.

All of these performers have Detroit connections (I don’t see many from Ohio) and many of them were given a shot by Motown records.

Do I need to go on? Are you still not convinced? If it weren’t for Detroit music would be nothing.

Bob Seger

Oh, right, Bob f**king Seger. He’s from Detroit.

One of rock and roll’s best singer/songwriters every. Night Moves, Turn the Page, Old Time Rock, and Roll, the guy is a living legend.

Then there’s Alice Cooper and Glenn Frey.

Who will Detroit produce in the future? Who knows, but I’m sure that there will be more great acts in the future.

So Why Cleveland?

I could give you sixty-five million reasons. Or, more accurately, Cleveland gave the search committee sixty-five million reasons.

The city lobbied HARD to get the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They ponied up a ton of cash ($65 million) and spent the better part of a year begging to be the choice.

Of the cities considered: Philadelphia, Memphis, New York, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, it’s pretty obvious that Cleveland is the weakest choice. Yet they are the ones who came out on top because money trumps everything.

So, yeah, Detroit deserves to have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but they didn’t have the coin to cough up for it. Cleveland did and they get the building.

At least it’s close enough to drive to, as Carol says. But that would mean being in Cleveland. Is it even worth it?