March 14, 2006
At a Hall of Fame Induction, Chords, and a Little Discord By KELEFA SANNEH
Last night, for the 21st year in a row, a roomful of rock 'n' roll movers and shakers morphed into rock 'n' roll sitters and eaters. They gathered at the Grand Ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria, to induct a new group of honorees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The building is in Cleveland, but the ceremony organizers know that their target demographic prefers the Coasts.
This year's inductees are Blondie, the Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Miles Davis, along with the record executives Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. The ceremony is to be shown on VH1 at 9 p.m. on next Tuesday.
The night began with a raucous tribute to Wilson Pickett (class of 1991), starring Solomon Burke (class of 2001). Mr. Pickett died in January. Even more raucous was Metallica's musical tribute to Black Sabbath; it followed a heartfelt introduction during which Metallica's lead singer, James Hetfield, fought back tears.
Shirley Manson, lead singer of Garbage, introduced Blondie, calling the group "one of the coolest, most glamorous, most stylish bands in the history of rock 'n' roll." Blondie's guitarist Chris Stein said Ms. Manson's introduction "put dents in my cynicism."
But it wasn't all sweet. When Frank Infante, who was not a founding member of Blondie, asked its lead singer, Debbie Harry, if he could play with the group, she kissed him sweetly and said, "Can't you see my band is up there?" He replied: "Your band? I thought Blondie was being inducted." He did not perform.
Induction into the Hall of Fame is not accompanied by a generous cash stipend. But perhaps the trustees cut a fat check to John Lydon, who was known as Johnny Rotten in the late 1970's when he was the singer for the influential punk band the Sex Pistols.
If he hasn't been given a check, Mr. Lydon deserves one: for the past few weeks, he has been the best publicist the hall could ask for. The band members said they would not be attending, explaining the decision with a splenetic handwritten note posted on a Sex Pistols Web site. Jann S. Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone and vice chairman of the hall (and 2004 inductee), read the note, to laughter and applause.
It says, in part: "Your anonymous as judges, but your still music industry people. Were not coming. Your not paying attention." You won't see the full version in this newspaper, and not just because of all the mangled contractions and misspellings. Mr. Lydon also told the late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel, "This is an institution â?? I don't know who they are, I don't care." But he apparently knows a little, because he continued, "They have rejected our nomination for three years running, and now they want a piece of us."
The hall began its yearly induction ceremony in 1986, and got many of the biggest, most obvious names out of the way pretty quickly. (The first year's haul included Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly; by decade's end, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder had joined them.)
And so these days, what drama there is surrounding the ceremony concerns the hall's quarter-century rule. According to its Web site, "Artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record." Stars can calculate the gap between the year they became eligible and the year they were inducted, then figure out how long they have been made to wait.
By this measure, Mr. Lydon does not have much to complain about. The Sex Pistols released their first and only proper album, "Never Mind the Bollocks," in 1977, which means the band has actually had a shorter waiting period than any of its fellow inductees. Shorter, certainly, than Miles Davis, who released his first album as a band leader about a half-century ago. (He died in 1991.)
He was remembered by Herbie Hancock, another jazz musician who may one day find himself an inductee. And Mr. Hancock did double duty, leading a band through a Miles Davis medley.
The notion of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame used to inspire skepticism, but these days the ceremony hardly seems like an anomaly: it is a star-driven, ready-for-VH1 awards ceremony in an era full of them.
Still, there is something amusing about watching rock 'n' roll being celebrated during dinner at a fancy hotel. With all those tables and all that catered food and all those tuxedos, the ceremony almost seemed like a wedding. But there was one small but telling difference. A wedding has a dance floor.
