Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Nina Simone & Sister Rosetta Now In The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!


The 2018 Inductees to Cleveland's Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame, selected by a panel, with online fan input:
Performer Category:
• Bon Jovi
• The Cars
• Dire Straits
• The Moody Blues
• Nina Simone
Award for Early Influence:
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe



Artists nominated for 2018 but not selected:

Kate Bush
Depeche Mode
Eurythmics
The J. Geils Band
LL Cool J
MC5
The Meters
Radiohead
Rage Against the Machine
Rufus featuring Chaka Khan
Link Wray
The Zombies


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Very good (and somewhat surprising) news today that Nina Simone and Sister Rosetta Tharpe will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.


Folk icon Janis Ian posted a meme earlier this year declaring that "before Elvis, before Chuck Berry, a queer Black woman invented rock n roll" (I'm paraphrasing here). This intriguing statement led me and perhaps many others to check out Sister Rosetta. I had heard of her, but never really listened to her music before. However, this video, from a 1964 UK performance, made me a believer, forever...





There is an excellent 2007 book about Sister Rosetta you can buy on Amazon here...




Sister rocked the guitar like no other.

Nina Simone is a wonderful, complicated artist. I guess this fits more into the "rock & roll attitude" category, since little of her music could be called rock & roll. But since so many non-rock artists are already in the Hall (Madonna, NWA), the cat is officially out of the bag and if we're nominating people on the basis of rock & roll attitude, Nina got that in spades.




Shame the MC5, Zombies, and Link Wray didn't get in, but glad that Rage and Radiohead didn't (too soon).





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