Education :: Blog
Now this is the way to start a new year!
My favorite Christmas present arrived by email: a photo of a smiling Antoine “Fats” Domino in his home in Louisiana, holding his 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame American Music Masters Award. Domino’s daughter sent it to us in December. We wish Fats could have made it to Cleveland in November, but we all stayed in touch over the week with photos and streaming video and text messages, so it felt like Fats and his family were close by. This year’s program honoring Fats and Dave Bartholomew was a great success—it brought together all the Museum’s resources: exhibits, classes for students and adults, distance learning classes to New Orleans, interviews, a conference, and a course the great tribute concert—topped off with the Rebirth Brass Band playing in the lobby of the Palace Theater. We just couldn’t say good night too soon! You can see photos from the week and some videos from the conference here.
The New Orleans music magazine Off Beat will be honoring Dave Bartholomew with a Lifetime Achievement Award later this month, and they just published a great story on Dave and American Music Masters, written by Domino’s biographer ...
Video Treasures
Working in the Education Department at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum has its perks. For example, I have access to some of the best experts in the field, whether they are academics, journalists or musicians themselves. Fortunately, the Rock Hall has worked hard over the years to chronicle exhibits, interviews and other opportunities that function not only as archival evidence, but also as fascinating windows into the thrilling culture of American popular music.
Recently, we went through tens of videos that Director of Education Jason Hanley worked with our curatorial staff to create a few years ago and found that they would complement our education courses, providing supplemental material for teachers and fans alike. We found an exciting sneak peek into the marketing strategy of Elvis, which we posted to our Rockin’ the Schools class site for 'Takin’ Care of Business: A Rock Band Finance Simulation.' We unearthed a great video showcasing rhythm and blues pioneer Big Joe Turner that we now feature on our distance learning On the Road class page for 'The Big Bang: The Birth of Rock and Roll.' We’re lucky to have our Vice President of Curatorial Affairs Jim Henke talking ...
An evening with 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' filmmaker Thom Zimny
Last Friday we hosted a special screening of Darkness on the Edge of Town, a film by Emmy and Grammy-award winning filmmaker Thom Zimny. The Darkness on the Edge of Town film is part of Bruce Springsteen's remarkable new box set, 'The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story released this past November. It includes a remastered version of the album, two cds of outtakes, a documentary about the making of the album, a full concert from 1978, and the film we screened. In Zimny’s film, Springsteen and The E Street Band perform their 1978 album in sequence at the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park, but with no audience present. The result is a stark and intense interpretation of the album.
The film brilliantly creates a sense of an album, not just a set of songs: there is no spoken introduction, no interviews, no content for the album itself. It begins with some haunting black-and-white footage of the amusement park buildings in Asbury Park shot in the late 70s, followed by a few shots of the band arriving at the theater. Then the band launches into “Badlands,” and it never lets up. In between songs, the ...
Rock Hall kicks off Black History Month with Double Exposure: African-American Music on Film
As I was finalizing our films for this year’s Black History Month celebration, Double Exposure: African-American Music on Film, I got an email from Mick Csaky, the producer and director of a new film documentary about legendary gospel start Sister Rosetta Tharpe that was broadcast on BBC television in January. But Mick wasn’t checking to see if we could screen the film---he didn’t even know we were doing a film series. He was writing to make his case that Sister Rosetta should be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His film, The Godmother of Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe is a powerful summary of her career, featuring blistering live performances where she displays her guitar prowess and mastery of the stage. He graciously gave us permission to screen the film, which we did this week to kick off our film series.
Gayle Wald, author of a fantastic biography of Sister Rosetta, Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, joined us for the evening. Gayle is chair of the Department of English at George Washington University, where she teaches courses on African American literature, popular music, and U.S. culture ...
An afternoon with members of Jefferson Starship at the Rock Hall
Three members of Jefferson Starship appeared at the Rock Hall on Friday for an afternoon of performance and conversation, including Chris Smith, David Freiberg (who was also an original member of Quicksilver Messenger Service), and Hall of Fame Inductee Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane). The group was in town to perform an evening of music with Cleveland’s Contemporary Youth Orchestra – Kantner mentioned it would be the first time they ever worked with an orchestra in a live concert.
During the afternoon session at the Rock Hall the group performed songs from the very first Jefferson Starship album, Blows Against the Empire (1970 - technically a Paul Kantner solo record that was the beginning of the band), including “Baby Tree” and “Have You Seen The Stars Tonight,” and thrilled the audience with the Quicksilver Messenger Service song “Pride of Man.” Kantner and Freiberg then talked about what it was like for the two of them 
living in San Francisco in the late 1950s and early 1960s when, as Freiberg said, the Beatniks were still hanging around. The most interesting conversation came when Kantner described how he had conceived of Jefferson Starship in the early 1970s as a collective of musicians who all ...
Clarence, you are dearly missed
The music world lost one of its finest artists over the weekend. Clarence “The Big Man” Clemons died on Saturday at a hospital in Palm Beach, Florida. His death was caused by complications from a stroke he had suffered on June 12th at his home in Florida. Best-known as the saxophonist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, Clemons was a great musician and a dramatic stage performer. In addition to being a member of the E Street Band, Clemons played with numerous other artists, including Aretha Franklin, Ringo Starr, Jackson Browne and, most recently, Lady Gaga.
Clemons was born on January 11, 1942, in Norfolk, Virginia. He began playing sax as a child, after his father gave him an alto saxophone for Christmas. His father made him practice in a room at his fish store, annoying Clarence, who wanted to be out playing with the other kids. Then, when he was a teenager, he got turned onto the music of King Curtis and other R&B musicians and he switched to tenor sax. He got a music and football scholarship to Maryland State College. In the mid-Sixties, he was going to try out for the Cleveland Browns, but an ...
Dreams Can Come True in Cleveland
Guest blog courtesy of 2011 Summer Teacher Institute participant Bernie Howitt of Australia.
Rock and roll has a proud and rich history which celebrates a major American cultural achievement. To the rest of the world, rock and roll was often their first and most meaningful point of contact with “America.” When Chuck Berry sang, “I’m so glad I’m livin’ in the USA” in 1959, he was echoing the aspirations of everyone who wasn’t.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is deservedly the centre point of the celebration and commemoration of rock history. Equally impressive is the commitment to education embodied in the Summer Teacher Institute. To gather teachers together and share the resources and expertise of the Museum and its staff is an incredible opportunity. As an Australian history teacher passionate about the role rock music can play in enthusing and inspiring students, the chance to attend STI represented a dream.
Amazingly dreams can occasionally come true. I was supposed to visit the Hall of Fame and Museum in September 2001, when fate tragically intervened. For years I thought I’d missed my chance, but I kept checking the website, envious of the resources ...
Her stories are legendary
Legendary Cleveland rock writer Jane Scott died early today. She was 92 years old. Jane worked at The Plain Dealer, Cleveland's daily newspaper, for 50 years. She started out as a society writer, but seeing the Beatles' first Cleveland show at Public Hall in 1964 changed her life. She became the paper's rock writer, a job she held until she retired in 2002. She was one of the first female rock writers in the country, and she covered all of the major bands, from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who to Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin and David Bowie.
Her stories are legendary. Springsteen always gave her a shout-out from the stage when he played shows in Cleveland. She interviewed Paul McCartney when the Beatles played their second show here, and the two became friends. She went car shopping with Jimi Hendrix, and he wound up buying a Corvette at a dealer in Shaker Heights. She drank beers with Jim Morrison in 1967. Bob Dylan gave her two kisses when he first met her.
I had the great fortune to get to know Jane when I worked at The Plain Dealer back in the mid-Seventies. What impressed ...
