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Hall of Fame Series with Spooner Oldham
On November 2, 2011, Hall of Fame inductee Spooner Oldham spoke with and performed for a sold-out audience in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's Foster Theater. Oldham is a linchpin of Southern Soul and the Alabama sound, a fixture of famed Muscle Shoals and FAME studios, where his keyboard playing enlivened some of the biggest rock and roll songs of the past 50 years, including Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved a Man," Wilson Pickett's "Mustang Sally" and Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman." Together with singer-songwriter Dan Penn, Spooner contributed a number of classics to the canon of rock, co-writing "Cry Like a Baby" by the Box Tops, "It Tears Me Up" by Percy Sledge and "I'm Your Puppet" by James and Bobby Purify.
Born Dewey Lyndon "Spooner" Oldham in Center Star, Alabama, Oldham is one of rock's most in-demand players, appearing on records and tours with luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Neil Young, in addition to newer act Drive-By Truckers.
During his Hall of Fame series interview with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum director of education Jason Hanley, Oldham talked about ...
Carl Palmer Goes Solo
On October 9, Carl Palmer, the acclaimed drummer and founding member of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Asia, came to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum as part of the Museum's Legends series. Palmer is one of the great rock drummers. His playing ranges from the orchestral-like percussion of the Emerson, Lake & Palmer live album Pictures at an Exhibition (1971) to the powerful rock blast of the Asia hit “Heat of the Moment” (1982) – a track that also contains the sonic inspiration of Hal Blaine’s boom-boom, boom-chak from the Ronettes' “Be My Baby.”
During his Rock Hall appearance, Palmer candidly addressed his life – from his childhood in Birmingham, England, to an illustrious career that's included time in psychedelic act The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, prog rock innovators Atomic Rooster, platinum-selling ELP and Asia, and most recently the Carl Palmer Band. "I came from a family, half of whom worked in retail shops, the other half were musicians or worked in music," said Palmer. "The work I did with my dad working in our retail shops gave me my strong work ethic, but the fact there was always music being heard in my home had ...
The Universal Sound of Protest
This week, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum was honored to host an international discussion when BBC World Service's World Have Your Say broadcast live from the Museum's Alan Freed Studio. The program brought together a diverse panel of guests, including Rock and Roll Hall of Fame President and CEO Terry Stewart and Rock Hall Vice President of Education and Public Programs Lauren Onkey, who traded insights with remote guests English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, Egyptian rapper and poet Mohamed El Deeb, Yoko Ono and more. Host Ros Atkins posed the question that fueled the program's discussion: Has protest music disappeared?
"We had a spirited discussion about whether music can bring about social change," says Onkey. "It's a difficult thing to measure. The easy thing to do is to pull out a topical song, like an anti-war or anti-apartheid song, and measure it against whether or not something changed about that specific issue. But I think that change is harder to measure, and much broader and sometimes more subtle than that.
"Songs can educate us about an issue or a point of view from the past – The Specials' "Ghost Town," Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young ...
World Have Your Say Live at the Rock Hall
On Tuesday, October 11, BBC World Service's award-winning program World Have Your Say will broadcast live from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. The popular program is moderated by host Ros Atkins, leading a panel of guests and an international audience who actively participate in daily discussions of global issues. Listeners help dictate the conversation by calling in, emailing and leaving comments on the WHYS blog and the show's social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter.
"We've been to Cleveland many times, and it's always been a great experience," says Atkins. "Each time, we're told that we must visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, but we've never had the time. To get the opportunity to broadcast World Have Your Say from the home of rock and roll was too good to miss. However, as we're a current affairs talk show, we can't play the hits that I'd like!"
The hour-long broadcast begins tomorrow at 1 pm EST in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's Alan Freed Studio. The Museum is a fitting location for a show that harnesses ...
Boardroom Blitz
On October 2, the 2011 FORTUNE Battle of the Corporate Bands competition came to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum for the finals showdown. For the past six months, regional competitions were held in Dallas, San Francisco and Chicago, where corporate bands vied for one of eight finalist slots. Bands from across the country – and one from Venezuela – were awarded coveted spots on the finals stage in Cleveland, representing Mattel, Ernst & Young, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, Progressive Insurance, ConAgra Foods, Starbucks, Resource Interactive, and Procter and Gamble.
The Battle of the Corporate Bands is held each year to salute the best amateur, company-sponsored bands, and is presented by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), FORTUNE magazine and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The goal of the national competition is to promote the benefits of making music, which have been shown to increase employee morale and improve productivity in the workplace. “Competing in the Corporate Battle of the Bands ranks right up there as one of the best experiences of my life," says Ernst & Young/American PI's Carolyn Powers. "Working with 11 virtual strangers, we created something as a whole infinitely better ...
Hearts of Heart: Ann and Nancy Wilson
When we discussed potential artists to include in the Women Who Rock exhibit, everyone wanted Heart included. Breaking out in the mid-1970s, Heart mixed hard rock riffs with intensely rhythmic acoustic songs and powerful harmonies, crashing onto FM radio like they owned it. Since then, they’ve managed to navigate changing trends and definitions of rock in the MTV and grunge eras with both hits and critical acclaim, and their most recent album, Red Velvet Car (2010), ranks with their best.
Ann and Nancy Wilson visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week for a terrific Legends series. They sat down with me for an interview, and then performed acoustic versions of “Dog and Butterfly,” “WTF,” “Sand” and “Crazy on You.” It was a great night. They shared their thoughts on the history of women in rock and roll, their influences and heroes, and their songwriting craft. They were funny and insightful, and obviously big time rock and roll fans.
Heart came out of the gates strong with their first album, Dreamboat Annie, which was released in the U.S. in February of 1976 and quickly climbed the charts behind the “Crazy on You” and “Magic Man” singles ...
