singer :: Blog
Paul McCartney Celebrates 71st Birthday
Fresh off a headlining, nearly three-hour set at the 2013 Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Paul McCartney celebrated his 71st birthday on June 18.
As one of the principal songwriters in the Beatles, McCartney helped the band rack up more than four dozen Top 40 US singles, while his prolific solo output – more than 20 studio albums since the Fab Four parted ways – has netted Macca more than 50 Top 10 singles. Given that, McCartney stands among the most successful pop-music composers ever and one of the greatest hitmakers – trailing behind Elvis Presley. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum has major exhibits devoted to both Elvis Presley and the Beatles.
His songs often celebrate the mundane pleasures of everyday life. As a songwriter who delights in the quotidian, as opposed to edgier rock and rollers steeped in mystique and risk-taking, McCartney has rarely been a favorite of rock critics. However, his body of work – some of it admittedly lightweight, much of it unjustly dismissed – has given boundless pleasure to the music loving public. Having been the primary melodist within the Beatles, it is not surprising that McCartney’s knack for ...
At the Library and Archives: Roy Orbison’s Final Interview
For the past year and a half, the staff of the Rock Hall’s Library and Archives has been working to digitally preserve and catalog thousands of hours of footage of performances, interviews, education programs, oral histories and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies that have taken place over the past few decades. Making this footage and other resources available to researchers and music fans for the first time is one of the things that already makes our jobs exciting, but one recent donation really captured my interest.
It was the original VHS cassette containing the very last interview with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Roy Orbison ever recorded. The interview was done at the Front Row Theater in Highland Heights, Ohio, after Orbison’s final show on December 4, 1988, and this was the tape that was there in the room while the interview took place. It was recently donated by Tony Weber, who conducted the interview for his public access television show that ran from 1987 to 1989. Some low-quality dubs of the footage (likely captured from the television broadcast) can be seen on YouTube, but this is the original tape, so it is ...
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Interviews Oliver Stone
Interview with award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone, who visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and sat down with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after his visit to share his impressions of the Museum, learning more about the roots of rock and roll, the history of rock and roll and the films featured in the exhibits; as well as hearing Motown for the first time in Vietnam; a time when rock and roll was "trashed," the importance of preserving pop culture, how "music is supposed to transcend" and more. Click here to plan your visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum this summer!
At the Library and Archives: The Smith Tapes 1969-1972
Howard Smith was a man both on the scene and of the scene in late-1960s New York. As a photographer, columnist and broadcaster, Smith immersed himself in the emerging subculture of music and art while maintaining a keen journalist’s eye on the revolution happening around him. The interviews that comprise the set, The Smith Tapes 1969-1972, recently acquired by the Library and Archives, are raw, unedited recordings with those at the forefront of the hippie subculture as well as the era’s rock superstars, including John Lennon, Abbie Hoffman, Lou Reed, the authors of Hair, and Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper talking about their new film Easy Rider.
Within this compelling collection there are some true gems. A USB flash drive – cleverly housed in a replica audio cassette with faux-stained labels – contains a collection of reports from the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, where Smith describes both the serenity of the fans and the struggle of organizers amidst the rain and near-overwhelming crowds. On one of the final discs in the collection is a brief phone interview with Janis Joplin who, when questioned about the burgeoning women’s liberation movement, initially dismisses it but encourages women not to settle ...
Inside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
On April 18, 2013, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame officially ushers the 2013 class of inductees into the Hall of Fame during the 28th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The class – Lou Adler, Heart, Quincy Jones, Albert King, Randy Newman, Public Enemy, Rush and Donna Summer – are represented in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland's newest exhibit. In the series of clips below, get a behind the scenes look at the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees exhibit. Visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to see the new exhibit!
Lou Adler
Heart
Quincy Jones
Albert King
Randy Newman
Public Enemy
Rush
Donna Summer
American Treasure: 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Randy Newman
“See, if I were to write Billy Joel’s ‘Just The Way You Are,’ I’d wreck it,” he said, explaining why his instincts run contrary to pop music. “I’d have written ‘I love you just the way you are, you stupid little bitch.’ Which really isn’t as good.”
Of course, he’s joking. But he’s also serious. And it’s that’s precise blend of humor and gravity that has distinguished the songs of Randy Newman from the start. He’s both one of the most hilarious and most serious of all songwriters. A compositional genius, he’s the only great American songwriter to become an accomplished film composer (with some 26 films to date, each with a fully orchestral score he wrote and conducted himself). But he’s also a lyrical genius who has done more than created a style; he’s created his own school of songwriting.
Newman’s songs use the novelistic technique of the untrustworthy narrator, a sometimes funny, often dark, always effective way of shaping a song.
Asked why he chose this indirect method of songwriting, he said: “Maybe it’s a psychological defect. I don’t want to stand up ...
In the Museum: Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin was only 24 years old when she signed with Atlantic Records in November 1966, but she had already been making records for much of her life, first as a child gospel singer, then as a pop singer of only modest success.
Born on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, Aretha Franklin was raised in Detroit. Her father, Rev. C.L. Franklin, was the charismatic pastor at New Bethel Baptist Church, which he turned into a large and thriving institution. From an early age, Aretha sang at her father’s behest during services at New Bethel. Her first recordings turned up on an album called Spirituals, recorded at the church when she was only 14. Although she was firmly rooted in gospel, Franklin also drew from such blues and jazz legends as Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughn as she developed her singing style. On the male side, she was inspired by Ray Charles, Nat King Cole and Sam Cooke (both with and without the Soul Stirrers). From the emerging world of youthful doo-wop groups and early soul, Aretha enjoyed the likes of LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown, Little Willie John, the Falcons (featuring Wilson Pickett) and Frankie Lymon ...
Rare Performances: The Stooges Perform "Search and Destroy" Live
The original Stooges seemed to push rock and roll as far as it could go before they flamed out in 1970. However, in 1973, with encouragement from David Bowie, Iggy Stooge returned, though he now called himself Iggy Pop. His reconstituted Stooges rocked with even more abandon. On the aptly named 1973 Raw Power album, the Stooges achieved an incendiary sound that was thrilling and dangerous. "The Stooges define a moment in rock and roll history. They symbolize the destruction of flower power and they introduce us to raw power," said Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, when he inducted the group into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. "When I think of the sound of war, chaos and demolition; sex, sensuality, poetry and brutal truth, I think of the Stooges. It's the sound of blood and guts, sex and drugs, heart and soul, love and hate, poetry and peanut butter."
"Search and Destroy" was among the album's standout tracks. On the brash recording, Iggy's distorted vocals carried lyrics that spoke for Vietnam vets, disenfranchised youth and anyone else who felt left out in 1973. The music bubbled with urgency, with James Williamson's ...
