Into the Vault, Part 4

A quick note: “Iconic Rock Moments” is now a regular feature of the Earth Station One Podcast, the flagship program of the ESO Network family of podcasts–check it out for a weekly dose of pop culture geekdom, now including some music news.

http://esopodcast.com/podcasts/earth-station-one-podcast/

And now, because I’m stubborn…back to the vault.

Golden Years: Honoring the Early Influences

If you follow the online rants that pop up like mushrooms after rain on any article about or by the RRHOF, it’s fun to see how the name of the place is such a lightning rod for the rock police. “It’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not the Pop/Rap Crap/Any Music Hall of Fame!!!” Usually some intellectual soul will mention the idea that the actual “rock and roll” era is long over, supplanted—sometime between 1965 and 1967, and to some as early as 1959—by the more artistically mature and self-aware genre of “rock,” so no act breaking after that development fits the term anyway.

This is a roundabout way of saying that rock’s formative years were a finite and relatively short period, prompting the question of how well the HOF has covered them, especially now that 90s acts are knocking on the door.  The answer?   Since 2000, there have only been three Early Influence inductees. As of right now, Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Link Wray, Dick Dale, Lonnie Donegan and the Marvelettes are just some of the names not yet inducted.