Uniquely influential in their genre, ranging from poetry to pop, this year's inductees demonstrate the rich diversity in music and have helped shaped rock and roll as we now know it.
Over the course of his career, John Mellencamp has become a symbol of the hopes, struggles and passions of Americas heartland. As a songwriter, many of his efforts have transcended hit status (Hurts So Good, Pink Houses, I Need A Lover) and have entered the cultural vernacular. Mellencamps musical heart is in his ballads and rock numbers rooted in late 50s and early 60s rock and roll. His music describes the American experience; the hopes and fears of the common everyman.
Doors opened wide for Madonna in 1982, after five years as a singer and dancer on New York Citys competitive club circuit. She signed with Sire Records (her label for the next 14 years) where her idiosyncratic persona exploded onto turntables, dance floors and airwaves and captured the imagination of the first generation of MTV viewers. She went on to become the top female star of the 1980s with seven #1 hits, three #1 albums and seventeen top ten hits in that decade, and remains one of the most ferociously original artists in music today.
From Seattle, The Ventures defined instrumental guitar rock in the 1960s. Hitting the Billboard chart nearly three dozen times in the 1960s, their hits bookended the decade, from 1960s Walk Dont Run to 1969s Hawaii Five-O. Nokie Edwards twang-guitar and the crisp rhythm of Don Wilson, bassist Bob Bogle and drummer Mel Taylor gave every Ventures album their trademark bent note sound. Long admired by other bands like the Beatles (and especially George Harrison), Stephen Stills, Joe Walsh, Aerosmith, and others.
With the 1966 release of In My Life by Judy Collins, containing Leonard Cohens Suzanne and Dress Rehearsal Rag, Cohen became a folk rock icon of the singer songwriter movement. Already an acclaimed poet and novelist in his native Canada, Cohen later released his classic album Songs of Leonard Cohen, launching him into the highest and most influential echelon of songwriters. Cohens elegiac work is widely used in film and covered by artists from Jeff Buckley to Bono to Bob Dylan to R.E.M.
Pioneers of the British Invasion with Saxophone in Tow
One of the most successful British Invasion bands of the Sixties, The Dave Clark Five topped the UK charts in 1965 with their iconic pop song Glad All Over. Thundering production set the DC5 apart. Their slick melodic sensibility masked their boom factor: The DC5 were the loudest group in the U.K. until the advent of The Who. Drummer, songwriter and manager Dave Clark provided a perfect foundation for Mike Smiths soulful vocals. Reaching the Top Forty 17 times in just three years, with more appearances on the Ed Sullivan show than the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, the DC5 were an enormous pop phenomenon before disbanding in 1970. The Dave Clark Five have sold more than 50 million records worldwide to date.
