Rock Hall Still Fails to Honor Many Black Trailblazers

Summary

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Except for the aforementioned iconic Black artists, the Rock Hall inductions on April 24 in Cleveland blows off the Black origins of this music. If it were honest, trailblazing greats such as the Spaniels ("Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight"), Clovers ("Good LovuT), El Dorados ("At My Front Door"), Marcels ("Blue Moon"), Gene Chandler ("Duke of Earl"), Faye Adams ("Shake a Hand") and Johnny Ace ("Pledging My Love") would have been in long ago.

That said, it warms my heart that Little Anthony ("Goin' Out of My Head," "Tears On My Pillow," "Hurt So Bad," "Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop,") and [Bobby Womack] ("Lookm' For a Love," "Across 110th Street," "A Woman's Gotta Have It," "It's All Over Now") have finally been recognized. Nevertheless, it hurts my heart to think that so many other trendsetters are still waiting to get their due.

There's not a Black rapper alive or dead who should be honored at the expense of the Five Keys ("Close Your Eyes"), Harptones ("Sunday Kind of Love"), Cadillacs ("Speedo"), Roy Hamilton ("You'll Never Walk Alone"), Chuck WiIUs ("You're Still My Baby"), Mary WeUs ("My Guy") or countless other talented, hitmaking pioneers.

[...] the Spaniels' famous signature song was their 1954 smash, "Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight," which introduced Black R&B to white America and has been prominently featured in movies such as "American Graffiti" (1973), "WW. and the Dixie Dancekings" (1975), and "3 Men and a Baby" (1987).

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Rock Hall Still Fails to Honor Many Black Trailblazers

"It's about time the piano realizes it has not written the concerto. . . " - Hugh Marlowe, "All About Eve" (1950)

Notwithstanding this year's overdue selections of Little Anthony and the Imperials and vocalist-songwriter Bobby Womack, the increasingly phony Rock...

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