Songs Of Proof: The Class Of 1990

Welcome to the nineties.  Or the last year of the eighties.  Yeah, I know, but there are those who think of decades from 1-0 or 10, rather than 0-9.  Either way, we're coming to one of the biggest induction classes for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.  This is the year that the British Invasion acts that took America by storm really started to become eligible, and we see that twice here.  Groups with vocal harmonies are big this year too, as three groups (four if you count duos) and the front man from another are all inducted, along with a perceived teen idol who turned out to have more musical chops and savvy than people gave him credit for.  Two songwriting teams were our Non-Performers, and as I enforce the Mort Shuman rule here, what probably should only amount to two songs here becomes five, as Gerry Goffin And Carole King each get their own song, as do each of three men of Holland-Dozier-Holland.  Speaking of songwriters, my two all-time favorite songwriters are in the class too (in the Performer category, that is).  The Early Influences show a massive legend, a blues pioneer, and the weirdest case of Front Man Fever to date.  This is a fantastic class, rife with acts I both love and respect.  So, how do we honor them?  With these songs:

Louis Armstrong:  The great Satchmo.  Arguably the biggest jazz legend of all time.  His Hot Five/Seven were not included with him, but that's the way it goes sometimes.  He was an Early Influence inductee, so it wouldn't be proper to select "Hello, Dolly" or "What A Wonderful World," even if the former has the distinct honor of being the first non-Beatles song to knock the Beatles out of the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.  No, the proper thing to do is to actually research his legendary work prior to rock and roll.  Armstrong's rise to fame predates Jackie Robinson's breaking the color barrier in baseball, Jesse Owens' run to Berlin, and the vast majority of inductees in this Hall, though not all.  For him to be popular with his style of music is no small feat and carried no small amount of influence.  For this set, he is honored with his smash hit version of "All Of Me."

Hank Ballard:  After Smokey Robinson, this is the biggest case of Front Man Fever in the Performer category.  While Ballard did have a separate solo career, it didn't happen soon enough for him to be eligible as a soloist for the Hall by the time he was inducted, and even on his two solo hit records, there was a backup group credited with him.  So, I assume with that, there's no dispute about me using a song credited to "Hank Ballard And The Midnighters," and I chose "Finger-Poppin' Time," which while not the most revered record from this outfit, did go a long way in introducing the wider audience to his style of R&B, which Ballard himself always insisted was tinged with country influences too.

Charlie Christian:  In the past two decades, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame has almost seemed to make a point of being controversial and otherwise weird about their inductions.  For my money, however, this is the most bizarre of all.  Charlie Christian wasn't the leader of a band, he was a hired hand.  He was a guitarist with the Benny Goodman Orchestra for a couple years before he died.  He probably could have gone on to a fabulous solo career or leader of his own combo.  We'll never know, and so, we have to work with what we have.  There are two songs that Christian is featured on that are most heralded as influential and impacting.  "Seven Come Eleven" is a fine song, but Charlie's guitar work is pretty heavily mixed with the aerophonic back and forth between Goodman and other players.  No, it is truly "Solo Flight" that really features Charlie Christian in a starring role, and thus is rightly used as the song for him here.

Bobby Darin:  Probably the most maligned of the inductees in this class.  The songs most clearly identified as rock and roll are written off as teen idol pop pap, and the more mature and finely crafted songs are dismissed as not being rock and roll.  It's all Bobby Darin's fault, really.  If he hadn't lived such a clean-cut life, trying to get the most out of his life because he knew he didn't have long to live with his heart condition, and had just been more of a horrible person, he would be regarded as a rocker through and through.  I mean, according to Dick Clark, Bobby even taught the other stars on the Caravan Of Stars tours how to do their own taxes!  The nerve of the guy!  Being serious now, those who put down the music of this man are those who simply either have a terrible working definition of what constitutes of rock and roll, or simply haven't taken the time to listen to his body of music at large.  It's excellent stuff, and one tune which is still a fun rocker, though a bit lyrically dated, is the solidly rolling rocker "Queen Of The Hop."

Lamont Dozier:  And this is where we start breaking up the songwriting teams.  It's actually pretty hilarious that for the three songs for the members for this songwriting trio, only one of them is actually a Motown song.  The truth is, when I first compiled this list, I was trying to use hit songs by Non-Performer inductees as much as possible.  And when I got to the Invictus stuff released by Holland-Dozier, and Lamont Dozier's work on ABC, I knew I wasn't going to use the Motown songs that made them such famous songwriters.  Maybe I did that wrong.  But they wrote the stuff they themselves recorded for the most part, and once you hear Lamont's "Tryin' To Hold Onto My Woman," you might not judge my choices too sharply.

The Four Seasons:  This one was pure executive privilege, through and through.  Not even gonna apologize for it.  They may have had three of their five #1 hits in the early goings, but in terms of quality, the Vee-Jay years are vastly inferior to their opuses on the Phillips label.  So, no, I did not use "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry," or "Walk Like A Man."  And I seriously hope none of you do either.  Their music got amazing beginning with "Dawn (Go Away)," and 1964 was an amazing year for them with such incredible songs like "Ronnie," "Rag Doll," and "Save It For Me."  But in fact, the song I chose for them is my favorite song.  It's a lesser-known song, but cracked the Top Ten, is a rarity for this group, in that it's the guy telling the girl that she's the one who's no good instead of him being worthless, and has an amazing arrangement.  When I first heard it, I thought the instrument simulating a thunderclap was a cello!  Turns out it was actually a keyboard, but wow, what a great song.  I'm not backing down.  I won't change it to a better known or bigger hit song.  "Tell It To The Rain" it is.  (Vocal Group Hall Of Fame Song Of Proof: "I've Got You Under My Skin")

The Four Tops:  Truth be told, I've never liked the Four Tops all that much, at least not their Motown stuff.  Part of it is Levi Stubbs' voice, which I always thought sounded a little syrupy and saccharine, especially on "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)," which is even weirder because I do like "It's The Same Old Song."  I guess the arrangement is just different enough, and Levi's vocals aren't as sugary sweet.  That said, I chose a song that was their other number one hit, my favorite song overall by them, and just a great song with a straightforward message and fantastic arrangement that evokes a mental image of actually trying to reach out and find a way out of the darkness.  "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" is for the Four Tops.  (Vocal Group Hall Of Fame Song Of Proof: "Walk Away Renee")

Gerry Goffin:  The "Oh yeah, them too" half of the songwriting duo.  Together they wrote some amazing songs covered by a myriad of artists.  So many great songs, writing a lot for the girl groups of the early sixties, I nevertheless deviated and went with a song that when you pay attention to the lyrics, probably could have been a girl group song with a little tweaking, but is not.  Since we're honoring the male half of the duo, let's go with a song sung by dudes.  The Animals, to be specific, and the life they brought to "Don't Bring Me Down." 

Brian Holland:  I'm not entirely sure what special thing each member of the trio brought to their songwriting, but considering they literally punched the clock and sat down together to write, it's a pretty safe bet all three of them coded every word and every initial piece of instrumentation to their arrangements.  This of course, continued when the left Motown and started the Invictus/Hot Wax family.  And Brian's vocals are beautifully heard on Holland-Dozier's "Don't Leave Me Starvin' For Your Love."

Eddie Holland:  Part of what made the trio such great songwriters is that each of them were very musically inclined singers in their own right.  Before the trio became a household name, Eddie himself had a few solo hit records on the Motown label.  He probably could have been a much bigger R&B singer if he didn't sound so much like Jackie Wilson, or been trying to copy Jackie Wilson.  That said, when you hear "Jamie," you get an idea of the songwriting style that Holland-Dozier-Holland would become legendary for.

Carole King:  The first woman inducted in the Non-Performer category, and the only one for twenty years.  It wasn't until Ellie Greenwich and Cynthia Weil joined her in 2010 that there was another woman inducted in this category, and the only one before the category was renamed the Ahmet Ertegun Award.  And the first White woman inducted period, the only one until Donna Godchaux was inducted as a member of the Grateful Dead in 1994.  But those statistics don't matter.  What matters is that she is an amazing songwriter who wrote and co-wrote many great songs.  I still hold out hope for her to be inducted as a Performer for her fantastic work.  In the meanwhile, I salute her with her debut record as a solo artist, which still has a very Brill Building style and feel to it, "It Might As Well Rain Until September."

The Kinks:  Among the big snubs, I'm pretty upset at how the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame has ignored the Cameo-Parkway legacy, both ignoring founders Bernie Lowe and Kal Mann, and also at the very least Chubby Checker, with possibilities of Bobby Rydell, Dee Dee Sharp, and the Orlons in the distant future.  So far, the Hall has only inducted two artists that were ever affiliated with Cameo Records.  One of them is the Kinks.  The Kinks had their first distribution deals in the States with Cameo Records, including such huge smashes as "You Do Something To Me," "You Still Want Me," and their cover of "Long Tall Sally."  Yeah...  Anyway, onto the music that they're actually famous for.  I'm both proud and embarrassed about this selection.  Ray Davies is my all-time favorite songwriter.  I love his wit, his keen observations of humanity, and his turn of phrase.  UK Jive is an absolutely fantastic album, brilliant.  The song I've used, however, is utterly lyrically simplistic, both in subject matter, and in its total void of anything resembling a rhyme scheme.  But I'm also proud to use this song because it's so raunchy in its instrumentation.  Not just Dave Davies' roaring guitars, but the drums, and even the unbridled drive in Ray's voice as he sings.  This was a song that announced to the United States that the British were coming, and things weren't going to be the same.  So, to honor the Kinks, I selected "You Really Got Me."

The Platters:  When I checked out a doo-wop box set from the local library a few years ago, and perused the liner notes, I read a comment about how when people think of doo-wop music, the Platters never spring to mind for anyone.  I think part of it is because they were so big, that they kind of rise above being classified with other groups, but perhaps also because doo-wop is usually thought of as an upbeat style, and the Platters made their money primarily in slow ballads.  This may mean that "doo-wop" is a misnomer, and that sticking with the original categorization, "vocal R&B" is more accurate.  That said, the Platters did have some great upbeat songs, from "I Wanna;" "Bark, Battle, And Ball," which is a female response song to "Shake, Rattle, And Roll," featuring Zola Taylor singing lead; to "With This Ring," their comeback hit in the late '60s with the snubbed Sonny Turner out front.  The song I've chosen to honor the Platters is a lesser known Top 40 hit, that showcases Tony Williams' amazing voice in all its gymnastic excellence and artistic panache, while also having a slight backbeat to it, to solidly identify it as R&B.  "It Isn't Right" is the right choice for me here.  (Vocal Group Hall Of Fame Song Of Proof: "Twilight Time")

Ma Rainey:  A very old-time blues legend, so old-time, we're not even entirely certain where or when she was born, because American racism in the first decade after Reconstruction included makeshift torches instead of tiki torches from Home Depot and Lowe's.  As one of the first Black women to be recorded, she quickly built up a catalog that included a lot of songs that are now standards, including "See See Rider Blues," which I've used here.

Simon And Garfunkel:  One of the all-time greats that sometimes gets overlooked because they only put out five albums in just five or so years, Simon And Garfunkel is a name that's easy to overlook, but thankfully has not been.  I love all five of their studio albums, their hit in the mid-'70's, "My Little Town," and their reunion concert.  I even enjoy their album they recorded as "Tom And Jerry."  I have to admit, I briefly considered using "A Hazy Shade Of Winter," but decided to use something slightly more well-known, but not overtly obvious.  "I Am A Rock" is a solid piece of folk-rock with great lyrics and metaphor from Paul Simon, my second-favorite songwriter of all-time.  (Vocal Group Hall Of Fame Song Of Proof: "Scarborough Fair/Canticle")

The Who:  If the early years of the Rock Hall were governed primarily by Oldies stations' playlists, the Who probably wouldn't have been inducted in their first year of eligibility  However, there is no denying the importance of the Who to rock and roll music overall.  And you'll be pissed to know I did not use "Who Are You," "Behind Blue Eyes," "Baba O'Riley," or even "Pinball Wizard."  No!  Again, going back to the special programming origins of this whole project, we are saluting the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, which is essentially also honoring rock and roll music itself at large.  "Long Live Rock" ... be it dead or alive!

And that draws this year to a close.  The next time we'll encounter a class this large will be 2000, when the Sideman category is introduced.  Start thinking about your selections for 1991, while you're sharing your 1990 playlists in the Comments below.  Recapping this year:

Louis Armstrong:  "All Of Me"

Hank Ballard:  "Finger-Poppin' Time"

Charlie Christian:  "Solo Flight" by the Benny Goodman Orchestra

Bobby Darin:  "Queen Of The Hop"

Lamont Dozier:  "Tryin' To Hold Onto My Woman"

the Four Seasons:  "Tell It To The Rain"

the Four Tops:  "Reach Out (I'll Be There)"

Gerry Goffin:  "Don't Bring Me Down" by the Animals

Brian Holland:  "Don't Leave Me Starvin' For Your Love" by Holland-Dozier featuring Brian Holland

Eddie Holland:  "Jamie"

Carole King:  "It Might As Well Rain Until September"

the Kinks:  "You Really Got Me"

the Platters:  "It Isn't Right"

Ma Rainey:  "See See Rider Blues"

Simon And Garfunkel:  "I Am A Rock"

the Who:  "Long Live Rock"