Posts by Greg Harris
For The People
Recently, a few members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum board drove to Pittsburgh with me for what is now near the top of my list of rock and roll experiences. Local legends Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers hosted a special benefit show for the Greater Pittsburg Community Food Bank with special guest Bruce Springsteen. The concert was held in the 2,000-seat Soldiers and Sailors Hall near the Pitt campus. The venue is more than 100 years old and houses a museum with remarkable collection of artifacts from the Civil War to the present. The hall is stunning, with a balcony on three sides, a very low stage and the entire text of the Gettysburg Address – with 12-inch letters – etched in a formidable block of stone above the stage.
Springsteen took the stage first, noting that he was going to “warm up for Joe.” He led off solo acoustic with an early classic from Greetings, "I Came for You,”which sent a jolt of excitement coursing through the mixed-age crowd. He stayed solo for a few more numbers, including “Land of Hope and Dreams” and an incredibly tender version of “I’ll Work for Your ...
You did it! Woodstock artifact funded by music fans
Today—with help from over 100 donors from around the country—our curators hung the iconic Yasgur’s Farm dairy sign in the museum. It was installed to coincide with the 42nd Anniversary of the Woodstock Art and Music Festival. See photos of the sign installation here!
Some readers will be familiar with the story. The remarkable sign was preserved for 40 years by a neighbor and was recently acquired by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. An anonymous donor agreed to contribute $12,000—half the purchase price—with the condition that other music fans provide the remainder through a grassroots online fundraising campaign. We elected to use website kickstarter.com. From there the fans took over and contributed the rest of the funds in a few short weeks—THANK YOU.
If you are passing through Cleveland stop in and see the sign. It hangs in the museum next to the famed awning from CBGB’s, about 50 feet from Jerry’s guitars, Janis’ Porsche, and a few thousand other incredible artifacts documenting the most powerful art form in history – ROCK AND ROLL!
Over 100 individuals supported the campaign including:
Craig A. Adams
Carl Artman
Kimberley Barton
John ...
By the time we got to Woodstock: Help us Preserve Rock History
Rock and roll history includes many keystone moments—Elvis entering Sun Studios, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, Dylan “plugging in” at Newport. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum recently acquired a historic artifact from an event of this stature: a sign from Max Yasgur's farm, the site of the 1969 Woodstock Art and Music Festival!
What I love about this item is that it features the answer to the long-time trivia question “where was Woodstock held?”: not Woodstock, New York, but Bethel! It also pictures the handsome breed of cow that the Yasgurs raised—purebred Guernseys. Signs like these still dot the New England landscape wherever working farms remain.
Woodstock is universally recognized as a pivotal moment in American culture. An unprecedented array of artists took to the stage during the festival including: The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, the Band, Santana, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sly and the Family Stone, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
A neighbor has kept the sign for the last four decades and a few months ago offered it to the Rock Hall. An anonymous donor agreed to contribute $12,000—half the purchase price—with ...
Turn back the clock: the importance of Record Store Day
Tomorrow, April 16, is National Record Store Day. Across the nation, shops will offer special promotions and activities. As fellow music lovers, we encourage you to visit these stores to commemorate the day. Digital downloads are convenient and here at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame we’ve embraced them while still loving physical records. In fact, yesterday we launched our first App (available at the iTunes store) and we will soon have a mix and burn station in our museum store.
However, we need to pause and honor those who are keeping retail stores alive, in particular those that sell used vinyl and used CDs. I’ve had a soft spot for these stores since first clerking in a used-record shop in the early 1980s. In fact, the fondness grew so strong that another clerk and I jumped ship and opened up the Philadelphia Record Exchange. The store specialized in used out-of-print records and in indie labels and imports. We focused on LPs while our pal across town, Val Shively, focused on 45s. It was a classic retail start-up. We built bins from plywood and stocked the shelves with our own collections. As we sold records, we bought ...
The New Orleans Spirit
The Crescent City is coming to Cleveland and we are welcoming her with open arms! In a few weeks a remarkable group of nearly 40 New Orleans musicians, tradition bearers bringing 70+ years of incredible music, will help us honor Fats Domino and his longtime collaborator Dave Bartholomew as American Music Masters.
I fell in love with New Orleans through the LP recordings of Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Huey Piano Smith, and the Wild Tchoupitoulas—and one very well worn truckstop cassette compilation tape that featured “Carnival Time,” “Mardi Gras Mambo,””Iko Iko,” “Walking to New Orleans” and a handful of other songs. This blossomed when as a twenty-something I traveled there with Robert Gordon—not the singer but the Memphis-born music scholar and filmmaker—the perfect tour guide to what was clearly his second city. The trip started in Philadelphia when we climbed into a massive 1969 Cadillac Sedan Deville—and headed south. Somewhere in Virginia we realized that if we shut the car off it would not restart, so we kept it running all the way to Atlanta, added a passenger and continued directly to New Orleans.
As if on cue we picked up WWOZ as we blew ...
Thank you Alex
We lost an American icon yesterday with the passing of Alex Chilton.
He followed his own path, emerging in the 1960s as a vocalist with the Box Tops—that’s his growl on The Letter—and moved in a different direction in the 1970s with seminal Memphis band Big Star. September Gurls still gives me the chills. He then dropped in and out of view during what some have called his “lost decade.”
I came of age in the early 1980s in dusty record stores and Salvation Army thrift shops and among our crowd Chilton was an enigma that we embraced. He was rumored to be washing dishes in New Orleans, playing gigs overseas, recording with The Cramps, or simply in voluntary seclusion. The Replacements stoked the flames and we tracked down Chilton’s vinyl—especially his messier late 1970s stuff— and passed around the rare live cassette. His EPs from this era are fantastic. You feel a river of American music flowing from them. They would stay parked on your turntable for weeks after you purchased them. The songs were pure, damp, and loose with an acidic edge at times that felt just right. Thank You John, Lost My ...
New 3-D Theater Dedicated; U2 3D Now Showing at the Rock Hall
On Monday night we dedicated the new state-of the art Foster Theater at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It is one of the most technologically advanced theaters in the country and it was made possible by the generous support of Gregg and Madelyn Foster. Designed by Oscar-winning architect Jeff Cooper, it features Dolby 3D, remote control video cameras, an incredible sound system and the capability to stream events and video conference.
At the dedication we recognized the Fosters for their support—and screened the U2 3D concert film. It was a fantastic event attended by many board members, and local luminaries—including Cleveland Cavaliers players and front office. They were in town because the season opener was the next night against the Lakers.
The theater is an important component of a major initiative to upgrade the Museum and construct and operate the Rock and Roll
photo caption: U2 3D will screen in the Foster Theater until January 2.
Hall of Fame’s Library and Archives. The theater hosts the Museum’s educational and public programs serving hundreds of thousands of students and visitors each year. The renovation prepares the Museum for live-streaming content to enhance its award-winning distance ...
The Beat Goes On
Over the weekend we commemorated the passing of a longtime member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Barry O’Brien was not a performer, producer or record executive. He was a Fan. I attended his memorial on Saturday at the Beachland Ballroom with hundreds of family and friends. We were honored that his widow Janis and daughter Kirin invited the Hall of Fame to participate in this celebration of Barry’s life. There are so many things in this world that divide us but music has this incredible power to unite us and to build up a strong sense of community.
Barry loved rock and roll music and was a strong supporter of our nonprofit mission. He was part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Family—he was a longtime member of the Roll Hall and helped us to celebrate the opening of the Museum some 15 years ago. Just a few weeks ago he called us to reserve tickets to our upcoming Janis Joplin Tribute Event at Playhouse Square.
Passion for music connects many of us and we are honored to have been a part of Barry’s life and thrilled that he was part ...
