Posts by Jim Henke
Remembering Levon Helm
The only non-Canadian member of the Band, Levon Helm was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice and his creative drumming style, which was highlighted on many of the Band's recordings, including "The Weight,” "Up on Cripple Creek,” "Ophelia" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
Helm was born in Marvell, Arkansas, and grew up in Turkey Scratch, a hamlet west of Helena, Arkansas. He saw Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys when he was six and decided to become a musician. He began playing the guitar at the age of eight, and he took up drums shortly thereafter. After graduating from high school, Helm was invited to join rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins' band, the Hawks. Shortly after Helm joined the Hawks, the group moved to Toronto, Canada, where, in 1959, it signed with Roulette Records. In the early 1960s, Helm and Hawkins recruited an all-Canadian lineup of musicians: guitarist Robbie Robertson, bassist Rick Danko, pianist Richard Manuel and organist Garth Hudson. In 1963, the band parted ways with Hawkins and started touring under the name Levon and the Hawks and, later, as the Canadian Squires before finally changing back to the Hawks. Then, in 1965, Bob ...
Bruce Springsteen Exhibit Moves to the Streets of Philadelphia
From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen opened at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia this past weekend. The Rock Hall curated the exhibit, and it was the major temporary exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum from April 2009 to February 2011.
The Springsteen exhibit was not originally intended to travel, but after representatives from the Constitution Center came to Cleveland to see it, they thought it would be a great fit for their museum. We had several discussions with them, and we worked with Springsteen’s management to see whether moving it was a possibility. In the end, we all agreed that it made sense to take the exhibit to the Constitution Center. After all, Springsteen’s roots go back to the Jersey Shore, an area not that far from Philadelphia. Moreover, Springsteen is a truly American musician and songwriter, someone who has given voice to the restlessness ...
Spotlight Exhibit: The Band
Recently, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum unveiled a new Spotlight Exhibit devoted to the Band. Located in the Museum’s main gallery, the exhibit features an extremely rare electric guitar/mandolin that was manufactured by Gibson back in 1961. Band guitarist Robbie Robertson played the instrument when the group performed “The Weight” at the Last Waltz. The exhibit also includes a mandolin that was played by Levon Helm, the original handwritten lyric manuscript to “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” the original artwork for the cover of the group’s Cahoots album, Martin Scorsese’s shooting script for The Last Waltz and a jacket that Robertson wore onstage during a 1971 New Year’s Eve concert in New York City. That concert was recorded and released on the album Rock of Ages. Robbie Robertson got to check the exhibit out when he made a visit to the Museum on January 17.
Watch Robertson playing the 1961 ...
Rock Hall Redesign
About 14 months ago the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame began working on a redesign of the museum’s galleries. It was a project that we had talked about for quite a few years, and in September 2010 it finally got underway. The project had a couple of main goals: upgrading all of the audio, video and interactive elements, improving wayfinding and – most importantly – reorganizing the exhibits so they tell the story of rock and roll in a more chronological way. The Museum’s exhibits have always covered the entire history of rock and roll, from the roots of rock up to the present, but they were never in any particular order. The roots exhibits were in one section of the main gallery, while the Fifties exhibit was way on the other side of the gallery. We wanted to correct that.
Making these changes meant we had to have a lot of new cases built, and we also added a few new exhibits. For example, we used to have an exhibit on Ohio music; now we have an exhibit on Cleveland’s music and one on the music of the Midwest. We also added a heavy metal exhibit, and ...
American Music Masters Moments: Les Paul
American Music Masters Moments: Les Paul is the first installment in a series that shares stories from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's American Music Masters® events through the years. Beginning in 1996 with a tribute to Woody Guthrie, the American Music Masters series has honored artists who've been instrumental in the development of rock and roll with a range of events celebrating their careers. Each AMM brings together musicians from around the world, setting the stage for special, once-in-a-lifetime moments. These are those stories.
From their inception in 1996, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s American Music Masters programs have been sensational, but the one that I have the fondest memories of is the 2008 tribute to Les Paul. One of the great highlights of my job is the fact that I was lucky enough to get to know Les. In 2004, I worked with Les to put together and exhibit The New Sound: Les Paul and the Electric Guitar. When the exhibit opened, Les and his trio came to Cleveland and performed on the main stage in the museum’s lobby. That exhibit is still up on the second floor of ...
Memorializing Les Paul
This past Saturday, I was fortunate to be in Waukesha, Wisconsin, to take part in the dedication of a memorial to Hall of Fame inductee Les Paul. The memorial is in Prairie Home Cemetery, where the legendary guitarist is buried. The event was attended by Les’ family and friends, including his son Russ. Michael Braunstein, Les’ longtime manager and the executive director of the Les Paul Foundation, served as the emcee of the event. Others in attendance included Lou Pallo, who played guitar in the Les Paul Trio for almost 30 years, Henry Juszkiewicz, the chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar, and Ron Sturm, the owner of the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City, where Les played shows every Monday night, from 1995 until his death in 2009.
All of the speakers heaped tons of praise on Les. His son said, “He was a person who hit a lot of hearts,” and that was clear from the commentaries. Lou Pallo said: “He was a genius. He was a great, great, great musician.” Gibson’s Juszkiewicz also called Les a “genius,” and he talked about his inventiveness. Speaking about the house where Les lived in New Jersey, the Gibson CEO ...
Today in Rock: The Beatles' record-breaking 1965 Shea Stadium show
The Beatles played Shea Stadium in New York City on August 15, 1965. They were the first rock group to play an outdoor sports stadium, and the show attracted 55,600 fans - the most attended show of the time. The promoter of the show, Sid Bernstein, said that the concert grossed $304,000, the largest gross from any event in show business up to that point. “It was the biggest crowd we ever played to anywhere in the world,” John Lennon said of the Shea show. “I heard a jet taking off, and I thought one of our amplifiers had blown up. We couldn’t hear ourselves sing.” The noise was so deafening that at the end of the show, during “I’m Down,” Lennon began playing a keyboard with his elbows while the whole group laughed hysterically. A documentary about the show, The Beatles at Shea Stadium, was produced by Ed Sullivan and was broadcast on ABC-TV the following year. The Beatles played a second show at Shea on August 23, 1966. It was one of their final live performances.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s newly revamped Beatles exhibit includes the jacket that Paul ...
Happy 20th Anniversary Lollapalooza!
This past weekend marked the 20th anniversary of Lollapalooza, the music festival that Perry Farrell started back in 1991. Back then, Lollapalooza was a touring festival that went from city to city, playing day-long shows at amphitheaters and other venues across the country -- think Van’s Warped Tour. That version of Lollapalooza ended in 1998, after SFX Entertainment, the promoter, was sold to Clear Channel and then Clear Channel was rolled up into Live Nation. “That wasn’t the atmosphere I started Lollapalooza within,” Farrell said in a recent interview. “My atmosphere was that of individual promoters, people who had their own style, their own ins within the city, interesting locations where they could take us. By 1998, there were no options, so we went dark.” Then, in 2005, Lollapalooza returned. This time, however, it became a three-day festival held in Chicago’s Grant Park. Three days, one city.
For pictures from this year's music festival, click here.
I managed to see a couple of shows in the early days of Lollapalooza, but ever since Perry brought it back as a one-day festival in Chicago, I have gone every year. This year marked the seventh straight year I have ...
