performance :: Blog
Rare Performances: Pink Floyd and Billy Corgan Live in 1996
In the fall of 1995, Smashing Pumpkins, the Chicago-based alternative band who cracked the Billboard 200 Top 10 in August 1993 with Siamese Dream, released the anticipated studio follow up, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The sprawling 26-song double album Corgan then referred to as The Wall for Generation X highlighted the lead songwriter's penchant for abstract lyricism and expansive, evocative instrumental arrangements that owed much to the psychedelic rockers who came decades before him.
At the 1996 Hall of Fame induction ceremony, a twentysomething Corgan inducted Pink Floyd, with David Gilmour, Nick Mason and the late Richard Wright on hand to accept their awards. "The first album I heard was Dark Side of the Moon, which as we all know is probably one of the best albums of all time," said Corgan, a self-professed "fan" of the band. "I first heard this album in The Wall era, which to me, at my tender age of 14, was too ...
Rare Performances: the Velvet Underground Live in 1996
“No, I didn't attend his funeral. I dedicated a song to him from the stage of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – I wanted his name to be heard on TV and to the crowds watching the show. I wanted to play "Sweet Jane" for him one last time.” – Lou Reed, quoted in The Austin Chronicle, 2000
On September 2, 1995, Lou Reed performed “Sweet Jane” onstage at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, in front of a crowd of more than 63,000 and millions more around the world watching the concert broadcast on HBO. The occasion was the Concert for the Hall of Fame, celebrating the opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Reed’s fellow guitarist and Velvet Underground bandmate, Sterling Morrison, had passed away from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma just three days before. Reed’s performance, dedicated to Morrison, gently reminded the world of Velvet Underground’s impact, and Morrison’s unique contributions to the band ...
Rare Performances: Neil Young Live in 1995
On January 12, 1995, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame held its 10th annual induction ceremony in New York City. Among the inductees that year, along with Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa and others, was Neil Young, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Pearl Jam lead singer, Eddie Vedder. Young’s performances that night included the epic “Act of Love” from his album Mirror Ball, which would be released in June 1995. After performing “Act of Love” with members of his touring band, Young was joined onstage by Pearl Jam to perform "F*!#in' Up,” from his 1990 album Ragged Glory. It was especially fitting that Young, who has been called “the Godfather of Grunge,” would invite the Seattle band to perform with him at his induction.
Pearl Jam and Neil Young had been collaborating since 1992, when the grunge band and “the Godfather” played separately at a Bob Dylan tribute at Madison Square Garden ...
Today In Rock: Jimmy Page is Born
On January 9, 1944, Jimmy Page was born in England. A talented multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer, Page is best known for his incomparable guitar virtuosity, and is one of the most influential guitarists of all time. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: in 1992 as a member of the Yardbirds and in 1995 as a founding member of Led Zeppelin.
Page picked up his first guitar at a young age, seeking to emulate rockabilly guitarists of the Fifties, such as Scotty Moore and James Burton. His appreciation and tastes quickly expanded to include folk, blues and skiffle, and he would play in a band that favored the latter.
By the Sixties, Page was an in-demand session musician, playing on songs for Donovan ("Hurdy Gurdy Man"), Them ("Gloria") and the Who ("I Can't Explain"), among others. Page joined the Yardbirds in the mid Sixties, for a period sharing the stage with friend and fellow guitarist Jeff Beck, who had replaced Eric Clapton on lead guitar. "You'd listen to Jeff along the way, and you'd go - wow, he's getting really, really good," said Page during Jeff Beck's 2009 Hall of ...
Otis Redding's Last Day in Cleveland
December 9, 1967 was a busy day for Otis Redding. The first stop on his winter tour was Cleveland, Ohio, where he was scheduled to appear on the locally produced, nationally syndicated (in 98 markets around the country) television show Upbeat, as well as perform two concerts at legendary nightclub Leo’s Casino. The singer was eager to get back on the road after a three-month break recovering from surgery for throat polyps. He had just recorded what was to become the biggest and most enduring hit of his career, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” Redding started that Saturday at the WEWS studios at 30th and Euclid Avenue for Upbeat rehearsals. Upbeat host Don Webster recalled on the website clevelandseniors.com that typically the show would be rehearsed from about 9 am until noon, working on the technical aspects like blocking and lighting. After that, the production team and talent would break for lunch and come back at 1 pm to do the taping. It would take two to three hours to tape the one-hour show. That show was broadcast at 5 pm, the same day of the taping. Webster never did a lot of pre-interviewing, feeling that ...
Hall of Fame Series with Spooner Oldham
On November 2, 2011, Hall of Fame inductee Spooner Oldham spoke with and performed for a sold-out audience in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's Foster Theater. Oldham is a linchpin of Southern Soul and the Alabama sound, a fixture of famed Muscle Shoals and FAME studios, where his keyboard playing enlivened some of the biggest rock and roll songs of the past 50 years, including Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved a Man," Wilson Pickett's "Mustang Sally" and Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman." Together with singer-songwriter Dan Penn, Spooner contributed a number of classics to the canon of rock, co-writing "Cry Like a Baby" by the Box Tops, "It Tears Me Up" by Percy Sledge and "I'm Your Puppet" by James and Bobby Purify.
Born Dewey Lyndon "Spooner" Oldham in Center Star, Alabama, Oldham is one of rock's most in-demand players, appearing on records and tours with luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Neil Young, in addition to newer act Drive-By Truckers.
During his Hall of Fame series interview with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum director of education Jason Hanley, Oldham talked about ...
A Surprise Performance
Our agreement with Aretha Franklin for this year’s American Music Masters program was that she would attend the tribute concert but would not perform. Of course, I always hoped that she would decide to sing a song, but I never pressed the issue. After all, hasn’t Aretha given us enough? We were gathered to honor what she has accomplished, not to demand more. We wanted to recognize, in professor Daphne Brooks’ words, “her brilliant body of work as a musician who materially and emotionally connected with mass audiences in complex ways that went unmatched by her peers.” The night’s fantastic performers did her justice and then some, as Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Jerry Butler, Dennis Edwards and Ronald Isley, in addition to Cissy Houston, 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominee Chaka Khan, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Twinkie Clark, Carla Cook, Melinda Doolittle and Mike Farris all brought their A-game.
After Dr. Franklin received her honorary degree from Case Western Reserve at the beginning of the evening, she watched the show from the audience with her family. We worked it out that she would return backstage during the last song of Ms. Lauryn Hill ...
The Soul of Dr. Franklin
Aretha Franklin now holds the Doctor of Humane Letters degree, honoris causa, from Case Western Reserve University. Have I had a prouder moment in the 13 years I’ve been at CWRU than when I saw her in her blue robe, onstage with the university delegation, beaming as she received the award? I don’t think so. A more exciting introduction than the one that involved shaking Aretha’s hand and paying my respects? Definitely not. In the 16-year life of the American Music Masters series, CWRU has partnered with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to honor some great artists, all of them influential beyond the realm of music; from Woody Guthrie to Sam Cooke to Janis Joplin, they made our world a better place and shaped our lives. But with Aretha – and I write this listening to my favorite record, I Never Loved A Man, even though I’ve been steeped in her music over the past months, because I can’t get enough – we had the great chance and good fortune to also recognize one of the amazing, transformative figures of our time with a CWRU degree. This was serious business: the university doesn ...
