Jim Rocco, 10/06/2010. (Michael P. Farrell / Times Union) Used with permission
Long before he joined the chancel choir at First Presbyterian Church in Albany as a fellow bass, I would see Jim Rocco at the choir parties a couple of times a year with his wife Deb, our soprano soloist and section leader.
Inevitably, he and I would gravitate towards each other, no small task in a crowded space, and talk music. No, not the sacred music we tended to sing together every week.
Instead, we would talk about rock and roll, specifically the music of the 1960s. He would impress me with his arcane knowledge of obscure bands and records. Occasionally, I could surprise him with some bit of trivia that I knew.
We talked about the Beatles, a LOT. I attended one of those events at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady where Scott Freiman explained the background of many of the songs on the white album. He had gone to a similar Deconstructing the Beatles session for an earlier LP, probably Sgt. Pepper or Revolver.
Jim had participated in several church productions, especially those involving the kids. One of the last times I saw him was in the fall of 2013 when he was on the drums, naturally, for a production at the Steamer No. 10 theater. He was feeling unwell, as though he had broken some ribs, but was still doing the gig because he loved playing.
When we talked, he had not yet been diagnosed with cancer, which involved various treatments over several months that seemed to be working for a time. I’ve missed not seeing him in 2014, as much of his treatment took place in Arizona.
Jim Rocco passed away on Friday, January 2, 2015. Those of us who knew him feel a tremendous sadness at losing him. He was a great guy. *** The Times Union obit.
Last year, three of my picks, Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel, and Hall and Oates actually got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,, so I’ll put the other two on this year’s ballot.
I realize more and more each year how meaningless the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is. When I look at the list of artists NOT in it (Chicago, Moody Blues, Todd Rundgren, Yes, to name a few), I sigh.
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band Chic Green Day Joan Jett & the Blackhearts Kraftwerk The Marvelettes N.W.A. Nine Inch Nails Lou Reed The Smiths The Spinners Sting Stevie Ray Vaughan War Bill Withers
To be eligible for nomination, an individual artist or band must have released its first single or album at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination. The 2015 nominees had to release their first recording no later than 1989.
Ballots will be sent to an international voting body of more than 700 artists, historians and members of the music industry.
Last year, three of my picks, Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel, and Hall and Oates actually got in, so I’ll put the other two on this year’s ballot:
Paul Butterfield Blues Band, whose three Bs (Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop) were also individually important in rock. East-West, from 1966, is one of my favorite albums. Here are the two instrumentals, Work Song and the title cut. Chic, its sound is still relevant, though if Nile Rodgers got in as a non-performer (songwriter/producer), I could accept that.
Plus: Joan Jett & the Blackhearts – because I have a bias for women rockers. The Marvelettes – …and “girl groups”. *The Spinners – because I LOVE the Spinners.
I dismissed, at least for the time being, both Lou Reed and Sting, because their groups Velvet Underground and The Police, respectively, are in the hall.
This is Stevie Ray Vaughan’s first year of eligibility, and I DO love his music; I hope he does get in, and he may this year. Green Day has a couple of albums I like. And I love their NAME. Maybe down the road. I know I SHOULD put Kraftwerk on the list; very important group. My ignorance of the music of Nine Inch Nails is inexplicable, but there it is. As I wrote last year, “I know N.W.A. is massively influential, despite its limited output, but not feeling it yet.” If I had a sixth vote, or if the Chic folk get in as non-performers and I had another selection, it might well be for The Smiths. Pretty sure I supported War’s induction before. With a seventh vote, would pick them. Bill Withers had some great songs, but not enough for me to pick.
In 1974, Capitol Records issued Endless Summer, the Beach Boys’ first major pre-Pet Sounds greatest hits package. The record sleeve’s sunny, colorful graphics caught the mood of the nation and surged to the top of the Billboard album charts.
Carl, Dennis, Mike, Al, Brian
Murry Wilson was an entrepreneur, but he also had an interest in music, which he passed along to his sons, Brian, Dennis, and Carl, sharing his love of the tight harmonies of groups such as the Four Freshmen. He became their business manager, finagling for their group, which also included his nephew, Mike Love, and the brothers’ friend, Al Jardine (replaced briefly by David Marks), a recording contract with Capitol Records. He was a great motivator, though considered abusive.
But it was not the group, or Murry, who dubbed the group the Beach Boys. That was done by some record company employee, to capitalize on the band’s surf sound that was so popular. Ironic, since only Dennis knew how to surf.
Links to all songs; chart action is for US (Billboard).
But Brian, arguably the creative force behind the band, tired of the road, preferring the safety of the studio. It was in this period the group put out the legendary Pet Sounds album:
Brian was replaced on the road, briefly by Glen Campbell, but more permanently by Bruce Johnston, who participated in the studio as well. Despite some decent albums, the group went into commercial decline by the end of the decade, with Brian’s participation spotty in the early 1970s, with his brothers and the others picking up the slack.
A funny thing happened in 1974: “Capitol Records issued Endless Summer, the band’s first major pre-Pet Sounds greatest hits package. The record sleeve’s sunny, colorful graphics caught the mood of the nation and surged to the top of the Billboard album charts. It was the group’s first multi-million selling record since ‘Good Vibrations’, and remained on the album chart for three years. The following year, Capitol released a second compilation, Spirit of America, which also sold well.” The new success of the old music brought Brian back to the fore and released some new music.
From 1980 through 1982, The Beach Boys and The Grass Roots separately performed at Independence Day concerts at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., attracting large crowds. In April 1983, [James Watt, Secretary of the Interior] banned the concerts, on the ground that the “rock bands”… had encouraged drug use and alcoholism, and had attracted “the wrong element”… Watt then announced that Las Vegas singer Wayne Newton, a friend and an endorser of President Reagan and a contributor to the Republican Party, would perform at the Independence Day celebration at the mall in 1983…. Vice President George H. W. Bush said of The Beach Boys, “They’re my friends, and I like their music”. Watt apologized to The Beach Boys after learning that President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were fans of the band. Nancy Reagan apologized for Watt. The White House staff gave Watt a plaster foot with a hole for his “having shot himself in the foot”.
Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983. Carl Wilson died in 1998; I was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in May 1998 when it had a nice tribute to the Carls Perkins and Wilson; the band was inducted into the Rock Hall back in 1988.
The subsequent relationships within the group became more complicated than I need to explain here, but involving multiple bands. There was, though, a new album, featuring Love, Jardine, Marks, Johnston, and Brian Wilson in 2012, and a short-lived tour, the length of which Mike Love may (or may not) have been unfairly vilified.
In that great musical debate about the preferred lead singer of Van Halen, I suppose I’m in the David Lee Roth camp, rather than the Sammy Hagar camp. It is only because my one and only VH album, 1982’s Diver Down, features Roth. “From 1974 until 1985 the band comprised guitarist Eddie Van Halen, vocalist David Lee Roth, drummer Alex Van Halen [Eddie’s brother] and bassist Michael Anthony.” That’s the group I remember watching in the early days of MTV.
When Michael Anthony left/was booted out of the band in 2006, coinciding with Roth’s second return, the new bassist was Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie’s son with his former wife, actress Valerie Bertinelli (One Day at a Time, Hot in Cleveland).
What I hope will happen is that they’ll pick the great guitarist Link Wray as an early influence, as they have done in the past with people who have shown up on the ballot, deserve to be enshrined, but who most people never even heard of.
From CNN: “Grunge groundbreakers Nirvana, disco dynamos Chic and the costume-clad, Gene Simmons-led pop metal band KISS are among 16 nominees up for election in the museum’s Class of 2014. The deep selection also includes ’70s and ’80s hitmakers Hall and Oates; college radio heroes the Replacements; New Orleans funkmeisters the Meters; sweet-voiced Linda Ronstadt; and pioneering gangsta rappers N.W.A.
“Completing the list: the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel, LL Cool J, Cat Stevens, Link Wray, Yes and the Zombies.”
CBS News adds: “Nirvana, Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel, Hall and Oates, and The Replacements are among first-time nominees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
All eligible nominees released their first single or album at least 25 years before the year of nomination.
I’ve already made it clear that I would vote for Linda Ronstadt. Beyond that, there are probably seven artists for the other four slots. Pretty much a coin flip, my ballot would include: Chic, which is newly chic, its sound still relevant. Peter Gabriel, who was not only commercially successful in the 1980s, but put out great albums before that; if for the song Biko alone, which codified understanding of apartheid to the western world, he’d be deserving. I have a LOT of PG. Hall & Oates, who not only had massive commercial success over a lengthy period – I am an unapologetic fan – but also are great proponents of music to this day. And though it ought not to matter in this context, I really love Daryl Hall’s solo album Sacred Songs. Yes, in part as a paean to progressive rock, in hopes that King Crimson gets a nod next time out. What I hope will happen is that they’ll pick the great guitarist Link Wray as an early influence, as they have done in the past with people who have shown up on the ballot, deserve to be enshrined, but who most people never even heard of.
The Meters, which helped beget The Neville Brothers, was essentially the house band for Allen Toussaint and played on a lot of other people’s albums, so I’m hoping that they’ll get picked in the sidemen category, as Leon Russell did a couple of years ago.
My other pick in these fan ballots was Butterfield, whose three Bs (Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop) were also individually important in rock
Not picking Nirvana, on their first ballot, who will get in anyway. I like them well enough; have three or four of their albums and their sound defined the early 1990s. Hope the Replacements get in someday – it was their first year as well. I had quite a bit of Cat Stevens in the day, and I’d pick him if there weren’t people I preferred. Have the greatest hits of the Zombies, and I’m just not sure a few hits plus one great album warrants the band’s inclusion. I know N.W.A. is massively influential, despite its limited output, but not feeling it yet. Never cared for KISS. Loved the hits of Deep Purple, but guess I don’t know the oeuvre well enough to decide if they merit inclusion. Know LL Cool J better as an actor than a musician.
