Parliament-Funkadelic leader George Clinton thinks for a moment how he'd describe his band to a Martian. "I'd tell them it's like Mars and Pluto and Jupiter and Dog Man Star getting together to throw a concert at the same time," Clinton says. "And they all agree to come together on one word: love. And man, they'd have a party." Clinton could just as easily be describing this week's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, to be held, for the first time, in the Hall of Fame's home city of Cleveland on Tuesday evening.

\From the high, lonesome bluegrass of Bill Monroe to the counterculture folk-rock of Crosby, Stills & Nash to the mind-warp funk of Parliament and Funkadelic, this year's crop of inductees spans the far reaches of rock's musical map. Indeed, 1997's ten inductees represent a broad spectrum of music, but for the first time, the bulk of artists who will be honored Tuesday night signify the Hall's movement into the '70s.

\In addition to the aforementioned artists, this year's inductees include the Bee Gees, Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell, the Jackson 5, and the (Young) Rascals as performers; Bill Monroe and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson as early influences; and King Records founder Syd Nathan, who launched the career of James Brown, as a non-performer.

\"This year's induction has a slightly more contemporary look to it," says James Henke, curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a former music editor at Rolling Stone. "With artists like Crosby, Stills & Nash and Joni Mitchell being inducted, the singer-songwriter era is more represented this year than it has been in the past. In some ways, it's really a historic occasion." The ceremony should be particularly special for singer-guitarist Stephen Stills, who will become the first artist inducted twice on the same night for his work with two acts -- Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

\For this year's honorees, Hall of Fame means many different things. To some, it's a chance to look back. To others, an overdue recognition in a business that hasn't always been fair. To George Clinton, it just means the rest of the world has finally caught up with him. "Somebody once said our music wouldn't really catch on for 25 years, so we're right on schedule," Clinton says. The groups have endured because "it's out of this world. We're not from here -- we're just on our way to where we came from."

\On the other end of the commercial spectrum, few artists of this century can match the Jackson 5 for sheer musical and crossover cultural impact. As the linchpins of Motown during the '70s, their hits -- and dance moves -- just kept on coming. The group made history when its first four singles -- "I Want You Back," "ABC," "The Love You Save," and "I'll Be There" -- hit No. 1 in 1970. But as Jermaine Jackson recalls, he and his brothers never anticipated that their path would someday lead to a shrine in Cleveland.

\"We had no idea," Jackson says. "All we knew was that we were doing something people enjoyed and we didn't know where it was going to go or how long it was going to last." Tomorrow night's celebration, he says, will honor the realization of their dreams. "This (induction) is above all our other honors," he says. "It's something that is very, very special because all of the other awards are for things we've done up to a certain point, but this is for everything. When they told me that Diana Ross was going to induct us, tears came to my eyes. Because it's like going back to the beginning."

Thirty years after the release of their first album, another set of brothers will also bask in tomorrow's spotlight. The Bee Gees will forever be known as the guys whose almost eerie falsetto harmonies fueled the best-selling soundtrack album of all-time, 1978's "Saturday Night Fever." But the trio's beginnings date back to 1967, when their brand of frothy, Beatlesque pop and R&B-derived balladry dominated AM radio with tunes like "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?"

\"We're very blessed. I don't think there's any better compliment. Ten years ago, people didn't want to know about us as far as respect goes," says Maurice Gibb. "Even after 1971, we thought we were finished -- nobody wanted to touch us, no management, no label. Talk about a valley. In three different decades, they've written us off."

\The Bee Gees aren't the only artists whose career has seen its share of peaks and valleys. Despite helping to write ten Top 20 hits for the Rascals over the course of two years (1966-68), songwriter/singer Eddie Brigati says his ongoing legal battles over publishing rights make the band's Hall of Fame induction an honor difficult to savor. Brigati is attending the ceremony, he says, as a "thank you" to everyone whose support launched the Rascals to the top of the charts.

\"The music speaks for itself," Brigati says, remembering chart-busters like "Groovin,' "Good Lovin,' and the Rascals' biggest hit "People Got to Be Free," a song Brigati and singer/organist Felix Cavaliere wrote together in the wake of the assassinations of Sen. Robert Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King