Fifteen legends Nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

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Although the ballots are not in, word is out. Fifteen legendary musicians have been nominated as candidates for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

The nominees, who represent the rock idiom from gospel to metal, from the Piano Man to the Superfly, are: Black Sabbath; the Staples Singers; Paul McCartney (who has already been inducted as a member of the Beatles); the Flamingos; Darlene Love; Dusty Springfield; Solomon Burke; Gene Pitney; the Moonglows; Del Shannon; Ritchie Valens; Billy Joel; Curtis Mayfield; Steely Dan and Bruce Springsteen, who recently met the twenty-five-year requirement for eligibility having released his first album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., in 1973.

According to Suzan Evans, executive director of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a panel of seventy music historians compiled the list and sent it to co-chairmen Seymour Stein, president and CEO of Sire Records, and Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen's longtime manager. Ballots were postmarked last Monday to some 800 voters in the music industry around the world. Based on the highest number of votes, up to eight nominees will be selected for induction into the Hall of Fame sometime in November.

We assume, naturally, that Springsteen will make the cut.

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

More Song Stories entries »

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