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Hall pass: New DVD set features jams, speeches, and once-in-a-lifetime pairings at Rock hall induction ceremonies
from: NJ.com
by Jay Lustig/The Star-Ledger
Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen are singing together. Sharing a mic, they stand so close together they can probably feel each other's breath.
Ringo Starr is on drums, and Billy Joel is on piano; both had already sung a verse of the song, the early Beatles hit "I Saw Her Standing There."
The army of guitarists includes George Harrison, Bob Dylan, John Fogerty, Jeff Beck, Les Paul and Dave Edmunds.
Various Beach Boys, Drifters, Supremes and E Street Band members help fill the crowded stage, adding backing vocals and layers of instrumentation. Legendary concert promoter Bill Graham serves as the stage manager, trying to keep order as best he can.
About 700 people - mostly musicians and music-industry executives - witnessed the scene, in person, when it happened in 1988 at the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. But it, and many other remarkable jams, can been seen on a new nine-DVD boxed set, "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live." Starting Tuesday, it will be available for $119.96 via RockHallDVDs.com or TimeLife.com.
On Nov. 3, a three-DVD, $39.95 version will be in stores. There is also a new book on the induction ceremonies ("The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: The First 25 Years," by Holly George-Warren), and on Oct. 29-30, Madison Square Garden will present star-studded 25th anniversary concerts.
The nine-DVD collection is the Mount Rushmore of rock 'n' roll DVD boxed sets, not also just because of its star power but because of its size. Counting bonuses (rehearsals, behind-the-scenes footage, induction and acceptance speeches in their entirety), the set lasts more than 24 hours.
Most of it is from the annual induction ceremonies, though one DVD, and scattered scenes on other DVDs, are drawn from the all-star 1995 concert at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium that celebrated the opening of the hall of fame and museum in that city. James Brown, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, the Kinks, the Allman Brothers Band and many others performed.
The eight other DVDs jump from era to era and style to style, often without an obvious thread. But you can go to practically any point, on any of them, and find something mesmerizing.
"I Saw Her Standing There" comes from one of the early ceremonies (the first was in 1986), when there was a loose, anything-goes quality to the jam sessions. There is less spontaneity in the more recent ceremonies, which, unlike the early ones, have been televised.
But magic can still happen. In a scene from this year's ceremony, Metallica joins forces with Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Ron Wood, Joe Perry and Flea for a ferocious take on the rock standard, "The Train Kept A-Rollin'."
For mind-blowing collaborations, though, you can't beat the older footage. Is that Neil Young, grinning like a thrilled schoolboy as Chubby Checker sings and dances "The Twist," in 1986? Yes, it is. And isn't that Dylan, nearly blending into the crowd as Ben E. King sings "Stand By Me," in 1988?
Look around the stage as Johnny Cash sings "Big River," in 1992, and you'll see Carlos Santana, the Edge, Little Richard, and Keith Richards.
Eddie Vedder fills in admirably for the late Jim Morrison when the surviving Doors perform, in 1993. Springsteen and Robbie Robertson help Fogerty re-create the swampy tension of the Creedence Clearwater Revival sound, in the same year. Dave Grohl and his Foo Fighters partner Taylor Hawkins join members of Queen for a frantic "Tie Your Mother Down" in 2001.
Prince adds a scintillating guitar solo to a cover of Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (also featuring Tom Petty and Steve Winwood) in 2004, when Harrison was inducted posthumously as a solo artist. Joel, Fogerty, JOAN JETT and John Mellencamp form a one-night-only supergroup to perform the Dave Clark Five's "Glad All Over," in 2008.
And then there are the induction speeches. Bono on Springsteen ("If John Steinbeck could sing, if Van Morrison could ride a Harley-Davidson . . ."). Springsteen on U2 ("The last band of whom I would be able to name all of its members"). Young on Hendrix, Petty on Buffalo Springfield, Richards on the Ronettes, Kid Rock on Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bonnie Raitt on Ruth Brown, Axl Rose on Elton John, Eric Clapton on the Band, James Taylor on Crosby, Stills and Nash ... all reflect, with disarming sincerity, on how the music and the musicians inspired them.
There are some great moments in the acceptance speeches as well. Cash, a country artist being inducted into a rock hall, seems a bit shy and unsure of himself. Ray Charles jokes around with Quincy Jones. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. calls himself "the least likely candidate to have a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."
"It seems to me that rock 'n' roll should never be respectable," says Clapton, being inducted as a member of Cream in 1993 (he was already in the hall as a member of the Yardbirds, and would later be inducted as a solo artist as well). Yet he was persuaded to come and, as a result, got to perform with his Cream bandmates Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker for the first time in 25 years.
Jagger expresses similar misgivings upon being inducted with the Rolling Stones in 1989.
"It's slightly ironic," he says, "that tonight you see us on our best behavior. But we're being rewarded for 25 years of bad behavior." |
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