Lynyrd Skynyrd & the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
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As many of you may or may not know the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (or Hall of Shame as it should be called) has intentionally overlooked Lynyrd Skynyrd as an inductee. One comment from one member of the organization calls Skynyrd as "nothing more than the luckiest Bar Band around". This is a complete out rage and needs to be corrected. We are talking about a band which shaped a generation of Americans (and is working on a second). In a time when Rock was ruled by primarily English Rockers like Zepplin, Free, and the Stones, arose a band who offered the real deal American Blues Rock and roll. Don't get me wrong I am a big fan of these Bands. However, They lacked one thing when it came to playing the blues. First, the heritage. Second, the message. Now these other bands are inductees for a music style they borrowed from the US. Even more specifically from the Southern US. Blues, Country, and Rock and Roll were all born in the Southern US! So to hold prejudice against a truly great Southern Rock Band is a crime. We as fans of Skynyrd and of Rock and Roll need to send a statement to the music industry that they have lost track of their heritage! That they need to quit thinking about their damn bank accounts and start thinking about the art we all love. The reason record industry sales are down is because they keep force feeding garbage down everyone's throats and call it art. I am putting together a banner which can be pasted on websites. I hope that all the Skynyrd/Southern Rock sites as well as music sites will Stand up and put the banner on their sites to get the message spread. Do you want ta help? You can make a Statement! Write to the Hall of Fame, Write to the record labels, Write to Rolling Stone Magazine and any other Rock Magazine you can find. We CAN make them listen. I know a lot of you folks think online petitions may be a waste of time. However, the petition at www.RockTheHall.com has worked for Segar and will work for Skynyrd as well.............. Bruce Wall
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation
1290 Avenue of the Americas
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10104
Letters to the Editors of Rolling Stone Magazine
Listen to what Johnny Van Zant had to Say about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
I would like to thank KSLX Radio and Charlie Kendall for their help on this and for providing us with the Johnny Van Zant Audio clip from their interviews with Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Below Is an interesting article written in 2002 on the subject
Rock hall empty without Skynyrd bid
Smith was a great baseball player. But, as Jacksonville rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd has demonstrated, being great isn't always enough.
Skynyrd, a band that created two of rock's enduring anthems, has been eligible for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 1999. That it hasn't made it yet almost certainly is a result of politics, or at least cultural bias.
"They are too regional," said Marley Brant, author of the recently published Freebirds: The Lynyrd Skynyrd Story. "People view them as a regional band made good. They haven't made rock 'n' roll aristocracy."
But for those who do recognize Skynyrd's significance, there is another problem. The band is too defiantly Southern to appeal to the taste-makers who guard the gates to the cultural pantheon.
It's difficult to get information about the Hall of Fame induction process. Officials at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland refer all questions to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in New York, which has no e-mail address or listed phone number. The Hall of Fame Web site does describe the process: A committee of rock 'n' roll historians choose nominees and ballots then are sent to about 1,000 rock experts. Inductees must receive at least 50 percent of the vote.
The choices always are controversial. In December 2000, The New York Times reported that Courtney Love was so incensed by the list of 2001 inductees that she demanded the hall return all memorabilia associated with her late husband, Kurt Cobain, and his band, Nirvana.
"How dare you fools not put Lynyrd Skynyrd, Patti Smith or AC/DC in your Hall of Fame," she wrote in a telegram.
But doing something to influence the process is difficult. The Internet is full of petitions for various performers; Jacksonville radio station Rock 105 collected about 5,000 signatures on a pro-Skynyrd petition last summer and is doing another drive on its Web site this summer.
But Hall of Fame voters intentionally are insulated from that sort of thing, and they probably should be. Skynyrd belongs in the Hall of Fame not because it has a legion of fanatically loyal fans but because it was a great band that made great music.
Freebird, a melancholy celebration of defiant self-destruction, is included in the rock Hall of Fame's list of "rock and roll's 500 most popular and influential songs." But Sweet Home Alabama isn't on the list.
Sweet Home Alabama represents the side of Skynyrd that isn't politically correct, the side that attracts fans waving Confederate flags. It is, symbolically, a raised middle finger directed at Northern, liberal, politically correct culture.
That's why it draws such a response among its fans. That's also probably why Hall of Fame voters are happy to ignore Skynyrd. Many must recognize that the symbolic finger is pointing toward them.
It's probably pointing toward me, too. But you don't have to agree with someone's politics to admire his greatness. With less than three months until the mournful 25th anniversary of the plane crash that altered the groups's musical destiny by killing Ronnie Van Zant and five other people, it's time to get Lynyrd Skynyrd into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Tomorrow, I'm mailing the hall a copy of this column. It may not do any good. But I'll feel better.
Charlie Patton's column appears on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
Contact him at
cpatton
jacksonville.com
or (904) 359-4413.
Click the above link to sign the petition. Help get Lynyrd Skynyrd the recognition they are long overdue for.
"Rising from his working-class roots, Bob Seger has reached the pinnacle of the rock and roll world. For after his loyal fans conducted a petition drive and collected nearly 4,500 signatures, Mr. Seger is finally being duly recognized and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Please note: When signing the petition we have gotten a lot of complaints about not getting the confirmation Emails. We are finding that outlook in most cases was deleting them as possible SPAM.. So check your deleted items folder...
Media supporters of the effort to get Lynyrd Skynyrd inducted:
