Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2013

Not to say “I told you so,” but I told you so. The Class of 2013 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is:

Performers: Heart, Albert King, Randy Newman, Public Enemy, Rush and Donna Summer.

The two Lifetime Achievement inductions will go to Lou Adler and Quincy Jones.

Recall my original predictions when the 15 nominees were announced. Sure you do. Take out my prediction of Deep Purple, and slide Albert King from an Early Influence Induction to the Performer category, and that is the only difference, people (well, I didn’t predict any Lifetime Achievement inductions, but I’ve been pushing Quincy Jones for years). OK, done gloating.

I cannot fault any of these inductees. My only disappointment is that there were more in the 15 nominees that really deserve induction as well. It was a hell of a group of nominees. But this class is strong.

Heart broke ground for female rockers and also had a handful of great hard rock hits, Albert King had an enormous influence on rock guitarists rooted in the blues, Randy Newman was one of the more influential singer-songwriters of the 70’s and beyond, Public Enemy made rap grow up and gain a political conscience, Rush straddled prog and hard rock while influencing both (and probably inspired more musicians to pick up their instruments than almost any other band) and Donna Summer was the Queen of Disco. Nice diversity in this class with each inductee making crucial contributions to their genres. I’m cool with Lou Adler being honored and Quincy Jones was long overdue.

Normally I enjoy skewering the Rockhall for some of their decisions, but all I can say here is “well done.” Now, that doesn’t mean they still don’t have egregious omissions of both crucial artists and in entire genres or eras, but that should be another discussion. We should celebrate this class wholeheartedly, because they all richly deserve their inductions.