Aside: What if The Rock Hall’s Early Influence Category Had a 51+ year Requirement?

With chatter around the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, there is endless talk of the backlog, the long list of acts who deserve induction but have yet to get in, meanwhile more worthy acts become eligible each year.

Many have potential solutions. Future Rock Legends wondered how the voting would have worked if it was more like the Baseball Hall of Fame. Then fans created the Rock Hall Reconsidered project to do just that. The podcast Who Cares About the Rock Hall sometimes argues to induct all nominees, as they all (debatably) deserve it. Some, myself included, think there should be a Veterans Committee, like the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is in charge of voting in all the players from bygone eras or who were missed the first time around.

But the Rock Hall sort of already has a Veterans Committee. It’s called Early Influences, inducting acts “whose music predated rock and roll but had an impact on the evolution of rock and roll and inspired rock’s leading artists.” Early inductees included the Grandfather of Rock and Roll, Louis Jordan, in 1987, and the most recent induction was for The Godmother of Rock and Roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, in 2018.

For the first five years of the Rock Hall, they would induct three Early Influences a year, then one-or-two a year for the next decade, at which point it became a rarity. But I wondered, what if they kept at three-a-year and came into the Rock era? What if, from the beginning, the Early Influences category had these rules:

1. The artist had to be at least 51 years from their debut. Currently inductees into the Hall of Fame need to wait 26 years from their debut, so this would give them 25 years to be inducted through the normal route.
2. Three inductees per year, no less no more.

Then I made a “what if” list that reflected these rules. I gave preference to those already inducted as Early Influences. They went in ASAP, in their original order, unless they were not yet eligible. Here’s the result:

51+ Class	Artist	Actual Early Influence Year	Change
1986	Jimmie Rodgers	1986	No Change
1986	T-Bone Walker	1987	+1
1986	Lead Belly	1988	+2
1987	Bessie Smith	1989	+2
1987	The Ink Spots	1989	+2
1987	Ma Rainey	1990	+3
1988	Robert Johnson	1986	-2
1988	Louis Armstrong	1990	+2
1988	Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	1999	+11
1989	Mahalia Jackson	1997	+8
1989	Jelly Roll Morton	1998	+9
1989	Billie Holiday	2000	+11
1990	Jimmy Yancey	1986	-4
1990	Louis Jordan	1987	-3
1990	The Soul Stirrers	1989	-1
1991	Woody Guthrie	1988	-3
1991	Charlie Christian	1990	-1
1991	Sister Rosetta Tharpe	2018	+27
1992	Bill Monroe	1997	+5
1992	Nat “King” Cole	2000	+8
1992	Ella Fitzgerald	(RHR)	New
1993	Duke Ellington	(RHR)	New
1993	The Carter Family	(RHR)	New
1993	Clara Ward	N/A	New
1994	Hoagy Carmichael	N/A	New
1994	Cab Calloway	(RHR)	New
1994	Frank Sinatra	(RHR)	New
1995	Dinah Washington	1993	-2
1995	Ravi Shankar	(RHR)	New
1995	Lena Horne	N/A	New
1996	Les Paul	1988	-8
1996	Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup	N/A	New
1996	Wynonie Harris	(RHR)	New
1997	Blind Lemon Jefferson	(RHR)	New
1997	Mississippi John Hurt	(RHR)	New
1997	Django Reinhardt	(RHR)	New
1998	Hank Williams	1987	-11
1998	Eddie Lang	(RHR)	New
1998	Chet Atkins	N/A	New
1999	The Orioles	1995	-4
1999	Pete Seeger	1996	-3
1999	Thelonious Monk	N/A	New
2000	Professor Longhair	1992	-8
2000	Charles Brown	1999	-1
2000	The Mills Brothers	(RHR)	New
2001	The Weavers	(RHR)	New
2001	The Dominoes	(Prev)	New
2001	Esther Phillips	(Prev)	New
2002	Howlin’ Wolf	1991	-11
2002	Elmore James	1992	-10
2002	The “5” Royales	2015	+13
2003	Big Mama Thorton	(RHR)	New
2003	Chuck Willis	(Prev)	New
2003	Big Maybelle	N/A	New
2004	Roy Brown	(RHR)	New
2004	The Ravens	(RHR)	New
2004	The Four Freshman	(RHR)	New
2005	Wanda Jackson	2009	+4
2005	The Clovers	(RHR)	New
2005	Screamin’ Jay Hawkins	(RHR)	New
2006	Willie Dixon	1994	-12
2006	Patsy Cline	(RHR)	New
2006	Harry Belafonte	N/A	New
2007	Odetta	N/A	New
2007	Celia Cruz	N/A	New
2007	Johnny Ace	(Prev)	New
2008	Johnny Burnette and the Rock N Roll Trio	N/A	New
2008	Herbie Hancock	(RHR)	New
2008	John Coltrane	(RHR)	New
2009	The Chantels	(Prev)	New
2009	Link Wray	(Prev)	New
2009	The Kingston Trio	(RHR)	New
2010	Carole King	(Nom)	New
2010	Conway Twitty	(Prev)	New
2010	Sonny Boy Williamson	(RHR)	New
2011	The Big Bopper	N/A	New
2011	Serge Gainsbourg	N/A	New
2011	Chubby Cheker	N/A	New
2012	Willie Nelson	(RHR)	New
2012	Ben E. King	(Prev)	New
2012	The Marvelettes	(Prev)	New
2013	The Spinners	(Prev)	New
2013	Mary Wells	N/A	New
2013	Patti LaBelle	N/A	New
2014	Glen Campbell	N/A	New
2014	Dolly Parton	N/A	New
2014	Loretta Lynn	N/A	New
2015	Dick Dale	N/A	New
2015	Dionne Warwick	(Nom)	New
2015	Tina Turner	(Nom)	New
2016	Toots & the Maytals	N/A	New
2016	Waylon Jennings	(RHR)	New
2016	Cher	N/A	New
2017	The Shangri-Las	N/A	New
2017	Captain Beefheart	N/A	New
2017	MC5	(Prev)	New
2018	The Monkees	N/A	New
2018	Love	N/A	New
2018	Gram Parsons	(Prev)	New
2019	The 5th Dimension	N/A	New
2019	Emmylou Harris	N/A	New
2019	Jethro Tull	N/A	New
2020	Warren Zevon	N/A	New
2020	The Meters	(Prev)	New
2020	King Crimson	N/A	New
2021	Kraftwerk	(Prev)	New
2021	Todd Rundgren	(Nom)	New
2021	Fela Kuti	(Nom)	New

*(Nom) – Current Rock Hall nominee
*(Prev) – Previous Rock Hall nominee
*(RHR) – Rock Hall Revisited Influence pick

Who’d be hurt most by this change: Hank Williams goes in 11 years later, and the 50s blues artists (and The “5” Royals) have to wait longer too.

Who it helped the most: Sister Rosetta (now just one year after Louis Jordan, instead of thirty-one), Bob Wills, and Billie Holiday

Currently nominated/ often snubbed artists who’d be eligible as of 2021:

• MC5
• Kraftwerk
• Todd Rundgren
• Dionne Warwick
• Tina Turner
• Carole King
• Fela Kuti

Seven artists who I didn’t add but have been nominated by the Rock Hall and could be considered as of 2021:

• Joe Tex
• Procol Harum
• Steppenwolf
• Sir Douglas Quintet
• The J.B.’s
• The J. Geils Band
• Thin Lizzy

And here are three more past nominees that would be eligible in 2022:

• John Prine
• War
• Steve Winwood

(FYI, the most-also-ran artist, Chic, would be eligible in 2028)

I admit there are issues with this idea. Many of these artists, especially after 2005, no longer would predate the Rock era, (though if you look at the current list, some like Wanda Jackson and Willie Dixon had solo careers that also fail that test). So the “predate” prerequisite would have to go.

Also the name, specifically “Early” would probably need to change. Rock Hall Revisited used “Influences” which works well. “Veterans” sounds a bit too stolen-valor-ish, but Baseball uses it fine.

Also people who think there’s already too many artists in the Rock Hall or those would bristle at the thought of Frank Sinatra being in the Rock Hall would probably hate this idea.

Most of all, the biggest issue is that it just can’t be done without a time machine. Inducting the 76 new artists this year would also be a little crazy (though desperate times call…).

But, the Hall could start, and the sooner the better. Starting this year, they should induct, via this (or a slightly different) category:

• Two to three artists who satisfy the 51+ rule
• At least one artist that had their debut 76+ years ago

Why not go on tracks? 24+, 51+, and 76+. Here are the artists that would satisfy the 76+ rule in 2021:

• Duke Ellington
• Hoagy Carmichael
• Blind Lemon Jefferson
• Eddie Lang
• Mississippi John Hurt
• The Carter Family
• Cab Calloway
• The Mills Brothers
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Ravi Shankar
• Frank Sinatra
• Clara Ward
• Lena Horne
• Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup
• Wynonie Harris
• Django Reinhardt

And who knows, maybe in a few decades it might make sense to do a 101+ track. There will always be snubbed artists, or artists from a bygone era that were forgotten, that were ignored, or that influences the future of rock music. Tracks could also revive interest in the different eras of music history.

With these tweaks, progress on the backlog could begin.

(Assembling this could not have been done easily without the Future Rock Legends website. Thanks!)