Huey's Little Slice of the Web

Well, I finally got to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I have been wanting to see this place for years and since I was already in Cleveland for a family gathering, what a great excuse to go.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame sits over looking Lake Erie and has a great view from the restaruant patio area. The exhibits start from the roots of Rock, all the way up to present day. The main exhibits were Elvis and Women who Rock.  I really wasn’t interested in Elvis, but they had some pretty cool memorabilia, like a Cadillac Elvis gave to one of his body guards.  The dashboard had the TCB Band logo engraved on it and “EP” above the door key holes.  It was a pretty pimped out car for that era.

As somewhat of a guitar player, I was particularly interested in the instrument displays, of the various artists. Jerry Garcia’s guitars were incredible and beautiful.  All custom designed and hand made.

John Paul Jones’ (Led Zeppelin) eight string bass was also a beautiful guitar. It appears that it isn’t really eight separate strings tuned to seperate notes, but octave strings, similar to a twelve string guitar.

One thing I noticed from the exhibits, especially the early Blues artists, was that many played really cheap guitars and amps.  I saw many Harmony acoustic and electric guitars owned by famous Blues guitarist, that you used to be able to buy from the old Sears catalogs (I am dating myself with that statement).

What was really amazing, was the early recording studio equipment.  They had and early recording studio set up with original tapes and vinyl record grooving machine, that produced the master platters that would later be used to press the records for sale in stores.  All the equipment, mixing desk, tape recorders, patchbays, etc. took up a good sized room.  Here in the good old 21st century, artist can do all of that within a laptop computer.  I have a home recording studio (not professional) and the equipment doesn’t begin to fill the room.  What takes up all the space, are all my amps, guitars, pedal boards and percussion instruments on stands.  Technology for musicians has come such a long long way, that major recording studios are becoming a thing of the past.  What was really cool, was the original recording tapes of Johnny Cash sitting on the display table.

Everyone has seen the “Evolution of Man” picture that show humans evolving from crawling to walking upright.  Well, they had a similar display, only with radios (actual hardware, not pictures).  It started with the old cylinder recorders and progressed through tube radios, the first TVs, the transistor radio, Reel to Reel tape recorders, 8 Tracks, cassette recorders, Walkman portable cassette players, Walkman portable CD players and onto the iPod.  For the record, I am a huge radio geek.

Anyways, another observation was the clothing they had on display.  Jimmy Hendrix, judging by his clothes, was a good size guy, while Randy Rhoads, David Bowie and Prince are/were, pretty tiny dudes.  On a humorous note, they had some dresses by Aretha Franklin.  By the time you got to the last dress on display, she had pretty much, let herself go.  Let’s just say, it was a big dress.  But, it went with a really big voice.

Below is a picture of Janis Joplin’s Porsche, and the ZZ Top Eliminator car that appeared in many of the old MTV music video’s.  You remember the 80′s don’t you? (many don’t) Sharp Dressed Man, Gimme all your Lovin, and Legs!!  All classic ZZ Top videos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, here is a shot of my 7 year old son and myself in front of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and one that includes my much older brother, David.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ended the day by dropping about $140.00 on “stuff” that I couldn’t live without, from the gift shop.  Shirts, guitar picks, drum sticks, mouse pad, really cool travel coffee cup and God knows what else.  It is really an interesting place to visit, if you love music and music history.  I highly recommend it.