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Los Angeles, California I begin with a confession. I am now and since I bought my first 45rpm in '57 ("At the Hop," by Danny and the Juniors) a rock n'roll junkie. At my first concert, I saw the Mamas and Papas at Forest Hills tennis stadium, in the summer of '66. The opening act was a local duo, Simon and Garfunkel. I spent the summer of '67 in Haight-Asbury and saw Janis Joplin fronting Big Brother and the Holding Company, well before the release of their Columbia album. I saw Cream and Hendrix. I was at Woodstock (and years later would own a home there), my first radio show (coming up on 40 years ago, ouch.) was called "The Flower Power Hour." That radio show was so long ago – how long ago was it? – that the name of the program wasn't nearly as dopey as it sounds now. Flower Power most decidedly did not age well, but I digress. I say all this because I would like to think (and I realize this sounds hideously self-serving) I've got some rock 'n' roll chops. If not chops, then certainly some history. From my teenage days in the Village hanging out at the Café au GoGo, Café Wha and the Bitter End, listening to the Blues Project, Lovin' Spoonful and Richie Havens in their (and my) formative years, rock 'n' roll grabbed a hold of me and has never let go. I can't play a lick, but I would put my 8000 iPod tunes up against anybody's. Now that the preface is out of the way, let's get to the heart of the matter. Last year's inductees into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame wanted dead or alive and in alphabetical order were Black Sabbath (is Ozzy dead or alive?...you be the judge), Blondie, Miles Davis, Lynyrd Skynard and the Sex Pistols. No arguments, no qualms with any of the above. This year's class, I must admit left me profoundly indifferent. Grandmaster Flash gets into the hall of fame, for scratching records with the needle on a Victrola? Ok, not my cup of tea. R.E.M certainly were the vibe of their decade/generation. Fabulous band, unique sound, but a band with a lasting impact? I dunno. We'll talk in 50 years. Same can be said for Van Halen, whose off-stage antics were almost as entertaining as their musical body of work. Patti Smith's primal, guttural and soulful voice and presentation makes her a unique artist. And while the Ronettes were one of the great girl groups, Hall of Famers? I’m not sure about that. It wasn't as if they had a body of work, and had it not been for Mrs. Spector's husband's wall of sound, they might have well been the Shangra-las. But in my racket, every year there are heated debates about who is a Hall of Famer and who isn't. There are those ballplayers who were really, really good and have not been able to knock down the door to Cooperstown, and there are those who should be or should have been immortalized. It makes for great water cooler discussion and passionate saloon debate. Jim Rice. Dale Murphy. Jack Morris. Lee Smith. Goose Gossage. Jim Kaat. Gil Hodges. And here's the big one that has entered the debating fray this year, Mark McGwire. Is McGwire Mick Jagger or Milli Vanilli? For the purpose of passionate saloon debate, which is infinitely more colorful than water cooler chitchat, I am going to offer ten artists for consideration, who if not Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, certainly deserve some serious thought. #10 Little Feat Lowell George and Roy Estrada, two former members of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention founded this eclectic band in 1969. While they never had any success as a singles band, this was and remains to this day a quality album and concert group. The early incarnation of Little Feat produced a mix of rock and New Orleans funk. George's "Willin'" became a hit for Linda Ronstadt. "Dixie Chicken," "Oh Atlanta," are songs that have aged well, even if Lowell George didn't. He died at the age of 34 of a heart attack after years of drug abuse. But the band played on and still does, with Paul Barrere singing lead. While Little Feat never had huge commercial success, their artistic quality and success is unquestioned. If you judge a band by the company it keeps, here are some of the artists who covered their songs: Ronstadt, The Byrds, Jackson Browne, Randy Newman,Van Halen, Joe Walsh, Carly Simon and Phish.
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