Downloaded from YTS.MX
[♪ energetic rock music playing]
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
-♪ Ay! ♪ -[audience cheering, applauding]
♪ If I could turn back time ♪
♪ What would you say? ♪
♪ Mary J. Is in the spot tonight ♪
♪ And I'ma make you feel All right ♪
♪ Do you, you ♪
♪ Celebrate good times Come on ♪
♪ Wastin' away again In Margaritaville ♪
♪ Forever, forever You'll stay in my heart ♪
♪ Here we go, yo Here we go, yo ♪
♪ I'm hot blooded, hot blooded ♪
[♪ energetic rock music continues]
[audience cheering, applauding]
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[♪ music concludes]
[♪ uplifting pop anthem playing, Cher "Believe"]
[audience cheering]
♪ After love, after love After love, after love ♪
♪ After love, after love After love ♪
♪ After love, after love After love, after love ♪
♪ No matter how hard I try You keep pushing me aside ♪
♪ And I can't break through There's no talking to you ♪
♪ It's so sad That you're leaving ♪
♪ It takes time to believe it ♪
♪ But after all is said and done ♪
♪ You're gonna be the lonely one, oh ♪
♪ Do you believe in life after love? ♪
♪ I can feel something inside me say ♪
♪ "I really don't think you're strong enough, no" ♪
♪ Do you believe in life after love? ♪
♪ I can feel something inside me say ♪
♪ "I really don't think you're strong enough, no" ♪
♪ What am I supposed to do? ♪
♪ Sit around and wait for you? ♪
♪ Well, I can't do that ♪
♪ And there's no turning back I need time to move on ♪
♪ I need love to feel strong ♪
♪ 'Cause I've had time to think it through ♪
♪ And maybe I'm too good for you, oh ♪
♪ Do you believe in life after love? ♪
♪ I can feel something inside me say ♪
♪ "I really don't think you're strong enough, no" ♪
♪ Do you believe in life after love? ♪
♪ I can feel something inside me say ♪
♪ "I really don't think you're strong enough, no" ♪
♪ Well, I know that I'll get through this ♪
[audience cheering]
♪ 'Cause I know that I am strong ♪
♪ And I don't need you anymore ♪
♪ No, I don't need you anymore ♪
♪ Do you believe in life after love? ♪
♪ I can feel something inside me say ♪
♪ "I really don't think you're strong enough, no" ♪
♪ Do you believe in life after love? ♪
♪ I can feel something inside me say ♪
♪ "I really don't think you're strong enough, no" ♪
♪ Do you believe in life after love? ♪
Give it up for Cher!
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ upbeat dubstep music playing]
[announcer] To induct Cher
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Zendaya.
[audience cheering]
Wow.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Where do I even begin?
[audience cheering, applauding]
There is not one person in this room,
in this country, and pretty much the whole world
who doesn't know the name of the artist
I'm here to honor tonight.
Her name is just as legendary as her legacy.
So iconic she only needs one name.
-Cher. -[audience cheering, applauding]
It's impossible to measure the influence
that Cher has had and continues to have on every one of us,
as you can see.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[chuckles]
Her impact spans generations,
and no matter when you were born,
you have heard, seen,
or experienced Cher's work in some form or another.
Cher is a constant inspiration and reference point.
[chuckles] You want dance floor innovation?
Listen to Believe.
You want a lesson on living in the spotlight
and keeping your sanity? Look to Cher.
Want to make 27 albums and win an Oscar?
Cher did it.
[audience cheering, applauding]
You want longevity? I mean, come on.
She does it all, and might I add,
really, really fucking well.
[audience cheering, applauding]
But listen, it's not just the effortless charm,
the acting chops, and stunning Bob Mackie dresses
that gets you into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
For that, you need to bring the musical goods,
and Cher has got the goods.
[audience cheering, applauding]
She's the only solo artist to have a number one hit
in each of the last seven decades.
[audience cheering, applauding]
She has sold over 140 million records worldwide.
When Sonny & Cher came onto the scene back in 1964,
Cher became an instant sensation.
The world fell in love with her and sang along
to their smash hits, I Got You Babe,
and The Beat Goes On.
Cher's rise as a solo artist was even more explosive,
shattering so many stereotypes
of what female vocalists were "supposed" to sound like
and instead creating something new,
something innovative, and distinctively her own.
Her voice is so singular that any song that she sings
becomes a Cher song.
She's navigated a multitude of musical genres,
defined new ones, and reinvented others.
Her music touches your heart, your spirit, makes you dance,
makes you rock, and has stood the test of time.
Right now, Believe, I Got You Babe, or Strong Enough
is playing on a radio station somewhere in America,
and there are drag performers all over the world...
-[audience cheering, applauding] -...currently...
in a makeup chair putting on their best Cher face.
She may be imitated,
but she can never be replicated.
She is an absolutely brilliant and captivating performer
who is fearless in her presentation.
Oh, and she can still rock a sheer butt-revealing bodysuit.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[chuckles]
She's been an influence and an inspiration
for every female artist that has come after her,
including myself.
She has never acknowledged or accepted
that there were things that women
were not supposed to do.
She just did exactly what she wanted.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[Zendaya] Her way.
This fierce woman is a hero, a true artist,
and just about as authentically rock and roll
as you can get.
So thank you, Cher.
Thank you for being an advocate, for being an ally,
for paving the way for so many humans of all kinds
to live in and speak their truth,
and to have the courage to be as daring
and as open-hearted as you.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Cher once said, "You should never be inhibited
"by what people expect you to do."
And those are words I hope we can all learn to live by.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[interviewer] Do you think
you should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?
You know, fuck them.
I don't need to be in a hall to rock,
so I don't-- You know, whatever.
[♪ soft pop music playing, Sonny & Cher "I Got You Babe"]
♪ They say we're young and we don't know ♪
♪ We won't find out until we grow... ♪
[Cher] There wasn't gonna be Sonny & Cher.
Sonny, he wanted me to be Cher, and I just said,
"I can't do this by myself."
♪ I got you babe... ♪
[Sonny] I want Cher to be known as the singer that she is.
She's a very, very good singer,
and I'm desperately trying to make people aware of that.
[♪ upbeat folk rock playing, Cher "All I Really Want to Do"]
♪ Now I ain't lookin' to compete with you ♪
♪ Beat on... ♪
[Cher] My first solo hit was All I Really Want to Do
by Bob Dylan.
♪ All I really want to do ♪
♪ Is baby, be friends with you ♪
♪ The beat goes on... ♪
[Cher] Sonny was the best person in the world to work with,
and we worked constantly.
♪ Drums keep pounding A rhythm to the brain ♪
[Cher] When I started being able to do
a few things on my own without Sonny,
I figured I'm not as dumb as I thought I was,
and I'm not as weak as I thought I was.
[♪ pop music playing, Cher "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves"]
♪ Gypsy, tramps, and thieves ♪
♪ We'd hear it from the people of the town ♪
♪ They'd call us gypsies, tramps, and thieves ♪
Cher is a fucking rock star.
She's genre-less and brave.
I think she is one of the most unique artists
our world has seen.
[♪ upbeat pop music playing, Cher "Dark Lady"]
♪ Dark lady laughed and danced and lit the candles one by one ♪
♪ Danced to her gypsy music till her brew was done... ♪
Cher is Cher, one name. She don't need two.
♪ Goodness gracious Great balls of fire... ♪
When she wants to do something, she does it.
And she's always been rocking.
Even her show on television, she had all the rockers on.
-[♪ upbeat rock music playing] -♪ This love is fine ♪
♪ Goodness gracious Great balls of fire ♪
I like doing the music that I'm doing on this album
a lot because it's more rock and roll.
And since I started, that's what I wanted to be.
[♪ powerful rock ballad playing, Cher "I Found Someone"]
♪ I found someone to take away the heartache ♪
Watching Cher go through
all of these evolutions in her life,
her fashion sense and her stage presence,
she is the most diverse artist ever.
[♪ soft rock music playing, Cher "If I Could Turn Back Time"]
♪ I don't know why I did the things I did ♪
♪ I don't know why... ♪
We share something in common by having the same type
of career with husband-manager,
and then separating and going out on our own.
She was an icon then,
and she has remained an icon.
♪ But baby If I could turn back time ♪
♪ If I could find a way ♪
♪ I'd take back those words that have hurt you ♪
-♪ And you'd stay... ♪ -[Cher] I have to kind of mix it up,
you know, and I have to sing other people's songs too,
'cause it wouldn't be that much fun for me
and I have to be having fun.
[♪ funky pop music playing]
♪ And you're not listening to all I say! ♪
♪ And if you want to know if he... ♪
[P!nk] Cher's voice, you know it's Cher.
It's this incredible masculine-feminine mix.
You can't mimic that.
[♪ upbeat pop music playing, Cher "Strong Enough"]
[inaudible dialogue]
♪ Now I'm strong enough to know... ♪
[Cher] I come out there and I feel like I'm supposed to be there.
It's an unbelievable feeling
having the energy of thousands of people.
It makes you feel like you're about 16-feet tall.
Cher's success is her gumption.
Just the fact that she came back with Believe
when they all wrote her off,
she wasn't gonna take no for an answer.
I've been dropped from two record companies.
Rob Dickins, head of Warner's UK,
said, "I don't think you're done."
So I went to England and I make Believe.
[♪ uplifting pop anthem playing, Cher "Believe"]
♪ No matter how hard I try... ♪
I was the first person ever to do Auto-Tune.
[Mark] She had this idea of doing this effect.
All this does is it goes along, it doesn't bend the note
up until it reaches a certain point,
and then it just flicks to the nearest note.
And that's where you get this crazy sound.
♪ I can feel something inside me say ♪
[Cher] He played it for me, and I thought,
"This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard."
♪ Do you believe in life after love? ♪
I don't know how many people can say
that they've put out 27 studio albums
and to have had a hit in every decade
for seven decades. So it is about time, everyone.
[Cher] I wanted to do art
that impresses people and makes them feel something
and also makes you feel like this is what
I was put here to do.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[♪ music concludes]
I am beyond honored to welcome Cher,
the coolest woman on the planet,
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ soft rock music playing, Cher "If I Could Turn Back Time"]
♪ If I could turn back time If I could find a way ♪
♪ I'd turn back those words that have hurt you ♪
♪ And you'd stay ♪
♪ I don't know why I did the things I did ♪
♪ I don't know why I said the things I said ♪
♪ Pride's like a knife It can cut deep inside ♪
♪ Words are like weapons They wound sometimes ♪
♪ I didn't really mean to hurt you ♪
♪ I didn't wanna see you go I know I made you cry ♪
♪ And, darlin' if I could turn back time ♪
♪ If I could find a way ♪
♪ I'd take back those words that have hurt you ♪
♪ And you'd stay ♪
♪ If I could reach the stars ♪
♪ I'd give 'em all to you ♪
♪ Then you'd love me, love me ♪
♪ Like you used to do ♪
♪ If I could turn back time ♪
♪ My world was shattered I was torn apart ♪
♪ Like someone took a knife and drove it deep in my heart ♪
♪ You walked out the door I swore that I didn't care ♪
♪ But I lost everything, darlin' Then and there ♪
♪ Too hard to tell you I was sorry ♪
♪ Too proud to tell you I was wrong ♪
♪ I know that I was blind And, darlin' ♪
♪ If I could turn back time ♪
♪ If I could find a way ♪
♪ I'd take back those words that have hurt you ♪
♪ And you'd stay ♪
♪ If I could reach the stars ♪
♪ Well, I'd give 'em all to you ♪
♪ Then you'd love me, love me ♪
♪ Like you used to do, oh ♪
-♪ If I could turn back time ♪ -♪ If I could turn back time ♪
♪ If I could turn back time Oh, baby ♪
Whoo!
♪ I didn't really mean to hurt you ♪
♪ I didn't wanna see you go I know I made you cry ♪
♪ But, darlin' If I could turn back time ♪
♪ If I could find a way ♪
♪ I'd take back those words that have hurt you ♪
♪ If I could reach the stars ♪
♪ I'd give them all to you ♪
♪ Then you'd love me, love me ♪
♪ Like you used to do ♪
♪ If I could turn back time ♪
♪ Turn back time ♪
♪ If I could find a way ♪
♪ Then maybe, maybe maybe you'd stay ♪
♪ If I could reach the stars ♪
♪ I'd give 'em all to you ♪
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Cher] Thank you.
Thank you.
You crazy girl. What are you talking about?
Thank you. Okay. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you.
Oh, thank you.
Oh, no. This, uh--
I'm kind of embarrassed.
Um...
Thank you. Thank you. Um...
So...
Oh, this speech is gonna be such a crap shoot.
I'm not kidding you.
Because I wrote it the other day,
and then I rewrote it tonight,
and I'm dyslexic, so what the fuck?
I don't know what's gonna happen, okay?
All right, so it was easier getting divorced
from two men than it was... [laughs] ...to get inducted
to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, you know?
It was like...
You know, and I want to thank... He's not here tonight,
but I want to thank my guardian,
-David Geffen, because, uh... -[audience cheering, applauding]
Yeah, he wrote a letter,
and, um, sent it to the directors.
And so... [laughs] ...here I am.
So anyway, thank you, David.
Thank you for caring so much about me. [sighs]
I want to tell you some stories about my life,
because I hope to make them small.
But when I was like four years old,
I saw Cinderella,
and that's what I knew I wanted to be.
I wanted to be...
I wanted to sing, and I wanted to make people happy,
and I wanted to have fun, and I wanted to be famous.
But, uh... [chuckles] I'm not sure how a child knows
about being famous, but I knew.
So anyway, I had a crazy, amazing mother.
And she said to me, you know, you might not be the prettiest,
you might not be the smartest,
you might not be the most talented,
but you're special.
And so my mom kept instilling it into me because it was hard.
I didn't do well in school.
You know, I just couldn't get it.
I couldn't read. I couldn't do any of that stuff.
But, um...
she said, you know,
if you... if you... if you're down and you're out,
you get up again.
And in my life, I have down, I've been so down... [laughs]
...that you cannot, like as my mother would say,
lower than a snake's belly, okay?
That's how down I've been.
And I mean, people have told me that I was finished,
that I was through, I have ten minutes.
And... and... and the one thing that I think I got from my mom
is that I never gave up, you know?
You go down, you come up.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Cher] And... and when Sonny and I split,
I had no money, okay? Nothing.
And I had a car and my clothes. And, um, I had to go to Vegas.
And at that point, Vegas was the elephant's graveyard.
And... and so if you went there, you had nothing, you know?
And, um, now it's cool
and everybody has a residency, but, uh...
[audience laughing]
One night, Francis Ford Coppola came to one of my shows
and he came backstage
and he said, "You know, you should be an actress."
And I went, "Okay."
And he said, "Go to New York."
So I went to New York.
And by accident, I got a play.
And from the play, I got a movie with Meryl Streep.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And... and hone... honestly, I believe what my mom said,
but I'm lucky, you know?
I've had really bad things happen.
I was dropped by four labels, you know?
And then when it was completely over,
I did Believe, and it was like, "Yes!"
So I've just been really lucky,
and I have had number one for seven decades,
which surprises me.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Right.
Because I'm a good singer, you know?
I'm a good singer. I'm not a great singer.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Like... like, you know what?
I'll take it. Uh, no, anyway, and also,
Believe, I... I... I changed the sound
-of music forever, all right? -[audience cheering, applauding]
And... and Believe really changed the sound of music.
It was an accident because my producer and I
were having a fight because he said,
"Cher, do it better."
And Believe was kind of a bitch in the beginning.
-It wasn't that good. -[audience laughing]
So he said, "Do it better and do it better."
And I went, "Dude, if you want it better,
"get another singer. Okay?"
"Because I can't do it better."
And then he called me later in the afternoon.
He said, "Cher,
"I've been playing around with the pitch machine,
"and I think I got something."
So I went back, and, uh...
sitting down, and he started to play it.
And I was like, "Oh, Jesus."
"Oh, my gosh. But I'm going to be calm."
And... and then when it was over,
we both jumped up and we high-fived each other.
It was so great. It was like a moment.
And then the head of my record company,
who I adore, said, "We can't do that
"because no one will know that it's you."
And I went, "Yes."
"Yes, that's the deal." That's the great part, you know?
-That's the great part. -[audience applauding]
And, um, so, it's just...
my life has been just a roller coaster.
And the one thing that I have never done
is I never give up.
I never give up.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And I'm talking to the women.
I'm talking to the women, okay?
-You guys are on your own. -[audience cheering, applauding]
[Cher] You know?
We've been down and out, and we keep striving,
and we keep going, and we keep building,
and we are somebody, okay?
We are special.
As my mom would say, we're special.
So, I want to thank my family, Chaz, Elijah,
my sister back home, my brother-in-law, Ivar, and...
my little friend baby, Slash in 4K,
-and Alexander. -[audience applauding]
So good night and thank you so much.
[audience cheering, applauding]
There's nothing more basic than the blues,
and few people in England know more about them
than Alexis Korner.
[♪ jazzy blues music playing]
[Alexis] The old blues records used to come
in really as wrapping
for the jazz rarities in the middle.
Used to wrap the old O.K.
and Jeanette's, Oliver's and Morton's
and things and put a few cruddy old blues records
on the outside, so if anything got broken,
it was only the blues records.
And that's how we started to come across them here.
Most people in those days for rhythm and blues,
they were living with their record collections.
And Alexis managed to bring it out into the open,
and just for that, he deserves everything.
The music we played was very much based
on the old country blues, because the records
we'd heard were something like this.
[♪ bluesy rock music playing, The Yardbirds "Louise"]
♪ Louise ♪
♪ You're the sweetest little gal I know ♪
[Keith] And Alexis sort of managed
to get a club going and Ealing,
and that's when I first heard about Alexis.
Some guy has actually got a club
playing rhythm and blues in London.
[♪ soulful blues music playing, Alexis Korner "Rosie"]
♪ Right here, Rosie ♪
♪ Again ♪
♪ When she walks she reels in Rocks behind ♪
Because the only clubs that we played,
apart from our own when we were playing acoustic,
were trad jazz clubs.
But then when we went electric, it really was a case of out,
and don't you dare set foot in here again
with all that electricity.
So we had to start our own club,
which was a place called The Ealing Club.
[Bob] Alexis was this incredible father figure
to this amazing generation of arriving musicians
in 1962, '63, '64, '65.
Alexis was absolutely central to the development
of British music as we know it today.
He introduced everybody to everybody.
He sort of expanded the club, so to speak.
There was a strange assortment of people working around then,
all of whom wanted to get into the blues thing.
Dick Heckstall-Smith and Graham Bond
and Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker and Cyril Davies
and Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger.
♪ Oh, I got three good women But it's two more in my way ♪
Alexis, what he would do in the interval, you know,
where they'd take a break,
he would invite anybody up to fill in the gap,
you know, for 10 or 15 minutes.
And one night, he invited Mick and me up,
you know, which is the first time he played
with Charlie Watts.
You see, this is why we're connected, Alexis
and the Stones, is, uh... I stole half his band. [laughs]
♪ Hey, hey, babe I swear you're built for speed ♪
[interviewer] Alexis Korner, you're the father
of English blues.
How did that start?
I suppose it started by virtue of the fact
that I was the oldest cat around who was prepared
to say that that was what he was playing.
[Keith] He was a bluesman,
but he is the father of British rock and roll,
so if anybody deserves to be
in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,
then it's Alexis Korner.
♪ Than any other gal alive ♪
-[♪ music concludes] -[audience applauding]
[announcer] To induct Kool & The Gang,
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Chuck D.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Wow.
How y'all doing?
[audience cheering]
Quest to The Roots know, we gotta thank Cher.
A lot of rappers gotta thank Cher, right? [laughs]
All right, everybody say, hey, hey, hey!
[audience chanting] Hey! Hey! Hey!
We having a celebration tonight,
the get down to the get down,
to the get down on it, from DT to JT,
to the four-letter hip name that comes before the gang,
so cool they became their own slang.
[audience cheering]
Jersey City Jazzy X to Soul Town Flames,
1969
when they hit the record game.
Hank, Keith, Spectrum City DJs, like Mr. Bill, Wildman Steve,
and our own Doc Dre, us always playing,
I'm just saying that, hey, hey, hey.
Good Times is always on our minds
inside Wild and Peaceful times.
To the get down, to the Jungle Boogie,
get down one time to the boogie, say, "Uh!"
[audience cheering, applauding]
I always wanted to rap on that record.
And if that wasn't enough, there was more Funky Stuff.
Representing their peers in bands
like Earth, Wind & Fire, Parliament, Funkadelic.
The J.B.'s already in.
We gotta spill a little funk to the bands who ain't here,
Ohio Players, Bar-Kays, Mandrill, Commodores,
Lakeside, Con Funk Shun, et cetera, et cetera.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And then came the disco days. It got Too Hot.
Then J.T. came in and gave it all he got.
Too, too hot with a gang of new hits.
Joanna to Cherish.
Kool & The Gang remain Fresh
in the best B-boy vernacular, y'all.
Let it be known, this is a long-due Celebration.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Chuck D] Y'all know-- Hey, hey, y'all know the deal.
Birthdays, weddings, sports championships.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Chuck D] Y'all know the drill.
And when they created the song Celebration,
it was quoted that the band said,
"We don't know nothing.
"We just celebrate and praise you, God."
So, here we are, Celebration, full circle,
in the OH-10, from Youngstown, right here...
[audience cheering, applauding]
...to Cleveland.
Here we are, y'all.
-Say, "Hey, hey, hey." -[audience] Hey, hey, hey!
Here we are.
So, with massive respect, get your minds, bodies,
and souls in check,
ladies and gentlemen, for this super bad video
y'all about to get. Check it out.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ upbeat funk playing, Kool & The Gang "Hollywood Swinging"]
Kool & The Gang is the high watermark for soul,
funk, R&B perfection.
♪ Hollywood ♪
♪ Hollywood swinging ♪
It's like this amazing collective
of musicians and energy.
♪ And I saw The Kool & The Gang Show ♪
With Kool & The Gang, once you started dancing,
you're never gonna stop dancing.
[♪ lively funk playing, Kool & The Gang "Kool & The Gang"]
[Robert] We started back in 1964,
and we called ourselves the "Jazziacs."
And jazz was, uh, you know,
the music that we love and we still love today.
We got involved with backing up other singing groups
that was more into R&B or doo-wops.
Then the music started changing.
Our sound started mixing from jazz to rock.
♪ We party ♪
The record company came to us and suggested
that we record Soul Makossa
because Soul Makossa was a hit.
We said, "What? Soul Makossa?"
We decided that we would make up our own Soul Makossa.
[♪ lively funk music playing, Kool & The Gang "Jungle Boogie"]
-♪ Jungle boogie ♪ -♪ Get up with the get down... ♪
At that point in time, Kool & The Gang
became "Kool & The Gang," for real.
I think of sweaty-ass '70s clubs with no AC,
women with afros, bell bottoms.
Just pure funk.
But one element that was missing was the lead vocals.
[♪ upbeat funk music playing, Kool & The Gang "Ladies' Night"]
♪ Mm, oh, yeah Oh, what a night ♪
-You're the new lead singer. -How you doing?
-Your name? -James Taylor.
♪ Yes, it's ladies' night And the feeling's right ♪
♪ Oh, yes, it's ladies' night Oh, what a night ♪
♪ Oh, what a night ♪
[J.T.] They heard something in my voice that was unique.
They felt that I had a cool-sounding voice
that fit the cool sound.
[♪ mellow soul music playing, Kool & The Gang "Too Hot"]
-♪ Too hot, lady ♪ -♪ Too hot ♪
When he sang it, it almost felt like he was smiling.
It would give the group an identity.
[♪ upbeat funk playing, Kool & The Gang "Get Down on It"]
♪ Get down on it Get down on it ♪
[J.T.] And our records started selling more.
[Ronald] It was a pinpoint focus for us
to take it to the next level.
♪ How you gonna do it if you Really don't wanna dance ♪
♪ By standing on the wall? ♪
♪ Get your back up Off the wall... ♪
[Ronald] What keeps this band together?
We have a leader by the name of Robert "Kool" Bell.
He's one of my favorite bass players ever.
It's just knowing where to make all that space
and just play off the drums.
Let the horns have it and let the guitars have it.
He's the glue to this whole thing.
He's the Kool in the Kool. We are the gang.
[♪ romantic soul music playing, Kool & The Gang "Joanna"]
♪ Joanna, I love you... ♪
[Robert] You know, they said, "Oh, Kool & The Gang sold out."
[Ronald] They sold out.
They're doing songs like Joanna.
We did. We sold out of every record.
[Robert] The record company didn't have
-no problem with that. -[Ronald] No, no problem.
[♪ upbeat funk music playing, Kool & The Gang "Fresh"]
-♪ She's fresh, fresh ♪ -♪ Exciting ♪
♪ She's so exciting to me Yeah... ♪
[Usher] There was this amazing arrangement of music.
And sometimes it was more musical
than it was actually a song or a lyric.
[♪ soft jazz playing, Kool & The Gang "Summer Madness"]
[Usher] They were creating music for the future.
They supplied us with a certain bounce.
[♪ upbeat funk music playing, Kool & The Gang "Give It Up"]
[Questlove] Kool & The Gang's one of the most sampled groups
-in hip-hop history. -♪ Don't sweat the technique ♪
So many have taken from them.
[♪ upbeat hip-hop music playing, Mase "Feel So Good"]
-♪ Bad, bad, bad, bad boy ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
♪ You make me feel so good ♪
Producers and rappers hear it and are just so,
like, moved by it. You're just like,
"I wanna do something with that record."
We are dying to get back to that energy. I know I am.
I want that energy again. I want that feeling again.
[♪ upbeat funk music playing, Kool & The Gang "Celebration"]
They have a catalog of, "You must play at my party."
It's just the way it is.
♪ There's a party going on right here ♪
♪ A celebration to last throughout the year ♪
[Anderson] The bass and the drums,
the rhythm section, the guitar, they're just so locked in.
It's in your soul, your spirit,
and people start to unite, sing every word.
♪ Let me hear you sing it, baby ♪
[crowd] ♪ Come on Let's all celebrate ♪
Our focus and light was always on this band
and the music that we were creating.
Look, we're all about looking out for each other,
being good to each other in this world.
♪ Celebrate good times Come on ♪
♪ Let's celebrate ♪
Put your hands together, you know.
[Ronald] We just tried to be good musicians and put good,
positive music out there.
To have that amazing legacy,
when something is that pure, it has to live forever.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Chuck D] What? [chuckles]
What? [chuckles]
I-- Hey, hey, hey. I don't know about y'all,
but I couldn't stop moving up here.
I seen y'all shaking and moving in your seats.
One more time, say, "Hey, hey, hey."
-[audience] Hey, hey, hey! -What y'all got to say?
Everybody in the house give it up
in the utmost honor, respect, and celebration
to the one and only Kool & The Gang
to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ upbeat funk playing, Kool & The Gang "Hollywood Swinging"]
♪ Uh! ♪
♪ Say hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ What ya got to say? ♪
♪ Say hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ What ya got to say? ♪
♪ Hollywood ♪
♪ Hollywood swinging ♪
♪ Hollywood ♪
♪ Hollywood swinging ♪
[♪ lively funk playing, Kool & The Gang "Get Down on It"]
[audience cheering]
♪ Hey, what you gonna do? ♪
♪ You wanna get down? ♪
♪ Hey, what you gonna do? ♪
♪ Do you wanna get down? Hey! ♪
♪ What you gonna do? ♪
♪ You wanna get down? ♪
♪ Hey, what you gonna do? ♪
♪ Do you wanna get down? ♪
Cleveland, come on!
♪ Get down on it Get down on it ♪
♪ Get down on it ♪
♪ Get down on it Come on and ♪
♪ Get down on it Get down on it ♪
♪ Well, how you gonna do it if you really don't wanna dance ♪
♪ By standing on the wall? ♪
Sing!
♪ Get your back up off the wall ♪
♪ And tell me ♪
♪ Well, how you gonna do it if you really don't wanna dance ♪
♪ By standing on the wall? ♪
♪ Get your back up off the wall ♪
♪ 'Cause I heard all the people sayin' ♪
-♪ Get down on it ♪ -♪ Come on and ♪
-♪ Get down on it ♪ -♪ If you really want it ♪
-♪ Get down on it ♪ -♪ You gotta feel it ♪
-♪ Get down on it ♪ -♪ Get down on it ♪
-♪ Come on and ♪
-♪ Get down on it ♪ -♪ Baby, baby ♪
-♪ Get down on it ♪ -[J.T.] ♪ Get on it ♪
-♪ Get down on it ♪ -[J.T. scatting]
[♪ upbeat funk music playing, Kool & The Gang "Ladies' Night"]
[J.T.] All the ladies in the house,
let me hear you scream!
♪ Mm, oh, yeah Oh, what a night ♪
You like this one, huh? Come on. [cheers]
Come on!
♪ Oh, yes, it's ladies' night And the feeling's right ♪
-♪ Oh, yes, it's ladies' night ♪ -♪ Oh, what a night ♪
[J.T.] ♪ Oh, what a night ♪
♪ Oh, yes, it's ladies' night And the feeling's right ♪
-♪ Oh, yes, it's ladies' night ♪ -[J.T.] ♪ Oh, what a night ♪
♪ Girls, y'all got one ♪
♪ A night that's special everywhere ♪
♪ From New York City out to Cleveland, Ohio ♪
♪ It's ladies' night ♪
♪ And, girl the feeling's good ♪
Come on, Kool.
♪ On disco lights Your name will be seen ♪
♪ You can fulfill all your dreams ♪
♪ Party here, party there Everywhere ♪
♪ This is your night, baby You've got to be there, well ♪
Put your hands together. Come on.
♪ Tonight, all right ♪
[J.T.] ♪ Oh, it's ladies' night ♪
-♪ Tonight ♪ -♪ And it feels so right, yeah ♪
♪ All right ♪
♪ Tonight ♪
-♪ Lady, lady, lady, lady ♪ -♪ Tonight ♪
-♪ I love you ♪ -♪ All right ♪
[♪ lively funk music playing, Kool & The Gang "Jungle Boogie"]
♪ Get down, get down Get down, get down ♪
We're taking it back, a little funk right now.
♪ Get down, get down Get down, get down ♪
-♪ Get down, get down ♪ -Come on!
♪ Hey, hey ♪
Can you feel it?
♪ Jungle boogie ♪
-♪ Jungle boogie ♪ -Come on!
-♪ Jungle boogie ♪ -[J.T.] Oh, yeah!
-♪ Jungle boogie ♪ -Get down with it, get down.
-♪ Jungle boogie ♪ -[J.T. grunts]
-♪ Jungle boogie ♪ -[J.T. scatting]
-♪ Jungle boogie ♪ -[J.T.] Come on now.
-♪ Jungle boogie ♪ -♪ Everybody, shake it around ♪
Whoo!
How you feeling?
[audience cheering]
[♪ upbeat funk music playing, Kool & The Gang "Celebration"]
[J.T.] Whoo!
It's a celebration tonight. Everybody, scream!
[audience cheering]
♪ Yahoo! ♪
[J.T.] ♪ It's a celebration ♪
♪ Yahoo! ♪
♪ This is your celebration ♪
♪ Celebrate good times Come on! ♪
♪ Let's celebrate, come on now ♪
♪ Celebrate good times Come on! ♪
♪ Well, let's celebrate ♪
♪ 'Cause there's a party going on right here ♪
♪ A celebration to last throughout the years ♪
♪ So, bring your good time And your laughter too ♪
♪ 'Cause we gonna celebrate and party with you ♪
-♪ Come on now ♪ -♪ Celebration ♪
♪ Let's all celebrate and have a good time ♪
♪ Celebration ♪
♪ We gon' celebrate and have a good time ♪
♪ It's time to come together ♪
♪ It's up to you What's your pleasure? ♪
♪ Everyone around the world Come on ♪
♪ Celebrate good times Come on ♪
♪ Let's celebrate ♪
♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Celebrate good times Come on ♪
[J.T.] ♪ Come on and celebrate ♪
-♪ Celebrate good times ♪ -[J.T.] ♪ Tonight ♪
-♪ Come on ♪ -♪ Baby, everything's ♪
♪ Gonna be all right So, let's celebrate ♪
♪ Celebrate good times Come on ♪
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ music concludes]
[J.T.] Thank you!
We love you, Cleveland. Thank you.
[inaudible dialogue]
Thank y'all. Shit.
Thank you very much.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I'm a boy from Youngstown, Ohio...
[audience cheering, applauding]
...and made it to Cleveland, Ohio,
in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I want to thank, um...
Universal Records, Warner Brothers, okay,
and definitely the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
for supporting us for so many years.
[audience applauding]
My managers... Adil Bayyan passed in a car accident.
Also... also, uh, Tia Sinclair, is our new management.
So, we want to thank you.
Now, also, my family's out there.
My son, Muhammad, Hakim, Jurnie, and Xavier.
Thank you. Thank you.
Now, I'm gonna go to the magnificent seven.
George Brown.
My brother, Khalis Bayyan Bell.
"Dee Tee" Thomas.
Robert "Spike" Mickens.
Okay, and Ricky West.
Mr. Hollywood Swinging himself.
Now, that was the magnificent seven.
They all have passed.
So, now you have me and J.T.
J.T., your mic.
[J.T.] Thank you, Robert.
-[Robert] Yeah? -Yeah.
[audience cheering, applauding]
What's up, Cleveland? How's everybody feeling?
First, I want to thank, um,
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for bestowing this upon us.
I'd also like to congratulate our fellow 2024 inductees
and acknowledge the inductees of years past.
The artists of whose company we stand,
of so many generations and different styles,
all of which have given music that's foundational,
not only for me,
but for millions across the oceans.
To join the ranks of them is a tremendous honor.
[audience cheering, applauding]
It really is.
When I heard we had reached the summit of our profession,
I instantly thought of my journey and the people
who assisted me along the way.
First...
I get emotional with this.
I'd like to thank my mother because she, um...
[audience cheering, applauding]
I made it to the Hall, Mommy.
You know?
[groans]
Wish she was here.
I'd like to thank my beautiful, loving wife, Starleana,
for her artistry
and for being an invaluable business partner.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[J.T.] She's right there.
And I thank... I thank her also
for giving both of us our wonderful son, Xavier.
He's a film director.
He should be making his debut next year sometime.
So, look out for him.
And I thank my brothers and sisters,
my little brother, Doc,
for being by my side and always having my back.
My family around the countries,
in, uh, Laurens, South Carolina,
Brooklyn, New York,
Hackensack, New Jersey.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And my first band, the Electro Five, BPB,
Street Dancer, the Fillet of Soul,
those are groups that I was in.
And I thank Irene and Charlie Conrad
and Stephan Galfas and Jim Bonnefond
of House of Music studio.
And Eumir Deodato, you forever changed my life.
I'd like to thank my lawyers. You need great lawyers, right?
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[chuckles]
[J.T.] Hey, you need about five or 10 of them,
right, guys? [chuckles]
Mr. Stuart Levy, William Young, and Boyd Cote.
I thank Warner Chappell
and my publicist, Viveca Ortiz-Torres, and Lede.
And there's many more,
but I can't take up all the time.
But there's something my grandmother once told me.
She said, "When you mention someone's name in reverence,
"you draw their spirit into your presence."
-Yes, she was a wise lady. -[audience cheering, applauding]
So, I'd like for you to join me in something.
I would like everyone to stand, if you can,
and shine a light and repeat after me as loud as you can
as I read the names of the members who started
and played a major role in the success
of Kool & The Gang.
-Curtis Williams. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-Woody Sparrow. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-Rick Westfield. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-[J.T.] Adil Bayyan. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-[J.T.] Clifford Adams. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-Charles Smith. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-Spike Mickens. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-Dennis Thomas. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-George Brown. -[audience cheering, applauding]
[J.T.] And our fearless leader, Mr. Ronald Bell.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And this man right here that just spoke,
he's the founder, Mr. Robert Bell,
better known as "Kool."
[audience cheering, applauding]
[James] So, I leave you with these words.
Let's stand in reverence,
so tomorrow we can climb even higher.
Make sure you vote. God bless you all.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ soft instrumental music playing]
[announcer] To induct Dionne Warwick
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Teyana Taylor.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Hey, y'all. [chuckles]
-How y'all doing? -[audience cheering, applauding]
-I said, how y'all doing? -[audience cheering, applauding]
All right, I like that.
Now, you're gonna have to bear with Auntie,
'cause I wear glasses, so hold on...
Good... But it match though, you see?
Okay. [chuckles]
All right, here we go.
When you talk about influence,
you also have to talk about excellence.
The artist who I'm here to honor tonight
is the epitome of both. [chuckles]
She is a rule-breaker, a name-taker, and a hit-maker.
She is the one and the only, Ms. Dionne Warwick!
[audience cheering, applauding]
Now, some artists
are always going to be the zeitgeist.
Artists you know about your whole life,
artists you enjoy, maybe you become a fan of,
but you never know who they really are.
It wasn't until I got the role of a lifetime to play Dionne
in her upcoming biopic,
that I began to learn the depths of this beautiful woman.
-Yes, thank you. -[audience applauds]
Not only the depths of her talent,
but of her love of the craft,
her love for her fans, and her love for humanity.
When you are raised as a person of faith,
you are raised with the knowledge
that you can be of service.
And don't think anyone can disagree
with me when I say that Ms. Dionne Warwick
has done an incredible service to this world with her music.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Dionne began her career singing gospel in the church,
but her big break came when songwriters
and producers, Burt Bacharach
and Hal David heard her voice in the studio.
They were blown away by her range, her ability,
and her amazing talent.
Because she is truly one of a kind, and they knew it.
Her first major release,
Don't Make Me Over, was a huge hit,
as well as an anthem for women across the world.
-Uh-huh. Let's clap. Mm-hmm. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Now, that was in 1962, over six decades ago.
Six decades, give it up for that.
[audience cheering, applauding]
My girl is working, she working.
Not only was it extremely difficult for a woman of color
to get a record deal at that time,
there simply weren't any other women of color
making pop music like she was.
As a Black woman, we are always fighting to be seen,
to be heard, and to be considered.
So, in 1964, when Walk On By bumped The Beatles
out of the number one spot on the charts.
[audience cheering, applauding]
You need to understand
the big deal that was and still is.
Ms. Warwick did not come to play.
[chuckles]
With her, it was just one hit after another.
Anyone Who Had a Heart, I Say a Little Prayer,
Do You Know the Way to San Jose, I'll Never Love This Way Again,
And they go on and on and on and on.
And now she's still here, 60 years later. Yes.
-Yes. -[audience cheering, applauding]
[Teyana] Y'all showing off for Ms. Warwick, period!
Let's go!
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[Teyana] My girl!
As a vocalist... [chuckles]
...Ms. Dionne's voice has this unbelievable range.
It's smooth, it's sensual and sophisticated.
She's a profound soul singer who never misses the subtlety
and the nuance of every lyric she delivers.
There's strength, there's softness.
Yes, softness.
There's really nothing else like it.
She is one of the most charted
vocalists of all time. Clap for that.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Teyana] Mm-hmm.
She's won six Grammy Awards,
sold over a hundred million records,
and as we all know,
she is here tonight to be inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!
[audience cheering, applauding]
And while, Dionne has used her voice
to entertain us,
she's also used it to help others in need.
That's What Friends Are For, with her friends Elton John,
Stevie Wonder, and Gladys Knight.
[audience cheering, applauding]
They raised millions
for the Foundation for AIDS Research,
and a 100% of the song's proceeds still go to fund it.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Yes.
She has raised awareness for the multitude
of other causes, and she's not done fighting.
Because Dionne, Ms. Dionne,
y'all better put that "Ms." in that teleprompter.
I'm not gonna hold y'all.
I ain't about to keep calling her "Dionne."
Ms. Dionne will always have that fire,
whether it's for her music, for her family,
for her life, and for the lives of others.
She is a passionate woman,
and I'm so, so honored that I get to know her
and be up here to help her tell her story.
-Mm-hmm. All right. Okay. -[audience cheering, applauding]
What the world needs right now might be love, sweet love,
but what I think it really needs is more of Miss Dionne Warwick,
-yeah! -[audience cheering]
[♪ smooth jazz music playing, Dionne Warwick
"Do You Know the Way to San Jose"]
[Dionne] Well, I came from a family of singers,
so music has always been my life,
and that's what I'm about.
♪ Do you know the way to San Jose? ♪
♪ I've been away so long I may go wrong... ♪
Dionne's voice is unique,
individual, and instantly identifiable.
Nobody sounds like her.
There's no other voice like hers,
and she has made some of the best music of all time.
♪ In a week, maybe two They'll make you a star ♪
[Dionne] All through my college years I recorded
demo records and then Burt Bacharach asked me
to record some songs he's just written
with a brand-new partner, Hal David.
[Burt] Hearing what she could do, she's so phenomenal
and she moved so easily through things
that would be very stressful for another singer.
[♪ slow jazz music playing, Dionne Warwick "Don't Make Me Over"]
♪ Don't make me over ♪
♪ Now that you know how I adore... ♪
[Dionne] My favorite song of them all
is my very first record, Don't Make Me Over.
I think we all have said that at one time in our lives,
"If you can't accept me for what I am,
for the things that I did, just don't make me over."
♪ Accept me for what I am ♪
♪ Accept me for the things that I do ♪
[Dionne] When we first started recording,
I don't think anybody knew what this would end up being.
-Do you mind if I sing? -[audience cheers]
[♪ upbeat jazz music playing, Dionne Warwick "Walk On By"]
[Dionne] And we kind of really carved
a little musical niche of our own.
♪ If you see me walking down the street ♪
♪ And I start to cry each time we meet ♪
♪ Do what? ♪
[audience] ♪ Walk on by ♪
♪ A little bit louder now ♪
[audience] ♪ Walk on by ♪
[Dionne] They wrote specifically with Dionne Warwick in mind.
[♪ upbeat jazz music playing]
[Dionne] So, it was, "Okay, let's see what she's got now."
-[vocalizing] -[vocalizing]
♪ I say a little prayer for you ♪
♪ Forever, forever you'll stay in my heart ♪
♪ And I will love you... ♪
Every one, every song is just-- It's perfection.
♪ Would only mean heartbreak for me ♪
[Cynthia] She was able to cross the bridge
between White radio and Black radio.
And I think it's because she was able to connect all people,
Black or White, with her music.
[Dionne] I never knew what a crossover artist was.
I was always taught that there is only one race,
and that's the human race. And that's the way I continue to live my life.
[♪ slow jazz music playing, Dionne Warwick "What the World Needs Now"]
♪ What the world needs now ♪
♪ Is love, sweet love ♪
[Dionne] The songs that were being written
were so different than anything that was being recorded
at that time. It was a lot more sophisticated musically.
♪ Promises, promises ♪
♪ This is where those promises, promises end ♪
♪ I won't pretend... ♪
She's got this clear as a bell sound that she makes.
And then when she wants to really hit you, it's huge.
And-- Yeah, I'm-- You see, I'm getting goosebumps
talking about that.
♪ So anyone who had a heart ♪
♪ Would take me in his arms and love me, too ♪
She can keep the emotion and the movement going
through these notes, and you believe her.
Bacharach and David decided to split,
but I felt that whatever I had had just played itself out.
And finally, Clive Davis of Arista Records
said, uh, "We need you." And I said, "Well, we'll give it one more try."
[♪ jazz music playing, Dionne Warwick "I'll Never Love This Way Again"]
♪ I know ♪
♪ I'll never love this way again... ♪
She is a national treasure and in the class by herself,
one of those few
all-time artists.
♪ Why do you have to be a heartbreaker? ♪
[Dionne] Friendships are very vital to me
and, uh, I called some friends.
[♪ contemporary jazz music playing,
Dionne Warwick "That's What Friends Are For"]
[Dionne] Each purchase of this record,
the dollars that are garnered from it,
every cent of it, goes towards the research
and hopefully finding a cure for AIDS.
♪ Keep smiling, keep shining ♪
♪ Knowing you can always count on me ♪
[Dionne] When people speak to me about certain songs
that have been a part of their lives,
it's always with a big, big smile.
And it's really wonderful being a part of these
smile times in your life.
♪ I need your love... ♪
[Annie] If you've never heard songs like that,
your world would be different.
[Cynthia] I think it would be very safe to say
that I'm standing on Dionne's shoulders
because she really did create a path that didn't exist
and ran down it.
[Dionne] I've been blessed.
I really have truly been blessed.
♪ Oh ♪
[audience cheering, applauding]
Here to pay tribute to the extraordinary,
Miss Dionne Warwick, Jennifer Hudson!
[cheering, applauding]
[♪ jazz music playing, Dionne Warwick "I'll Never Love This Way Again"]
♪ You looked inside my fantasies ♪
♪ And made each one come true ♪
♪ Something no one else had ever found a way to do ♪
♪ I've kept the memories one by one when you took me in ♪
♪ I know I'll never love this way again ♪
♪ I'll keep holding on before the good is gone ♪
♪ I know I'll never love this way again ♪
♪ Hold on ♪
Please give it up for the one and only, Dionne Warwick.
[audience cheering, applauding]
♪ A fool will lose tomorrow reaching back for yesterday ♪
♪ I won't turn my head in sorrow if you should go away ♪
♪ No, I'll stand right here ♪
♪ And remember just how good it's been ♪
♪ I know I'll never love this way again ♪
-♪ I know... ♪ -♪ Know ♪
-♪ Never love this way again ♪ -♪ ...I'll never love ♪
-♪ So, I'll keep holding on ♪ -♪ Holding on ♪
-♪ Before the good is gone ♪ -♪ Good is gone ♪
-♪ I know I'll never... ♪ -♪ I know ♪
-♪ Never love this way again ♪ -♪ ...Love this way again ♪
-♪ Hold on ♪ -♪ Hold on ♪
♪ Hold on ♪
-♪ Hold on ♪ -♪ Hold on ♪
♪ I know I'll never ♪
-♪ Love this way again ♪ -♪ Love this way again ♪
♪ I'll keep ♪
-♪ Holding on ♪ -♪ Holding on ♪
♪ Before the good is gone ♪
♪ I know I'll never ♪
-♪ Love this way again ♪ -♪ Love this way again ♪
-♪ Hold on ♪ -♪ Hold on ♪
-♪ Hold, hold on ♪ -♪ Hold on ♪
♪ I know I'll never ♪
♪ Love this way again ♪
-♪ So I keep holdin' on... ♪ -♪ Holdin' on ♪
♪ ...Until the good is gone ♪
♪ I know I'll never ♪
♪ Love this way again ♪
-♪ I keep holdin' on ♪ -♪ Hold on ♪
-♪ Hold on ♪
♪ Hold on ♪
-♪ Hold on ♪ -♪ On ♪
[cheering, applauding]
[♪ smooth pop music playing, Dionne Warwick "Walk On By"]
♪ If you see me walking down the street ♪
♪ And I start to cry each time we meet ♪
♪ Do what? ♪
[audience] ♪ Walk on by ♪
♪ A little bit louder now ♪
[audience] ♪ Walk on by ♪
♪ Make believe that you don't see the tears ♪
♪ Just let me grieve in private 'cause each time I see you ♪
♪ I break down and cry ♪
♪ I cry, walk on by ♪
♪ Don't you dare stop And walk on by ♪
♪ Don't stop ♪
♪ Walk on by ♪
♪ I just can't get over losing you ♪
♪ And so if I seem broken and blue ♪
♪ Walk on by, walk on by ♪
♪ Foolish pride that's all that I have left ♪
♪ So let me hide the tears and the sadness ♪
♪ You gave me when you said goodbye ♪
♪ You said goodbye so walk on by ♪
♪ Don't stop, walk on by ♪
♪ Don't stop, now you really gotta walk on, walk on by ♪
♪ Don't stop ♪
♪ Baby, till you never see them tears, don't cry ♪
♪ Don't stop, walk on by ♪
♪ Walk on by ♪
[cheering, applauding]
-Thank you! -[cheering, applauding]
[Teyana Taylor] Oh, my God.
[indistinct chatter]
[audience cheering, applauding]
Oh, boy.
Thank you so very, very much, first of all.
And I must give honor... to God.
Yes, the Most High.
[audience cheering, applauding]
This evening...
I am receiving...
another...
award.
And I must also say that...
in any ball game,
three strikes, you are considered to be out.
Well, this is the third time that I have been told
that I was nominated for this particular award.
And they finally got it right.
[cheering, applauding]
I got to the point where I said, "You know,
"y'all can keep this award."
[audience chuckling]
To be considered to be enrolled
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I am so pleased to be here.
To celebrate with those that I love most and above all.
Both of my sons are with me tonight.
[cheering, applauding]
My niece is with me tonight.
And my alter ego is here with me tonight.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I'm gonna just say this and get on off the stage.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[mouths] Whoa. It's heavy.
[♪ upbeat rock music playing]
[announcer] And now, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer,
Tom Morello.
[cheering, applauding]
[♪ music fades]
Hello, everybody, I'm Tom Morello.
[audience cheering, applauding]
The MC5 crystallized '60s counterculture movement
at its most volatile and threatening.
They were as bold and as musically adventurous
as experimental jazz,
as militant and as stylish as the Black Panther Party,
and as loud and as dangerous as a Detroit riot.
But perhaps their greatest accomplishment
was that the MC5 in sound and in attitude
laid the cornerstone for one of rock's most exciting
and important genres.
Before the Ramones, before the Sex Pistols,
before The Clash, there was the MC5,
inventing the template of raw power
and irreverent attitude that became punk rock.
Their previously unimagined amalgam
of jazz improvisation, garage rock,
and James Brown dance moves was forged with raw fury,
molten adrenaline, and political purpose.
And as a live act, they were without peer.
As the tear gas began to fly
during the massive anti-war riots
at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
in Chicago, every other band on the bill
chickened out and canceled.
Only the MC5 stood firm
and played a defiant eight-hour set
-for the protesters. -[audience cheering, applauding]
And when they hit the stage
and shouted, "Kick out the jams, motherfuckers,"
-the promise... -[audience cheering, applauding]
...the promise of Elvis' Jailhouse Rock
was made reality, and the future path
of every musician who dreamed of raging
against the machine was made clear.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Tom] In these few lines,
they encapsulated the redemptive power
of living, breathing, playing,
and believing in the irresistible force
of truly revolutionary music.
"Let me up on the stand and let me kick out the jams.
"Put that mic in my hand and let me kick out the jams.
"Let me be who I am and let me kick out the jams."
[audience cheering]
Their visionary poet of a manager, John Sinclair,
vocalist, Rob Tyner, bassist, Michael Davis,
drummer, Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson,
guitarist, Fred "Sonic" Smith,
and my dear, forever friend, and forever comrade,
Brother Wayne Kramer, have sadly all passed away.
But, wherever and whenever any of us summon up the guts
and the courage to get up on the stand
and kick out the motherfucking jams,
the spirit of the MC5 will be right there with us.
MC5, welcome home to where you belong
in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[presenter] And now I give you the MC5!
[♪ upbeat rock music playing, MC5 "Ramblin' Rose"]
[Wayne] What the MC5 represented was a sense of possibility
that we could invent a new music.
♪ Love is like a ramblin' rose ♪
The MC5, they're punk before there's punk.
♪ Ramblin' rose, ramblin' rose ♪
♪ Ramblin' rose, come on ♪
[Wayne] We were from this working class city, Detroit.
Growing up, it was a boom town.
♪ Something snapped inside Made me want to hide ♪
[Wayne] By '67, there was a gap growing in America.
[♪ upbeat rock music playing, MC5 "Black to Comm"]
♪ Let your love come down, baby In the midnight hour... ♪
[interviewer] Why isn't the policeman your best friend?
Why isn't he? It's hard to say.
You would think that he would be.
[Wayne] All the pressures and influences of the day
came to bear on us.
Those are the things that we should be exposing
in our music.
[♪ upbeat rock music playing, MC5 "The American Ruse"]
[Slash] MC5 was the first band to come along
with amps turned all the way up and have really profound lyrics.
♪ They told you in school about freedom ♪
♪ But when you try to be free they never let ya ♪
♪ They said, "It's easy..." ♪
The MC5 had this vision of music
as a battering ram for social change.
♪ I'm sick and tired of paying these dues ♪
♪ And I'm finally getting hip to the American... ♪
They were a good, solid, tough little band.
♪ Kick out the jams Motherfuckers! ♪
[♪ upbeat rock music playing, MC5 "Kick Out the Jams"]
[Henry] You have two monster guitar players
that burn you and leave scar tissue.
♪ Yeah! ♪
[Sylvain] Their albums, their live show,
what they did with music was a life changer.
♪ When you're doin' it right Let me up on the stand ♪
♪ And let me kick out... ♪
[Slash] That unbridled,
in-your-face rock and roller attack,
it wasn't like what anybody else was doing.
♪ I have to kick 'em out ♪
[♪ soft rock music playing, MC5 "Over and Over"]
[Wayne] This idea, you could be political
and you could tell the truth,
that wasn't working so well anymore.
♪ No, no, no, no I see people dyin'... ♪
[Rob] The MC5 was not extremely successful,
but we laid down an influence that is still being felt today.
[♪ upbeat rock music playing, MC5 "Tonight"]
The lineage from punk to heavy metal, hard rock,
acid rock, there are few that have that kind of impact
like the MC5 did.
♪ You can't hear what the teachers say ♪
♪ The news is going down about... ♪
[Kim] The music is visceral. It's passionate.
It regards your civic responsibility.
It's standing on stage and flipping off the world.
That's the MC5.
♪ Whoa, tonight... ♪
[Wayne] We were young and we were arrogant
we were outrageous, but we were right.
-♪ I said bye-bye ♪ -[♪ music concludes]
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ upbeat rock music playing, Sammy Hagar "I Can't Drive 55"]
[announcer] To induct Foreigner,
Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Sammy Hagar.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Yeah! Hello. Well...
everybody sounds very happy, that's a good thing.
Keep this a big happy affair.
Uh, I'm here to induct Foreigner into the Hall of Fame.
-[audience cheering] -Yeah.
That being said, the first thing I want to do
is congratulate the fans, the Foreigner fans,
'cause you guys had a lot to do with getting this done.
-Yeah-- [chuckles] -[audience cheering, applauding]
It was more like abduction than induction, you know?
-[audience laughing] -Anyway, first things first.
So, we all have asked ourselves, all us musicians out there,
we've asked ourselves many times,
what's the criteria?
How do you get into the Hall of Fame, you know?
What do you need to do? What do you have to have done?
And, you know, you think about it,
there should be some rules. [chuckles]
Uh, you've gotta have at least one big hit, right?
One big hit song, right? That would be...
Yeah, okay, so you're a rocker.
Well, Foreigner has had nine mega hits
-in the top 100 in Billboard. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Nine mega hits, not one, nine, okay?
Boom, qualified, okay.
Number two, should have, like, a gold record,
a platinum record, you know, a million-selling record.
I think that would do well.
Here comes Foreigner with 80 million records sold...
-[audience cheering, applauding] -...six top ten albums,
including Foreigner 4, my favorite album of theirs,
which spent ten weeks at number one, okay?
[audience cheering, applauding]
Qualified, right? Boom, okay? All right.
Then, I think being an old elder myself,
I think being around long enough,
they're eventually gonna bring you in.
You know what I mean? It's like you got--
It may take some time.
So, I think the longer you can be around--
Longevity's probably a good factor, right?
Well, they formed in '77.
They're still filling arenas and amphitheaters
around the country.
And it is not even any original members.
That's how good the songs were. That's how good the music is.
Okay? Come on now. All right.
They could have been in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
20 years ago. It's all right.
They're here now. So, it's okay. [chuckles]
I was thinking backstage, I was thinking,
you know, maybe is what took so long with Foreigner,
'cause they got everything else going for them,
I thought maybe they just weren't glamorous,
and maybe they weren't pretty enough.
You know what I mean?
You know, hey.
Then I walk out and I see Cher up here, and I'm thinking,
if that were the case,
she would've been in the Hall of Fame
about ten times by now for every time
-she reinvented herself. -[audience cheering]
Welcome, Cher.
Congratulations, you know, really.
What was I thinking? Okay.
But when I think of Foreigner,
I go way back with the founder,
along with Lou Gramm, but Mick Jones, he...
-[audience cheering, applauding] -We go back to the early '70s.
My first tour as a singer
in a little band called Montrose,
-we were on tour with... -[audience cheering]
We were on tour with Spooky Tooth,
and Mick was in Spooky Tooth,
and we were both opening for Humble Pie,
which brings us to Peter Frampton,
who, you know, was Humble Pie alumni.
Congratulations, Peter, an old friend, too.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And we toured for a year.
Mick and I became really close friends.
We're still close friends, and...
I'm really sad that he's not here tonight.
He deserves this more than anyone, and...
But he's out there watching, I'll tell you right now,
and we can just look at Mick in the eye and say,
"Mick, we love and miss you, and congratulations."
We'll start right there, okay.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[Sammy] But...
But Mick, after a year on the tour, fast forward,
I ran into Mick at some concert somewhere,
and I said, "What are you doing, Mick?"
He's going, "Well, I'm starting a new band.
"I found this young, hot singer out of Rochester, New York,"
-right? -[audience cheering, applauding]
So, me being a singer, first thing I say,
"Well, what's he sing like?" You know?
And he says, "Well, he's kind of like a cross
"between, like, you and Paul Rodgers."
And I'm going, "Oh, two of my favorites." [chuckles]
-[audience laughing] -[chuckles]
So, you know, some more time passes.
I'm out driving one day in my car, really fast.
Um, I turn on the radio, and it was in the middle
of Feels Like the First Time.
And it was the first time I ever heard
Feels Like the First Time, right?
And I didn't know who it was.
And I'm listening, and I'm going, "Damn,
"this guy's singing his ass off," you know?
And, you know, being a singer, you start getting jealous
and say, "Well, who is this?" You know?
"What's going on here?" You know?
And Mick always had a really fat guitar sound,
Les Paul through a Marshall stack.
And I heard that guitar, and I'm thinking,
"This must be--" I just had a feeling
that it was Mick's new band, Foreigner.
I thought, "You know, I've never heard these people.
"It's gotta be them."
And sure enough, it was. And I've been a fan ever since.
And...
I don't know, they just had the biggest string of hits.
I mean, how many-- I mean, we all--
Some of you grew up with them. Well, I grew up with them,
-you know? [chuckles] -[audience cheering, applauding]
And it just-- They went on with just hit after hit,
and they weren't just hits,
they were really versatile kind of songs.
You know, like they would go, you know, heavy rock stuff,
and first of all, that's the other thing.
How they got those heavy rock songs
on Top 40 radio back in those days, no, no, no.
"Oh, you can't play that song, it's too heavy."
And they're on Top 40 radio,
and it's because the songs were that good.
It was really-- They're that commercial,
they're that sing-songy, they're that--
But they were heavy rock tunes. So...
You know, they start coming with things
like Waiting for a Girl Like You,
and then all of a sudden you hear...
[audience cheering, applauding]
Man, you know, it just...
You start hearing Lou's voice singing sweet,
like, I'm going, "Man, I didn't know he could sing like that."
Anyway, they just blew my mind.
Every time they came out with a new record,
they were just great, great, great.
And then, the clincher for me was Juke Box Hero.
-For me... -[audience cheering, applauding]
But, damn!
Every musician I know, and I know a lot of you
are out here thinking the same thing,
the first time you heard that song,
you know you were jealous. You went, "Aw, damn!"
I mean, it was heavy, hard.
They were singing about us, singing about our lives,
you know, being in music business.
And it was just so good and so heavy.
And that...
that song, the way Lou's voice sounds in that song,
he pushed himself so far, I'm just going,
"Dude, how are you gonna do that?"
You know, it's like on tour,
and we just talked about it backstage,
and, you know,
you're in the studio, just wanna give it all you got,
and that's, to me, that's one of the greatest
rock vocal performances ever.
And then, just when you think,
"All right, now what are they gonna do?"
They drop a song like I Want to Know What Love Is.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Hands down,
one of the greatest ballad love songs ever written.
And, my word,
Bridge over Troubled Water, you know,
Hey Jude, you know, I Want to Know What Love Is,
right? They're in that league.
And that's when I said,
"Yeah, these guys belong in the Hall of Fame."
[chuckles] That's all I'm trying to say, okay. So...
[audience cheering, applauding]
That's why Al Greenwood, Dennis Elliott,
Rick Wills, Lou Gramm, a great, great singer,
Mick Jones, Ed Gagliardi,
and Ian McDonald,
that's why they belong in the Hall of Fame,
and that's what I'm here to induct them.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Yes.
[♪ uplifting rock, Foreigner "Feels Like the First Time"]
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Mick] I set out to do something important.
We were trying to sort of create something new
with unjaded musicians.
I was the only jaded one in the bunch. [chuckles]
[Lou] Mick hadn't found a singer yet,
so he called me and asked me to come down and audition.
I made my way to New York, and in a studio
with Mick and Ian, proceeded to give it a shot.
♪ It feels like the first time ♪
♪ Feels like the very first time ♪
Foreigner sounded tough, but very melodic.
But at the same time,
it had this sheen to it, a little bit of a polish.
[♪ upbeat rock music playing, Foreigner "Cold as Ice"]
♪ You're as cold as ice ♪
♪ You're willing to sacrifice our love ♪
Lou Gramm has an amazing voice.
It's filled with passion, like it's pleading with you.
He is one of the great rock singers.
[♪ thrilling rock music playing, Foreigner "Hot Blooded"]
♪ I'm hot-blooded! ♪
Mick Jones.
Guitar hooks with a great tone that everybody wants to play,
that I wish I wrote.
[Lou] Being a riff guitarist was just loaded with things
that were great to hang a vocal line on.
♪ Well, I'm hot blooded Check it and see ♪
♪ I got a fever of a 103 ♪
[Mick] We were called, at one point, like,
one of the faceless bands,
you know, which... [chuckling] ...I sort of resented.
Critics hated the band, yeah.
And that's okay. I hate critics.
[♪ lively rock music playing, Foreigner "Double Vision"]
[Mick] The second album was quite different
than the first album.
It was more sort of an inner pressure
that we felt we had to live up to what we'd achieved, you know?
♪ Fill my eyes with that double vision ♪
I played that record a lot!
It just popped on the radio. It sounded so good.
♪ My double vision gets the best of me ♪
[♪ uplifting rock music playing, Foreigner "Head Games"]
Mick was the arranger and the writer
and the rock star at the same time, you know?
[Mick] I was the taskmaster, I guess.
I expected so much out of everybody.
♪ Head games That's all I get from you ♪
♪ Head games And I can't take it anymore ♪
Every band, you know, has to evolve and...
go through the changes that are in the music business,
but also the changes within the band.
[Mick] We decided to take the band down to four people.
That was probably the toughest part of the whole thing.
[Dennis] It's true the best the band has ever been
was the 4 tour, which was... it was more focused.
[♪ exciting rock music playing, Foreigner "Juke Box Hero"]
♪ He heard one guitar Just blew him away ♪
♪ Stars in his eyes ♪
That album really defined my vision of the band.
♪ Well, now he needs to keep on rockin' ♪
♪ He ain't never gonna stop ♪
♪ He's gotta keep on rockin' ♪
[Lou] It felt more like a group as a four-piece band
than it ever did as a six.
♪ And be a juke box hero ♪
[♪ upbeat rock music playing, Foreigner "Urgent"]
[Lou] We just knew that we were going to kick butt
from the time we stepped on stage.
There was just a real pride.
♪ But I know, yes, I know How to treat you right ♪
♪ That's why you call me in the middle of the night ♪
♪ You say it's urgent ♪
It's the only ballad we've ever done.
It's called Waiting for a Girl Like You.
[Kelly] If your vocalist is capable of rocking out
and getting on stage and bringing that kind of energy
and that kind of passion to something,
imagine that on a ballad.
[♪ romantic rock, Foreigner "Waiting for a Girl Like You"]
♪ I've been waiting for someone new ♪
♪ To make me feel alive ♪
[Lou] The ballad is a way to uncover hidden feelings
in a way that I wouldn't in a rock and roll song.
[♪ soulful rock, Foreigner "I Want to Know What Love Is"]
♪ I've gotta take a little time ♪
♪ A little time to think things over ♪
[Kelly] I Want to Know What Love Is,
I remember hearing that as a kid.
I found myself just bawling, you know?
And then hearing it now, even, it hits me the same.
And I think that's kind of what makes it a classic.
♪ I want to know what love is ♪
[Kelly] The message is so beautiful,
but his voice is what really carried it
to the next level.
♪ I want you to show me ♪
[Mick] It was huge.
It was our first number one single.
And it was number one everywhere in the world, pretty much.
[Lou] We silenced a lot of doubters.
♪ I know you can show me ♪
[Lou] We proved live that we were a band
to be reckoned with.
-♪ Love that you feel inside ♪ -♪ I want you to show me ♪
[Chad] They make a lot of people happy
with this great music that they've made.
And they deserve to be in the fucking Hall of Fame.
♪ Come on and show me, yeah ♪
-♪ What love is ♪ -[audience cheering, applauding]
-[Sammy] Whoo! Yes, they do.
Now here is Foreigner's touring band,
along with Chad Smith, Dr. Chad Smith on drums,
Slash on guitar,
and kicking it off with Demi Lovato.
[♪ jovial rock music, Foreigner "Feels Like the First Time"]
[audience cheering, applauding]
♪ I would climb any mountain ♪
♪ Sail across the stormy seas ♪
♪ If that's what it takes me, baby ♪
♪ To show how much you mean to me ♪
♪ And I guess it's just the woman in you ♪
♪ That brings out the man in me ♪
♪ I know I can't help myself ♪
♪ You're all in the world to me ♪
♪ It feels like the first time ♪
♪ Feels like the very first time ♪
♪ It feels like the first time ♪
♪ It feels like the very first time ♪
♪ I have waited a lifetime ♪
♪ Spent my time so foolishly ♪
♪ But now that I've found you ♪
♪ Together, we'll make history ♪
♪ And I know it must be the woman in you ♪
♪ That brings out the man in me, yeah ♪
♪ I know I can't help myself ♪
♪ You're all that my eyes can see ♪
♪ It feels like the first time ♪
♪ Like it never did before ♪
♪ Feels like the first time, oh ♪
♪ Like we've opened up the door ♪
♪ Feels like the first time, oh ♪
♪ Like it never will again ♪
♪ Never again ♪
♪ It feels like the first time ♪
♪ It feels like the very first time ♪
♪ The very first time ♪
-♪ Feels like the first time ♪ -♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ It feels like the very first time ♪
-Please welcome Sammy Hagar! -[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ thrilling rock music playing, Foreigner "Hot Blooded"]
-♪ Hot blooded ♪ -♪ Just check and see ♪
-♪ I got a fever ♪ -♪ Burning inside of me ♪
-♪ Come on, baby ♪ -♪ Do you do more than dance? ♪
♪ I'm hot blooded I'm hot blooded ♪
Whoo!
♪ You don't have to read my mind ♪
♪ To see what's on my mind ♪
♪ Honey, you oughta know ♪
-♪ You move so fine ♪ -♪ You move so fine ♪
-♪ Let me lay it on the line ♪ -♪ Let me lay it on the line ♪
♪ I gotta know, huh ♪
♪ What you're doin' after the show ♪
♪ Now it's up to you ♪
♪ We can have a secret rendezvous ♪
♪ Baby, just me and you ♪
♪ I'll show you loving like you never knew ♪
♪ Sing it! 'Cause I'm... ♪
-♪ Hot blooded ♪ -♪ You check it and see, yeah ♪
-♪ I got a fever ♪ -♪ Burning inside of me, yeah ♪
-♪ Come on, baby ♪ -♪ Can you do more than dance? ♪
♪ I'm hot blooded I'm hot blooded ♪
Slash!
[cheers]
Doc!
Oh, yeah!
Mr. Kelly Hansen!
♪ Now it's up to you ♪
Say what?
♪ Can we make a secret rendezvous? ♪
[Sammy] Uh-huh!
♪ Oh! Before we do ♪
♪ You've got to get away from me, you know ♪
[Sammy] Sing it!
-♪ Well, I'm hot blooded ♪ -♪ Every night ♪
-♪ Hot blooded ♪ -♪ You're lookin' so tight ♪
-♪ Hot blooded ♪ -♪ You're driving me wild ♪
♪ I'm hot blooded, hot blooded ♪
[Sammy] Thank you.
-[♪ music concludes] -[audience cheering, applauding]
[Sammy] Whoo!
Now, the real singer's coming out.
Welcome, Ms. Kelly Clarkson.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ soulful rock music, Foreigner "I Want to Know What Love Is"]
♪ I've gotta take a little time ♪
♪ A little time to think things over ♪
♪ I better read between the lines ♪
♪ In case I need it when I'm older ♪
♪ In my life, there's been heartache and pain ♪
♪ I don't know if I can face it again ♪
♪ Can't stop now I've traveled so far ♪
♪ To change this lonely life, oh! ♪
♪ I want to know what love is ♪
♪ I want you to show me ♪
Sing!
♪ I want to feel what love is ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ I know you can show me ♪
♪ Oh! ♪
-Give it up for Lou Gramm! -[audience cheering, applauding]
♪ I'm gonna take a little time ♪
♪ A little time to look around me ♪
[choir vocalizing]
♪ See I've got nowhere left to hide ♪
♪ Looks like love has finally found me ♪
♪ In my life, there's been heartache and pain ♪
♪ I don't know if I can face it again ♪
♪ Can't stop now I've traveled so far ♪
-♪ To change this lonely life ♪ -♪ To change this lonely life ♪
[Lou] ♪ I want to know ♪
♪ I want to know what love is ♪
♪ I want you to show me ♪
♪ Yeah, I want to feel! ♪
-♪ I want to feel what love is ♪ -♪ I want to feel what love is ♪
♪ I want to feel what love is ♪
♪ I know you can show me ♪
-♪ I want to know ♪ -♪ Let's talk about love ♪
[Lou] ♪ I want to know what love is ♪
♪ Let me tell you what love is ♪
♪ I want you to show me ♪
♪ And I want to feel ♪
♪ Feel what love is ♪
-[vocalizes] -♪ And I know, and I know ♪
♪ I know you can show me ♪
♪ Show me love is real ♪
-♪ Show me love is real, yeah ♪ -[vocalizes]
[both vocalize]
-[♪ music concludes] -[audience cheering, applauding]
Give it up for Lou Gramm! Come on!
Give it up for Foreigner!
[audience cheering, applauding]
Thank you, Kelly.
Whoo!
[speaks indistinctly]
Hello, Cleveland.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[chuckles]
Sorry, that's what my father would say.
Or no, he would say it more like...
[in British accent] Hello, Cleveland!
-[audience laughing, cheering] -[Rick chuckles]
Well, that's what he would say countless times
when we would find ourselves in tunnels, backstage,
in cities all over the world,
all of which were not Cleveland.
-And... I would laugh anyway. -[audience laughing]
Even though I didn't get the Spinal Tap reference.
-That was lost on me. -[audience laughing, cheering]
Back then, also, I think it was lost on me
the significance that my father,
with his Les Paul in hand,
was about to step on stage and ignite the passion
of 20,000 fans.
[audience cheering, applauding]
So, now, huge benchmark for me.
I get to say it on the stage...
you know, at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in this city.
Although, of course, I wish it were him.
And he wishes he could be here now.
And...
-[audience cheering, applauding] -I'm just gonna say it.
He's in New York, and he's watching from home.
Love you, Daddy.
[audience cheering, applauding]
So, I'm just gonna say a quick few words.
I'm gonna speak his words.
"Rock and roll was the first thing
"that grabbed me.
"In my escape, I'd practice for hours,
"listening to Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly,
"trying to figure out their riffs, never stopping.
"Music was the only thing I wanted to do.
"There was no Plan B.
"I just wanted to write songs,
"and write them, not just play them.
"So, I learned to speak through song.
"By the time Foreigner came together,
"it was clear what I wanted it to be.
"It was about creating music that would last.
"And I think that we managed to capture that.
"Thanks to my brothers in song...
[audience cheering, applauding]
"My brothers in song and rock and roll,
"who helped build this legacy from the very first single,
"Lou, Dennis, Al.
"And of course, Rick Wills
"and Ian and Ed, who sadly are no longer with us.
"Our incredible manager, Bud Prager,
"our Atlantic Records family,
"who took us to the highest of heights.
"Thank you, Kelly, Jeff, Michael, Chris, Bruce,
"and Louis, for keeping Foreigner alive
"for the last two decades.
-"A special... -[audience cheering, applauding]
"And a special thanks to my dear friends,
"Phil Carson and Stewart Young,
"and the whole management team who worked tirelessly
"to keep the wheels turning.
"I want to thank the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
"for this giant honor,
"especially Rick Krim, for nominating us,
"and my old friend, John Sykes.
"I'm lucky to have a partner and a family
"that understand my passion, making this possible.
"I thank my children, my wife, Anne.
"They are everything to me.
"But above all, above all, what's most important
"is that we wouldn't be here without the fans,
"so I want to thank the fans, the listeners...
-[Rick] Yes! -[audience cheering, applauding]
"...the dreamers who made this journey possible.
"Thank you to everyone
"who has been a part of this incredible odyssey.
"Rock and roll is forever."
[audience cheering, applauding]
-Well done. -Whoo!
-Well done.
[smooches]
-Well said, great job. -Well done.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Thank you.
First, I'd like to thank all of my Foreigner bandmates,
Mick Jones, Ian McDonald, Al Greenwood, Dennis Elliott,
Ed Gagliardi, and Rick Wills
for 30 plus years of great music and a wild ride.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Now, right from the start, Mick and I hit it off
in our first songwriting session.
The chemistry for many of our biggest hits
was the Jones-Gramm collaboration.
Although the band went through some changes
as time went on,
I believe the original band
encompassed what Foreigner was all about.
As I think back about those times,
I'm convinced that Ian McDonald and Ed Gagliari,
who have passed on to a better place,
were pivotal players and personalities
in Foreigner's early success.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Lastly, I'd like to close by thanking my friend
and songwriting partner, Mick Jones.
Along with the many triumphs and accolades,
we didn't always agree
about Foreigner's musical directions,
but all told, we were very fortunate
to have been in Foreigner together,
and our music continues to stand the test of time.
[audience cheering, applauding]
-Hello, Cleveland! -[audience cheering, applauding]
This is Rick Wills, the bass player, as you know.
I have had the best time in this band
you could ever have, believe you me.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I love these guys, and I love the guys
that are doing what we do, or we did,
and they're still doing it today, 47 years later.
-It's amazing. -[audience cheering, applauding]
So, I want to thank you all
and thank the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
for giving us this opportunity to finally
be Rock & Roll Hall of Fame people.
-Thank you! -[audience cheering, applauding]
Whoa! [chuckles]
And a very, very special thanks to Mick Jones.
the founder, the visionary,
and the creative force behind Foreigner.
-Yes. -[audience cheering, applauding]
We wish that he were here with us tonight.
And to all of our fans
who have been with us for 47 years,
spanning generations,
we love you all and we thank you.
-[spectator] We love you! -[audience cheering, applauding]
Mr. Norman Whitfield.
The name may not strike you immediately,
but I think the more you get into it,
the more I think you'll find out,
"Hey, I know that song."
[♪ funky soul music playing, Rose Royce "Car Wash"]
[claps rhythmically]
[Jimmy Jam] I'm telling you, at sporting events,
anywhere you go, you hear that, you know what's coming.
♪ Working at the car wash ♪
♪ Working at the car wash, yeah ♪
I'm sorry, the hand clap
is Rock & Roll Hall of Fame right there.
♪ Whoo! Come, some of the work...♪
Norman Whitfield turned out to be
one of the most prolific producers and writers
in the history of the music business.
And Norman was a killer producer.
[♪ upbeat soul music playing, The Temptations "Ain't Too Proud to Beg"]
[Smokey] Here we see Norman working with The Temptations.
[Norman] When I first came to Motown,
I didn't have anything in mind in the beginning
except just trying to get a hit record.
♪ Ain't too proud to beg and you know it ♪
♪ Please don't leave me, girl ♪
[Iris] Norman would come into our offices,
"Hey, take that off, it's garbage.
"Boy, you want to hear a hit? Put this on."
[♪ perky soul music playing, Gladys Knight & the Pips
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine"]
♪ Don't you know that I heard it through the grapevine? ♪
There was actually a Gladys Knight & the Pips version
of Heard It Through the Grapevine.
♪ Not much longer would you be mine ♪
He did it in a way that fit Gladys Knight & the Pips.
[♪ laid-back soul music playing, Marvin Gaye
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine"]
[Jimmy Jam] When he revisited the song with Marvin Gaye,
all of a sudden, you have a whole different arrangement.
♪ People say "Believe half of what you see ♪
♪ "Son, and none of what you hear" ♪
[Norman] Now, if somebody's buying
two or three million records, that is a direct indication
that they like what you're doing.
♪ Don't you know I heard it through the grapevine? ♪
♪ Not much longer would you be mine ♪
[Jimmy] I think the most revolutionary thing
that Norman Whitfield probably would be known for
was the transition that The Temptations made...
[♪ romantic soul music playing, The Temptations
"Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)"]
...from being love ballad-type guys...
♪ It was just my imagination ♪
...to all of a sudden talking about Cloud Nine...
[♪ upbeat R&B music playing, The Temptations "Cloud Nine"]
♪ Cloud Nine! ♪
...and Papa Was A Rollin' Stone.
[♪ funky soul music playing,
The Temptations "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone"]
I said, "Ooh, the track is...
"funkier than an unwashed armpit."
♪ Papa was a rolling stone ♪
[Coffey] Norman, he wanted to take the Motown
in a different direction,
so he brought the protest element to it.
[♪ exciting R&B music playing, Edwin Starr "War"]
-♪ War, huh, yeah ♪ -♪ What is it good for? ♪
-♪ Absolutely ♪ -♪ Nothing! ♪
[Chuck] Not only did he talk about the war,
but he did it in such a powerful way,
you had to listen to
what he was putting down and what he was saying.
-♪ Say it again, y'all ♪ -♪ War ♪
His approach to songwriting and to production is unmatched.
[♪ uplifting soul music playing, Rose Royce "I'm Going Down"]
♪ I'm going down ♪
[Norman] Good songs will always take preference
over the so-called trends.
♪ My whole world's upside down ♪
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ thrilling rock music playing,
The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again"]
[announcer] To induct Peter Frampton,
Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, Roger Daltrey.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Fuck this.
I feel like I'm running for president.
-[chuckles] -[audience laughing]
-I'll use this one. [laughs] -[audience cheering]
Well, I've got to tell you,
when I was asked to come and present this award
to Peter Frampton, I was astonished
that this guy wasn't inducted 35 years ago.
[chuckles] I mean...
All I can say is that it's about bloody time.
[audience cheering, applauding]
But let's remember the people that started
this wonderful journey that music is on.
You know, Chuck Berry, Little Richard,
Jackie Wilson, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee, all those great...
Buddy Holly... It goes on and on!
You know, this business and this career
that we've all embarked on
is so rewarding, and it's wonderful.
And Peter has had the most amazing career of all time.
-It's... He... -[audience cheering, applauding]
It's probably easier to name the people
that he hasn't worked with, than to name the people he has.
-[audience laughing] -I'm telling you,
from the age of six, all he ever wanted to be
was a guitarist in a rock band.
And...
[grunts softly] ...I first met him in 1968,
when I was on tour with The Who and Traffic,
-and he-- Yeah, I mean... -[audience cheering]
...in those days, you'd do ten minutes,
and... [exhales sharply] ...hook.
And the next band came on.
But anyway, Peter was the lead guitarist and singer
in a band called "The Herd."
And on that tour,
Peter traveled with Keith Moon in his Bentley
and he survived endless pranks and japes
and I did think to myself then that,
"Wow, this guy's a survivor." [chuckles]
[audience chuckling]
[Roger] But Peter is a restless soul and, I mean--
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[sighs] He really is. And...
You know, he was always flitting from band to band.
And that year, later that year, he...
he was on the front cover of a teen magazine
as the face of '68.
This led Peter to believe
that The Herd were at the pinnacle
of their decline.
[audience chuckling]
So his next move had to be a really big one, and it was.
He joined up with Steve Marriott,
who had just left the Small Faces.
And he...
-They formed Humble Pie. -[audience cheering, applauding]
[Roger] Now, that music was far more soulful
and his guitar playing
and the music became much heavier.
But after two years of success with Humble Pie,
Peter finally went solo.
And he had four successful solo albums.
And then in 1976,
it was the big one that we all remember.
-Frampton Comes Alive! -[audience cheering, applauding]
[Roger] Wow! Unmatched! Unprecedented!
It was the biggest selling live record
of all time in its day.
And it still sells well today.
But for me, the success of that album
was more than just Peter live and everything else.
It was the songs.
You know...
Show Me the Way, Do You Feel Like I Do?
[audience cheering, applauding]
Baby, I Love Your Way. [chuckles] Whoa!
You know, they propelled Peter
to a whole new level of superstardom.
And...
Rolling Stone in that year had him on the front cover
in a very seductive pose with no shirt,
and long, blonde flowing hair.
And I've got to tell you, when I saw that,
I thought, "Blimey, a doppelganger."
[audience laughing, applauding]
[screams, chuckles]
Oh, my God! [chuckles]
I remember one time I was going through an airport
with Pete Townshend
and I got chased by a flock
of teenage girls
screaming, "Peter! Peter!"
-[audience laughing, applauding] -[chuckles]
And as I rushed through the gate and finally got on the plane,
Townshend came up behind me
and he said, "Roger, you're really lucky.
"They think you're Peter Frampton."
-[audience laughing, applauding] -[chuckles]
[Roger] And then he said,
"You're really, really lucky
"because they think I'm Tiny Tim."
[audience chuckling]
[chuckles]
And that used to happen a lot.
I used to get mistaken for Peter.
But throughout his entire career,
he's always been a restless soul.
And... But he really stayed true to his main love,
which was the guitar.
And it's no surprise that his first ever Grammy
came from the record and the album, Fingerprints,
where he never sang a note.
Absolutely amazing.
But then in 1969... Oh, '69...
Sorry, wrong year. [chuckles] It comes with age.
It's coming to you all. [laughs]
-In 2019, he... [snickers] -[audience laughing]
What the fuck happened? [laughs]
[audience cheering, applauding]
He announced a farewell tour...
and...
And told the world that he was suffering from IBM,
which is a progressive muscular disease.
And myself and Peter, I'm sure, everyone,
felt that this might be the end of his playing career.
So, he set out on this tour,
and he realized he could keep playing.
So, he set out on another tour, which is Never Say Never Tour.
[audience cheering]
Followed by the Never EVER Say Never Tour.
[audience laughing, applauding]
Which then was followed by the Positively Thankful
For Never Ever Saying Ever Never Never
Ever Ever Ever Ever Again Tour.
-[laughs] -[audience cheering, applauding]
And here he is today,
he's thankfully still playing guitar,
and doing what I love about him.
For me, this guy's voice takes his music
to another level. It's really good on my ear.
He's got a sensitivity that matches his guitar playing.
It all comes from his heart.
And it's mostly played with a smile on his face.
I give you Peter Frampton.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ uplifting rock music playing, The Herd "From the Underworld"]
Hi, I'm Peter Frampton.
♪ Almost to meet your faces and in ♪
♪ Escaping the ghost of yesterday... ♪
[Peter] When I was about 16,
my father negotiated my first contract.
He said, "Well, if you're not gonna go
"to music college," he said,
"I'm gonna make sure you get a steady wage."
So, that was the proviso that I got,
15 pounds a week. That was The Herd.
[♪ soft rock playing, The Herd "I Don't Want Our Loving to Die"]
♪ No, I don't want our lovin' to die... ♪
[Peter] A journalist called Penny Valentine
dubbed me the face of '68. That's really what led to me
leaving and forming the next band.
All right, on The Barry Richards Show,
we're here. We have Humble Pie with us from England.
-And you are? -Peter. Peter Frampton.
And what do you play, Pete?
-Guitar. -Guitar.
Brilliant deduction on my part.
[♪ dour rock playing, Humble Pie "I Don't Need No Doctor"]
♪ I don't need no doctor I don't need no doctor ♪
[♪ sentimental rock playing, Humble Pie "Hallelujah"]
♪ Yeah, I know, Hallelujah! ♪
[Peter] Humble Pie, I had a great deal of fun in.
It was sort of a get-down-dirty band, you know,
It was like an apprenticeship, really, for what was to come,
but I didn't know that at the time.
♪ Take me away, making my way ♪
[Peter] So, I went out on my own and made four solo records
that I was very proud of.
And even though none were huge sellers,
I could feel my fanbase getting bigger and bigger.
And everything just started to click.
So, I decide to record a few of my shows
in support of the Frampton LP.
And well, the rest is history.
-[audience cheering] -[Peter] Thank you!
[♪ upbeat rock, Peter Frampton "Baby, I Love Your Way"]
♪ Shadows grow so long before my eyes ♪
♪ And they're moving across the page ♪
The minute we put it out, it just started selling
ridiculous amounts of records.
It was the year of Frampton. It was 1976.
♪ I can't believe this is happening ♪
♪ To me ♪
Twelve and a half million albums.
They tell me that I made the Guinness Book of Records,
so, meaning that
it's the biggest selling album of all time.
[♪ sentimental rock playing, Peter Frampton "Show Me The Way"]
♪ Show me the way ♪
[Peter] When the live record came out,
that was really the first time people
were seeing what I looked like. It was everywhere.
I think it was overkill.
[Pete Griffin] You know what was a monster?
Frampton Comes Alive, 1976. Is there anyone you knew
who didn't have that record? I don't think so. Bam!
[♪ uplifting rock music playing]
Then there was the talk box.
You're hearing a guitar manifest itself in a way
that no guitar had ever manifested itself
before on a hit record.
[audience cheering]
♪ I want to thank you ♪
[Cameron] He was the guy on the rocket that was going
where no other rocket had gone.
And there was no manual for what was to come.
[♪ upbeat rock, Peter Frampton "Do You Feel Like We Do"]
♪ Do you, you feel like I do? Do you, you feel like I do? ♪
[Mike] The expectations of an artist in the public eye,
after having that kind of success,
are unrealistic.
He went through some shit, and I feel for him.
[reporter] Peter Frampton, no?
-[David Bowie] Excuse me -[reporter] Yes.
No, that's not Peter Frampton. No, no, no.
-I won't allow anybody. -[laughs]
-Guitar, Peter Frampton. -[audience cheering]
[David] One thing you may or may not know is that
Peter and I, in fact, used to go to the same school.
His father, Peter's father, was my art master at school.
[♪ upbeat rock playing, David Bowie "Glass Spider"]
♪ Gone, gone the water's all gone ♪
Bowie reached out and said,
come be shoulder to shoulder with me.
I think that was a great brotherly moment
in rock history.
They're talking about me as a guitar player again,
which is what I am,
and always have been, and I think that got forgotten.
[♪ rousing rock, Peter Frampton "Do You Feel Like We Do"]
[Mike] He's a smoking guitar player
and should be mentioned with Clapton,
and Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page.
He should be in that pantheon of guitar players.
[Tom] Peter Frampton certainly belongs
in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,
if only for these three words. "Frampton Comes Alive."
It was a record that just absolutely
conquered the world.
[audience cheering]
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[Roger] Ladies and gentlemen,
Peter Frampton!
[♪ upbeat rock, Peter Frampton "Baby (Something's Happening)"]
♪ Who said it's my year? Was it you, there? ♪
♪ Can't go wrong ♪
♪ I see a new way you'll be in my play, sing my song ♪
♪ Yeah, where is the reason I keep teasing? If I knew ♪
♪ Now to see the new year not being blue here, evermore ♪
♪ All right somethin's happening ♪
♪ Hold tight might be lightning ♪
♪ Turn on the lights somethin's moving ♪
♪ Can't sleep at night ♪
♪ My heart keeps missing a beat ♪
♪ Oh baby, don't ever let it bring you down ♪
♪ Oh baby, I'll pick you up ♪
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Thank you!
-[Peter] Thank you very much. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Uh, this is fantastic. Thank you.
Um, and I want to bring on a dear, dear friend of mine
for a very long time.
And he's a great singer, songwriter, guitar player.
Keith Urban, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you, Keith.
[♪ soft rock, Peter Frampton "Do You Feel Like We Do"]
[audience cheering]
♪ Woke up this morning with a wine glass in my hand ♪
♪ Whose wine, what wine? ♪
[audience] Where the hell did I dine?
♪ Must have been a dream ♪
♪ I don't believe where I've been ♪
♪ Come on, let's do it again ♪
♪ Do you, you feel like I do? ♪
♪ Champagne for breakfast and a Sherman in my hand ♪
♪ Black top, black tails you know it never fails ♪
♪ Must have been a dream ♪
♪ I don't believe where I've been ♪
Come on, Cleveland!
♪ Do you, you feel like I do? ♪
♪ Do you, you feel like I... ♪
♪ Like I do? ♪
[audience cheering]
♪ Do you feel like we do? ♪
[audience cheering, applauding]
[talk box scatting]
[scatting continues]
♪ Do you feel like we do? ♪
[audience cheering]
♪ Can you hear me? ♪
[audience cheering]
[talk box scatting]
[scatting continues]
Oh!
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Peter] Thank you!
Thank you so much.
Hi, Peter. This is Bryan Adams.
I'm on tour right now and I just want to say
congratulations on getting
in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
And I know I'm not alone when I say this
because there's a lot of other people that want
to say, yeah, Peter.
[audience cheering, applauding]
We love you man, we love you.
[audience cheering, applauding]
That's what you call a rock star!
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Peter Frampton!
Can't believe it.
I can't believe it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
[audience cheering]
And many, many thanks
to Roger for coming all the way over from England.
I can't thank you enough, really.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -So... [chuckles]
Well...
He's... he's remind... [laughs]
[audience cheering]
Could they make it any bigger?
Anyway, um, so... [chuckles]
Uh, it reminds me of him talking about me driving around,
um, England with Keith Moon and John Entwistle,
because it reminds me of that first UK tour.
I was in The Herd, and we were supporting The Who,
and-- But one night,
backstage, Keith Moon and John Entwistle decided
to show me the rock ropes.
And take me under their collective wing.
Every time in The Herd's dressing room,
I went near the window and looked out,
all the girls would start screaming down below.
And so, uh...
the next thing I knew, I was being dangled out
-of the third story window... -[audience laughing]
-...by my ankles. -[laughs]
Uh, this was amid the maniacal laughter
of Keith Moon and John Entwistle.
And they thought I should be closer to my fans, obviously.
And I was 17. Welcome to rock and roll!
[audience cheering, applauding]
I really am a lucky guy to have had this amazing career.
And it's always been driven by my passion
for guitar playing.
And that is, as Roger said, that's my comfy chair.
And along the way, I've had help from many people,
and starting with a Rolling Stone,
no less, Bill Wyman.
-And, um... and... -[audience applauding]
he was always and is still
like my older brother, and he managed
and produced a band before The Herd called
The Preachers when I was still at school.
We got to be on British TV's Ready Steady Go
with The Stones,
and I was only 14 then.
So, I was always a huge fan of the Small Faces as well,
so when Glyn Johns asked me to play
on a Small Faces session for Johnny Hallyday
in Paris, I said, I'll be right there.
And Steve and I really hit it off straight away,
and pretty soon after that we formed Humble Pie.
An incredible period where I found my guitar style
and learned so much from Steve Marriott
and the Pie, it was a wonderful period for me.
And, um...
Oh, yes, we had a big live album too called Rockin' the Fillmore.
And that went gold, that was our first gold anything, so.
Is it okay for me to ask, please can we nominate Humble Pie?
[audience cheering, applauding]
After I left, without a lot of money,
um, I was able to do some sessions to keep afloat.
I became a session guy,
and George Harrison asked me to play
on All Things Must Pass.
And then he told Harry Nilsson
about me and Harry called me and I played
on Son of Schmilsson too.
The people I met and played with on these sessions
and recordings are some
of the most legendary players ever.
I went ar-- So I went around with a notepad and took down all
their phone numbers and when I made my first solo album,
they all turned up.
So I was lucky to learn from all of them and found my voice
as a solo artist.
Having what was then the biggest selling live album
of all time with Frampton Comes Alive
-was needless. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Thank you.
It was a wild ride.
Oh, God.
Um... [chuckles]
It brought with it such joy and excitement
and also immense stress and pressure
to follow that big thing up, you know.
So, anyway, what goes up... must come down.
Looking back, my fall from grace was almost predetermined.
I'm not the first to learn this lesson,
but you never truly know until it happens to you.
I'm a positive person, very positive person,
but I landed back at the bottom of the ladder.
I quickly picked myself up
and started fighting my way back.
I now believe
that this was a necessity for me.
[audience cheering, applauding]
There was a gift in all of this.
I had time to realize what was most important to me.
[clears throat] My family, right there.
[audience cheering, applauding]
My friends,
and my reinventing passion for guitar always.
The money and the fame were seemingly gone overnight,
and that'll wake you up.
But life is full of surprises.
David Jones, or we know him as David Bowie,
-and I were school chums. -[audience cheering, applauding]
My father was the head of the art department
and taught David art for three or four years.
We were lifelong friends and David was kind of
a family friend, my parents as well.
And in '86 he asked me to play on his album
and then with him
on the Glass Spider tour the year later.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I was absolutely over the moon to play guitar with David
on the same stage at the same time.
It was absolutely amazing.
We never really spoke about it,
but he saw how I had lost my credibility,
and he had always thought of me as the guitar player first.
At the time, I had no idea
what a huge gift David was giving me.
I went back on the road, and I started the journey
that I've been on ever since.
Thank you, David Bowie.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Winning a Grammy for my instrumental album
in 2007 was another incredible moment.
But...
my muscle disease, IBM, has given me
a completely different outlook on life. When I look out
over the audience each night, I see very happy,
excited people enjoying an escape through my music.
But I have no idea what battles they
or you might be fighting.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I am now fully aware of what lies
behind a hello and a handshake...
because we have no idea
what others might be dealing with in their lives.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Kindness is king.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Thank you to Jerry Moss, Herb Albert, A&M,
my managers Ken Levitan and Lisa Jenkins,
also Gary Haber, and my incredible team
without whom I wouldn't be standing here today.
And to all my incredible band members...
and road crews over the years who've played
such an important part in this career.
And thank you so much to the Rock Hall
for this incredible honor.
It's something beyond all my dreams,
even those pipe dreams.
-Did I say that? -[audience laughing]
And... [chuckles]
And I share it with all of you who've been with me
on this beautiful journey, especially you, my fans,
who have brought me here tonight.
-Thank you all so much. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Do you want me to carry this for you?
-Yes, would you? -Yeah. I will, of course.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ bold blues music playing, Big Mama Thornton "They Call Me Big Mama"]
[Big Mama] I feel that I got the voice.
I feel like I got the power.
Put some good background behind it
and let me just show the world what I got.
♪ Well, they call me Big Mama ♪
♪ Because I weigh 300 pounds ♪
[Louis] Big Mama Thornton, Willie Mae Thornton,
probably the most powerful woman singer
of the blues alive today.
Big Mama Thornton was rock and roll
before rock and roll.
She had the energy.
She had this rawness.
There was electricity when she would perform.
♪ Come on back, baby Come back, honey, don't go ♪
[Big Mama] You know, I was born in Alabama.
I really got the blues in '39 when I lost my mother.
So, I decided I wanted to sing the blues.
[♪ bold blues music playing,
Big Mama Thornton "Let Your Tears Fall Babe"]
♪ Let your tears fall, baby If you really want to cry ♪
[Big Mama] I was cutting a record called
Let Your Tears Fall, Baby.
While I was in the studio,
Gerald Lever and Michael Strotland came in.
Big Mama got up and she just blew everybody away.
She was just such a great blues singer.
We looked at each other
and then we laid the song on Big Mama.
[Big Mama] They're saying "Hey can you sing this?"
So, I'd look back.
And they took one take on it. And that was it.
[Mike] She just sang her ass off.
♪ You ain't nothing but a hound dog ♪
♪ Been snoopin' round my door ♪
♪ You ain't nothing but a hound dog ♪
♪ Been snoopin' round my door ♪
[Big Mama] The man said, "Here's a record
he's doing nationwide,
Hound Dog by Willie Mae Thornton."
I said, "That's me." [chuckles]
Hound Dog just took off like a jet.
♪ You ain't nothing but a hound dog ♪
♪ Been snoopin' round my door ♪
Big Mama Thornton did a tune called Hound Dog,
which sold over a million copies
before anyone had heard of Elvis Presley.
♪ You ain't nothing but a hound dog ♪
♪ Crying all the time ♪
[Dick] Did you get rich from "Hound Dog"?
-You know them old jokes? -[laughs]
[Brittany] During those times,
the industry as it was was doing everything they could
to benefit from Black people,
but not celebrate their work and pay them fair dues.
This is a song I wrote, made famous...
[♪ soft blues music playing,
Big Mama Thornton "Ball and Chain"]
...by me and Janis Joplin.
♪ I know you're gonna miss me, baby ♪
[Big Mama] One day, I was singing Ball and Chain.
She just kept asking me, saying, "Can I do Ball and Chain?"
And she always wanted to sing like me.
And I just told her to go ahead and put her own feeling in it.
♪ Oh, whoa, whoa ♪
♪ Oh honey, this can't be ♪
♪ Oh, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-baby Babe, babe, babe, no ♪
♪ Oh, whoa, baby ♪
♪ Why do, why do everything have to just happen to me? ♪
I actually think she inspired a whole lot of singers,
but nobody could really hit it like she does.
♪ I said oh, oh, baby ♪
♪ Why do, why do ♪
♪ Why do everything have to just happen to me? ♪
[Big Mama] See, so many youngsters jumping up now.
They forget about the old-timers,
and the old-timers are still going.
Big Mama Thorton!
[Big Mama] They came along behind me.
♪ Ball and chain ♪
Thank you!
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[♪ music concludes]
[announcer] And now,
to honor Jimmy Buffett, Dave Matthews.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Dave] They put me after Mama, Big Mama Thornton.
I'm so happy to be here to honor Jimmy.
He made everybody feel special. He made me feel very special.
I wish he could be here, but it's too late.
And so I'm going to play a song. I'm nervous.
I'm going to play a song that he wrote
about being too late.
[♪ instrumental mellow music playing, Jimmy Buffett "A Pirate Looks at Forty"]
♪ Mother, mother ocean I have heard you call ♪
♪ I've wanted to sail upon your waters ♪
♪ Since I was three feet tall You've seen it all ♪
♪ You've seen it all ♪
♪ I watched the men who rode you ♪
♪ Switch from sail to steam ♪
♪ Oh, and in your belly ♪
♪ You hold a treasure that few have ever seen ♪
♪ Most of 'em dream ♪
♪ Yes, I am a pirate ♪
♪ But I'm two hundred years too late ♪
♪ The cannons don't thunder ♪
♪ There's nothing to plunder ♪
♪ I'm an over-forty victim of fate ♪
♪ Arriving too late Arriving too late ♪
♪ I've done a bit of smugglin' ♪
♪ I've run my share of grass ♪
♪ Oh, I made enough money to buy Miami ♪
♪ I pissed it away so fast ♪
♪ Never meant to last ♪
♪ I have been drunk now for over two weeks ♪
♪ I passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks ♪
♪ I gotta stop wishing Gotta go fishing ♪
♪ Down to rock bottom again ♪
♪ Just a few friends ♪
♪ You know I'd go for younger women ♪
♪ I would live with several a while ♪
♪ And though I'd run them away ♪
♪ They'd come back someday ♪
♪ Maybe even manage a smile ♪
♪ Just takes a while ♪
♪ Mother, mother ocean ♪
♪ After all these years I've found ♪
♪ My occupational hazard ♪
♪ Being my occupation's just not around ♪
♪ I feel like I've drowned ♪
♪ Gonna head uptown ♪
♪ I feel like I've drowned ♪
♪ Gonna head uptown ♪
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Dave] Thank you very much, Jimmy. Thank you, Jane.
I wanna-- Thank you very much.
I want to introduce a friend of mine.
He's a much better skier than I will ever be.
And he's also one of the best songwriters
that has ever graced the planet.
Please welcome the magnificent James Taylor.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ upbeat music playing, James Taylor "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)"]
Oh, boy, my favorite thing, public speaking.
Well, Jimmy Buffett's wife,
Jane, is in the audience tonight,
-and she should... -[audience cheering, applauding]
[mouths] Thank you, James.
...she should probably be talking to you, not me,
but a few weeks ago,
she threw one of her legendary parties.
It was a goodbye party for Jimmy.
And I think it helped us all accept the fact
that he's really gone.
I don't know why that's so hard to believe.
People all over the world are grieving his loss.
And I was asked to speak on that night, too.
And I think I talked about celebrity
and about how we assemble our personal mythologies
in the popular culture, some bullshit like that.
[audience laughing]
But the point is that for so many of us,
Jimmy was a sort of a central hero,
like a heroic figure in some Greek myth.
[audience cheering, applauding]
You know, his adventure was our adventure,
and we got to share his huge love of this life.
He loved, loved being Jimmy Buffett.
[audience cheering, applauding]
He loved his family. He loved his band.
He loved the music, the life on the road.
And he absolutely loved his audience.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
[audience cheering, applauding]
He made you feel that. He really did.
And we were summoned,
like, to a tribal celebration, you know,
the Parrot Head Nation, yeah.
We were right there with him
all the while piloting his seaplane
or... or surfing the wake of a super tanker.
He actually did that.
He was larger than life, but somehow at the same time,
always right-sized and always authentic. Yeah.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -He was... Yeah.
Jimmy was the self-made man
and a poet...
and there won't be another like him.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Uh, I just... I just wish I could see him enjoy
this moment tonight. I just wish I could see it.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -So...
Hats off, bottoms up, ladies and gentlemen.
It is my honor and great pleasure
to announce the induction of Jimmy Buffett
to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ gentle country music playing, Jimmy Buffett "Nautical Wheelers"]
[Jimmy] I was in my first year of college,
and I saw this guy playing the guitar,
and all the girls were gathering around,
so I said, "Teach me those three chords."
♪ Nautical Wheelers who call... ♪
[Jimmy] I started as bar singer, and I started in folk clubs,
and I learned how to communicate with an audience.
♪ And let's dance with me Dance with me ♪
♪ Nautical Wheelers I want so badly... ♪
[Jimmy] I was living in Key West,
and I was working in a little cocktail lounge,
doing Happy Hour. And then just about the time
I was settling into my casual lifestyle,
I did this album, and it took off.
♪ So come Monday it'll be all right ♪
♪ Come Monday I'll be holding you tight ♪
♪ I spent four lonely days... ♪
[Sheryl] If you spent any time with Jimmy,
you felt like you had been on a journey,
and it was colorful and full of life and living.
And he just translated that into his music.
♪ As the son of a son of a sailor ♪
♪ I went out on the sea for adventure ♪
♪ Expanding the view of the captain and crew ♪
♪ Like a man just released from indenture ♪
I feel like in songs lies the only real portrayal
of American poetry. And throughout decades,
Jimmy found ways to say things in a different way.
♪ Changes in latitudes Changes in attitudes ♪
♪ Nothing remains quite the same ♪
♪ Through all of our running and all of our cunning ♪
♪ We could laugh We would all go in ♪
[Darius] Jimmy Buffett was like nobody else.
He found a niche in music that was just his.
You couldn't call him rock, you couldn't call him country,
you call him Buffett music.
♪ But now I think about the good times ♪
♪ Down in the Caribbean sunshine ♪
♪ In my younger days I was so bad ♪
♪ Laughin' about all the fun we had ♪
[Sheryl] The band that he has had
for so many years are guys I knew
when I was a school teacher in St. Louis.
The fact that those guys stayed with him for all of these years
is a testament to Jimmy.
I just wanna know one thing, are all you Parrot Heads ready to party?
[Jimmy] As far as I see them, they're pretty normal people,
but they have a slight streak of insanity in their make-up,
which comes out when they come to the show.
♪ I don't know where I'm a-gonna ♪
♪ When the volcano blows ♪
I'm not sure that Jimmy gets the credit he deserves
as being a poet,
like a true songwriter, storyteller,
a lot like Hemingway was in his time.
♪ Mother, mother, ocean ♪
[♪ emotional country music playing, Jimmy Buffett "A Pirate Looks at Forty"]
♪ I have heard you call ♪
♪ Wanted to sail upon your waters ♪
♪ Since I was... ♪
He was truly an incredible human being.
He was always trying to leave everything a better place,
and he was always trying to figure out how to create experiences
for people that helped them to feel good.
There's a real sense of community in our fans.
It's almost tribal in nature
that people really want to go out and have a good time.
♪ Can't you feel them circle... ♪
[Sheryl] A lot of people outgrow the artists
they start out loving, but people didn't outgrow Jimmy.
♪ You got fins to the left Fins to the right ♪
♪ And you're the only bait in town ♪
♪ Oh-whoa, oh-whoa ♪
♪ Somethin' tall and strong Make it a... ♪
[Jimmy] Contrary to popular belief,
I'm not on the beach every day with a margarita. [laughs]
I'm on the road a hundred days a year.
♪ But I don't care ♪
[audience cheering]
♪ It's five o'clock somewhere ♪
[Zac] Margaritaville is one of those examples
of the genius that Jimmy had.
Everyone can relate to that song.
I think the spirit that it carries
makes you feel a certain way. It's a perfect song.
♪ Wastin' away again in Margaritaville ♪
[singing indistinctly]
♪ Searching for my lost shakers of salt ♪
♪ Salt, salt, salt ♪
♪ Some people claim that there's a woman... ♪
[Jimmy] When we come to town and all of a sudden
we're an excuse to go crazy,
I think that's an essential part of life in the 20th century,
and I'm glad it's my job.
♪ It's my fault... ♪
♪ Yeah! ♪
-[Jimmy] Thank you! -[audience cheering, applauding]
Thank you. I'm...
Again, I'm James Taylor, or I'm one of them.
And this is... this is Kenny Chesney.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -This is Matt McAnally.
And we're...
we're three old friends of Jimmy Buffett,
and we miss him.
This is a song of his that we like a lot.
[♪ soft romantic music playing, Jimmy Buffet "Come Monday"]
♪ Headin' out to San Francisco for the Labor Day weekend show ♪
♪ I've got my Hush Puppies on ♪
♪ I guess I never was meant for glitter rock and roll ♪
♪ Honey, I didn't know ♪
♪ That I be missin' you so ♪
♪ Come Monday It'll be all right ♪
♪ Come Monday I'll be holdin' your tight ♪
♪ I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze ♪
♪ Just want you back by my side ♪
♪ Yeah, it's been quite a summer ♪
♪ Rental cars and the westbound train ♪
♪ And now you're off on vacation Something you tried to explain ♪
♪ And, darlin' since I love you so ♪
♪ That's the reason I just let you go ♪
♪ Come Monday It'll be all right ♪
♪ Come Monday I'll be holding you tight ♪
♪ I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze ♪
♪ And I just want you right by my side ♪
♪ I can't help it, honey ♪
♪ You're that much part of me now ♪
♪ Remember that night in Montana ♪
♪ We said there'd be no room for doubt ♪
♪ I hope you're enjoying the scenery ♪
♪ I know that it's pretty up there ♪
♪ We can go hiking on Tuesday ♪
♪ With you I'd walk anywhere ♪
♪ California has worn me quite thin ♪
♪ I just can't wait to see you again ♪
♪ Come Monday It'll be all right ♪
♪ Come Monday I'll be holding you tight ♪
♪ I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze ♪
♪ And I just want you back by my side ♪
♪ I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze ♪
♪ And I just want you back by my side ♪
-[song concludes] -[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ energetic upbeat music playing, The Commodores "Machine Gun"]
[Suzanne] It was in 1967.
I was trying to book Motown acts for theaters.
I met Berry Gordy through a friend of mine
and I said, Mr. Gordy, there is something
desperately wrong with your company.
Here I'm trying to book these artists and all this opinion.
Two weeks later, they flew me out for an interview. I got the job.
[Berry] Suzanne said there was a kids group you got to see.
They're auditioning in the next room.
I was only six minutes into the business.
Last thing I want is a kids group.
[Suzanne] But I knew I had seen something great.
[scatting]
[Berry] And then she said, you still don't like kids group?
And I said, "No, I don't." Get my camera. Get my camera.
[♪ upbeat music playing, The Jackson 5 "I Want You Back"]
[audience cheering, applauding]
Her interaction with the Jackson 5
was more than an executive. She was every day.
She had a lot of hats.
♪ When I had you to myself I didn't want you around ♪
[Suzanne] I was given the task of everything
from their choreography, their clothes, their schools,
their house, all of their activities.
♪ Picked you from the bunch ♪
[Michael Jackson over phone] Suzanne de Passe
was very instrumental in the early days of our career.
She was so wonderful.
I want you to be relaxed up there,
and if you feel something, try it.
[Smokey] It took a lot to handle a bunch of teenage boys
who were the most popular group in the world.
But she pulled it off.
[♪ groovy upbeat music playing, The Commodores "Brick House"]
Suzanne can walk in the door and say, "That's a hit."
♪ Ow, she's a brick... house ♪
I have always responded to talent
in a purely emotional way.
How I knew was when the little hairs
on the back of my neck would stand up.
♪ Shake it down Shake it down now... ♪
[Lionel] Who is she dealing with on a daily basis?
Diana, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson,
and all about Motown.
She was just in the fiber of careers.
[♪ laid-back jazz music playing]
[Lionel] Let's talk about the movies,
Lady Sings the Blues. That was Suzanne.
[Suzanne] I was completely blown away when Berry Gordy called me
to say that Lady Sings the Blues
had been nominated for five Academy Awards.
Berry Gordy wanted to make movies,
and he wanted to do TV specials. Suzanne was a person
he could count on to help him do it.
[Suzanne] It occurred to me the 25th anniversary
of Motown was coming up,
and celebrating that in a television show
would be a really good idea.
[♪ soft romantic music playing, Diana Ross "Reflections"]
-Well, I gave her hell. -I mean, you didn't say no.
-I did say no. -But you never said no.
You said, "Boy, I want a show for it."
I went back to Mr. Gordy. It was sold.
NBC was gonna broadcast it. It was happening.
And suddenly, everybody wanted to be part of it.
♪ Baby Everything is all right... ♪
[Suzanne] The music, the artists,
and the reunions we had.
♪ Mama told me ♪
[Suzanne] Very rarely does a show get to have
all those fabulous elements.
And then when Michael did "Billie Jean,"
it took it to a whole other place.
[♪ groovy upbeat music playing, Michael Jackson "Billie Jean"]
[audience cheering, applauding]
♪ She says I am the one But the kid is not my son ♪
Each level you get to, you have to recognize
that you've achieved it and be really grateful.
[Lionel] She has shaped careers, saved careers, advised careers.
She made the famous. She made all of us.
-♪ Give it to me, baby ♪ -♪ Give it to me, baby ♪
[Suzanne] These opportunities allowed me the chance to make
the mistakes that taught me much more than any success.
-♪ That sweet, funky stuff ♪ -♪ Yo... Ho! Ow! ♪
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Good evening. [chuckles]
I'm Berry Gordy, and I wish I could be there in person
to honor my longtime friend, the great Suzanne de Passe.
Suzanne was important in helping me achieve
my vision for Motown.
She began as my creative assistant
and always exceeded my expectations.
From pushing me to listen to a kids' group...
[laughs] ...The Jackson 5, to signing the Commodores.
While running Motown Productions,
she stepped into the predominantly men's world
of music, movies, and television.
Her instincts made her a formidable player,
and her success carved out a much-needed path
for the many women who have followed her
as executives in the entertainment industry.
Suzanne, you are a true pioneer.
-[laughs] -[audience cheering, applauding]
I am extremely proud of everything
you've accomplished and so happy to welcome you, my friend,
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ cheerful pop music playing, The Jackson 5 "I Want You Back"]
[Suzanne] Oh, my God.
Whoa! [chuckles]
Oh.
Oh, you guys, thank you so much.
This is why I work behind the scenes.
-[audience laughing] -I can't believe that I am here.
-Um... -[audience cheering, applauding]
I can never thank Berry Gordy enough,
for he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself
and gave me an opportunity to find it.
And in so doing,
I have had the most wonderful career in life.
I am so blessed. I am so grateful.
I know that Berry was so far ahead of his time
in giving women opportunities to excel.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[chuckles softly]
I was far from the only woman at Motown
who had responsibilities where he expected a lot
and we gave a lot
because we didn't want to disappoint him.
And very often he was disappointed.
[audience laughing]
But he kept giving us chances, and myself in particular,
I have had just the opportunity to fail,
which is so important because I do believe
you learn more sometimes the hard lessons
of things not going your way than when they go perfectly.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I am profoundly grateful to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
This is a life-changing moment for me.
[audience cheering, applauding]
When, uh, John Platt... [laughs] ...called me and said,
I'm gonna put Rob Light on the phone...
I thought maybe someone was dead.
[audience laughing]
They don't call me. [laughs] So...
They explained that I was gonna be inducted
on this day with the Ahmet Ertegun Award,
and I burst into projectile, nasty tears.
[audience cheering, laughing, applauding]
It is impossible to find the words to explain
how it was so unexpected and so...
um, moving to be recognized now
for all those things that I have been part of
and have had such a wonderful time doing.
And I am so honored to join the previous recipients
of the Ahmet Ertegun Award,
especially the four women who have preceded me.
[audience cheering, applauding]
No one, no one reaches any level of success alone
or by themselves.
And I want to thank...
some very important people in my life.
My cousin, Tony Jones, who's had my back
from the beginning to this day. And he was with me
during all of the Jackson 5 moments.
I want to thank Suzanne Koston for her hard work,
dedication, and loyalty.
And my profound thanks to the artists, the writers,
producers, engineers, at Motown, the Motown family executives,
there was a lesson every day.
And I am the recipient and just soaked it in
in every way possible.
And I thank everyone that I had the privilege
of working with at Motown and beyond.
I used to be the youngest person in the room,
and now I'm the oldest person in the room.
I was there the whole time...
and I don't know what happened except the years went by
-and I had a great time. And... -[audience cheering, applauding]
I, um... People say to me, "Are you still working?"
And I go, "Yeah, I love what I do."
I take my inspiration from the past,
but I'm excited about the future.
And finally, I would like to thank my wonderful mother,
who believed in me so strong...
-[audience cheering, applauding] -...when I...
didn't have one credit, not one success,
not one anything.
And she made me believe that I could do anything.
[audience cheering, applauding]
So, I dedicate this to my fabulous mother, Babs.
I am so blessed with great friends,
family, and a wonderful life.
And the great Bill Withers wrote a song called
Use Me (Till You Use Me Up). And that's what I intend to do.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Thank you.
Thank you.
[♪ hip-hop music playing]
[announcer] To induct A Tribe Called Quest
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Dave Chappelle.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Thank you.
Yo, let them know where we at, RH.
[audience cheering]
-It... -[audience member 1 cheering]
-...is an honor to... -[audience member 2 cheering]
...induct this next band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
A Tribe Called Quest consists of four members,
-Ali Shaheed Muhammad... -[audience cheering, applauding]
...Phife Dawg, Q-Tip, and Jarobi.
Years ago, in a tough time in my life,
I read a Chinese proverb that changed my life.
And the proverb said
that the best meal you can cook is made with ingredients
that you already have.
And this proverb reminds me of hip-hop,
and this proverb reminds me in particular of Tribe,
because Tribe was born out of friendship.
Being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is not something
that a black kid in New York in 1985
would ever even imagine to dream of.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And I don't believe that was ever the point
of A Tribe Called Quest. Uh, they met on a train.
They met at school. They played basketball together.
They play around-- around with each other.
They just use what they had.
And the first thing they had was each other as friends.
The next thing they had was their parents' records.
Hip-hop took what came before it
and made it strikingly innovative and new.
And Tribe Called Quest incorporated jazz and soul
in a way that hip-hop had never seen before them.
They took this talent from the playground
into the studio, and in 1990,
dropped their first studio album with the wildest title,
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm.
What kind of teenager would write some shit
-like this as a title? -[audience laughing, applauding]
And this is when they first came in the game.
The marquee record on that album,
we all know it, Can I Kick It?
[audience cheering]
And just like that, hip-hop had a new superstar.
They only sold like, 17,000 records.
And in the beginning, like any movement,
it started small, but grew throughout the streets.
Changed the culture. People started dressing better.
People started being kinder.
Because hip-hop was about being thuggish
and all this shit, but when Tribe came out,
it was a cue for everybody that you could be cool
-and not necessarily gangster. -[audience cheering, applauding]
On September 24th, 1991, music was never the same.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers dropped an album,
Nirvana dropped Nevermind,
and Tribe Called Quest dropped their second studio album,
The Low End Theory, and it was a wrap.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -This album's title
had one of the illest double entendres ever,
The Low End, which refers to the bass and the drums.
And it also refers to a black man's status in America.
And on that album was the big bang
of a superstar career that we all know
as Busta Rhymes and the Scenario.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Tribe has always been about togetherness.
On their way up during their ascension,
they helped form or found
what hip-hop calls the native tongues,
which included De La Soul, and The Jungle Brothers,
and Queen Latifah, and Monie Love and Black Sheep.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And all these bands in their own way changed
our music and our culture really forever.
I know this is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
but this movement in hip-hop was the birth
of so many great artists
and it started with these men sitting at this table.
[audience cheering, applauding]
When Phyfe passed away...
[audience member 3 speaks indistinctly]
Yes, make some noise for Phyfe, though.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Dave] I remember it happened suddenly.
I had tickets to a Prince concert,
and Phyfe passed, and the same night
for those tickets was Phyfe's funeral.
Wasn't even a question.
I said, "I'll see Prince another time."
And we went to the Apollo to say goodbye
to one of hip-hop's heroes,
and that was a very difficult time.
Afterwards, the next day,
everyone met at Q-Tip's house, and me, an outsider,
got to see the native tongues be together
and mourn their friend.
Latifah was there, and everybody was there.
Dayla was there.
And we laughed that night.
We played old videos of movies we'd all been in,
old records we all made and teased each other.
And then, at the end of the night,
Q-Tip played the last studio record
that Phife was on.
The album, ironically, was called
Thank You 4 Your Service... We Got It From Here.
-[audience applauding, cheering] -Tribe...
I want to thank you for your service.
What you've done for our culture means
the world to me.
But what you did for me that night changed my life.
Because that night, you shared your platform with me
and invited me to be on Saturday Night Live with you,
and it brought me back to television
after 12 years in the cold.
And I will always, always be grateful to you.
-Ladies and gentlemen... -[audience cheering, applauding]
...make some noise for A Tribe Called Quest.
[audience cheering, applauding]
When people study hip-hop…
A Tribe Called Quest will be as important
as Coltrane, as important as James Brown,
as important as Funkadelic.
You just have these important figures
in music genres and Tribe...
they are those motherfuckers.
[♪ hip-hop music playing, A Tribe Called Quest "Check the Rhime"]
♪ Check the Rhime ♪
[Lauryn] It was a brotherhood.
There was friendship, kinship.
They look like friends.
Stylish, clever, cool, creative, free.
There was a liberation to the sound.
♪ Back in the days on the boulevard of Linden ♪
♪ We used to kick routines and presence was fittin' ♪
-♪ It was I, The Abstract ♪ -♪ And me the five-footer ♪
♪ I kicks the mad style So, step off the frankfurter ♪
With Tribe, it's like they were as artistically ambitious
as anybody could be.
[Phife] We're from the same area as Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J.
So, those guys were our idols.
It was like, "Yo,
we could do this on our own. What's up?"
Before you knew it, it was on.
-♪ You on point Phife? ♪ -♪ Once again Tip ♪
-♪ Word, okay ♪ -♪ Watch me bust they shit ♪
Tip is very smooth. Phife was very hype.
The yin and yang of those two, that, to me,
was the perfect marriage.
[Q-Tip] We knew that we were doing something different.
You know, we knew it was good,
but I don't think we understood the magnitude
of the moment because we were kids.
♪ A lot of kids was bustin' rhymes ♪
♪ But they had no taste ♪
♪ Some said Quest was wack but now is that the case? ♪
♪ Your entry, MCVA ♪
♪ We got the jazz We got the jazz ♪
[Ali] Tip was a visionary.
He had, like, big ideas.
He dreamed it, and then I figured out a way
to make it happen.
♪ Stern, firm and young with a laid-back tongue ♪
♪ The aim is to succeed and achieve at 21 ♪
[Common] They introduced me to jazz.
A Tribe Called Quest was definitely the fathers
of a whole new brand of hip-hop.
[♪ hip-hop music playing, A Tribe Called Quest "Luck of Lucien"]
[Lauryn] It was a very jazz-inspired sound.
We saw the boundaries of…
of hip-hop expanding before our eyes.
It was exhilarating for all of us.
[Monie] A Tribe Called Quest made being different
safer in hip-hop.
We're allowed to be different.
[André 3000] It was always in this perfect kind of space.
The melodies and the chords were a certain way,
but the beats were hard.
♪ Here we go, yo Here we go, yo ♪
♪ So what, so what So, what's the scenario? ♪
♪ Ayo, Bo knows this And Bo knows that ♪
♪ But Bo don't know jack 'Cause Bo can't rap… ♪
Scenario wasn't even planned.
It was just, yo, come by the studio.
Next thing you know, Busta went in there.
It was like, damn, B.
♪ Watch, as I combine all the juice from the mind ♪
♪ Heel up, wheel up, bring it back… ♪
We went and did Arsenio Hall,
which was our first major appearance at that time.
♪ "Raow, raow," like a dungeon dragon ♪
♪ Change your little drawers 'cause your pants are sagging ♪
[Busta] There was nothing fucking with Tribe.
They are probably the best exemplification
of timeless greatness in its most impeccable form.
♪ Lyrics to go Lyrics to go ♪
It was very artful in how they used samples.
♪ Lyrics to go ♪
[André 3000] The way Q-Tip used the Minnie Riperton sample.
The whole time, I'm thinking it's a keyboard,
but it's actually her note-sustaining the whole time.
Like, whoa.
[Phife] All we did was take all of those different things
that we were influenced by and mix it all together.
Oh, shit.
♪ Can I, can I kick it? ♪
-♪ Yes, you can ♪ -♪ Well, I'm gone ♪
♪ Can I kick it? ♪
Can I Kick It is a fucking exciting three minutes.
There's no DJ on this planet that has not put that record on
and pulled the fader down for the "yes, you can."
♪ Yes, you can! ♪
-♪ Yeah, kick it, come on! ♪ -♪ Yes, you can! ♪
♪ 'Cause I left my wallet In El Segundo ♪
It was just a moment where everything
was just so creative
and everybody was just so expressive.
♪ Bonita Applebum… ♪
[Pharrell] I listened to Bonita Applebum all the time.
I was obsessed with it.
It was the most heavenly sound I'd ever heard.
I had never heard nothing like that
in my whole life.
♪ Bonita Applebum You gotta put me on ♪
♪ Bonita Applebum I said, "You gotta put me on" ♪
[Phife] What? What? What?
[♪ hip-hop music playing, A Tribe Called Quest "We the People..."]
There wouldn't have been OutKast as you know it
if there wasn't A Tribe Called Quest.
They were our Gods.
♪ The fog and the smog of news media that logs ♪
♪ False narratives of Gods That came up against the odds ♪
[Lauryn] Tribe's music is legacy music.
A foundational, hugely impactful,
hugely important part of the lineage,
of hip-hop music.
♪ The abstract poet incognito See I run the cape ♪
♪ Not the best, not the worst But occasionally… ♪
[Q-Tip] It was important to, like, just make the shit right
and just really touch people's hearts.
The way it turned out…
♪ Listen to the mission Listen, Miss… ♪
Turned out good, man.
-♪ As I crack up that monotone ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Children of the jazz so get your own ♪
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Chappelle] Ladies and gentlemen…
make some noise for Q-Tip, Jarobi White,
Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Phife Dawg.
A Tribe Called Quest,
welcome to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Let's go.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ hip-hop music playing, A Tribe Called Quest "Award Tour"]
-[♪ music concludes] -[audience cheering]
Microphone… microphone check, one,
two, what is this?
[audience cheering, applauding]
Um, I think Dave hit it on the head.
We didn't even think that this was something
to aspire to.
Um, my boy, Phife Dawg. Give it up for Phife Dawg.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I don't-- I don't have any stories.
All I have is gratitude, you know what I'm saying?
Um, thank you to New York.
-Queens in the building. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Sayers Ave in the building.
What's up, Cleveland? How y'all doing?
[audience cheering, applauding]
Thank you, the Tribe fans everywhere.
Um, we wouldn't be nothing without you.
Um, Ali Shah-- Ali Shaheed, I love you, boy.
Wish you was here.
Um…
let me give it up right quick.
Give it up for Phife's mom and dad right here, y'all.
[audience cheering, applauding]
-Captain. What's up, Captain? -What's up?
-Um… -[audience cheering]
I love your dirty drawers, boy. I love you to death, man.
-Pause. -P-p-pause.
-[laughs] -I love you to death, man.
And, um…
uh, thank you for the tutelage…
uh, support, uh, the gift of this life.
Mhm.
Uh, I wouldn't be the same without all of my brothers.
You know what I mean? Um, I'm really glad and proud
to call you guys my big brothers.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Um, mom and dad.
Uh, my dad, uh, thank you for the structure.
Uh, Mama Joan, thank you for teaching me the streets.
Uh, my mother, Joyce, thank you for introducing me to music.
Uh, my grandparents, uh… uh, South Carolina, Charleston.
Uh, you know what I'm saying? Um…
And, uh, that's it. Oh, my son, AJ.
Yo, my son is in the building. Get my son up.
[audience cheering, applauding]
That's that piece, y'all.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Uh…
-[audience cheering, applauding] -This is crazy.
It's just an honor to be here with the fellow inductees.
Um…
Ms. Dionne, you're a staple in my household.
Mr. Frampton…
you as well. Thank you so much.
My sister used to make me sing your songs
and stuff and torture me.
[audience laughing, applauding]
-Um… -[audience laughing]
You know, um, to m-- To the MC5 of course, Mary J. Blige,
-my sister, my kindred sister. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Um, but, um--
But I want to definitely thank our families
who are our rocks.
So, uh, to the Davis family, the Townsend family,
to the White family, to the Collier family,
to the Jones family, the Muhammad family,
and to the Boyce family, and to the Taylor family.
And rest in peace to our brother, Phife Dawg.
I wish you were here.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And, uh…
thank you to Dr. Emma Boyce, Grandma,
as we affectionately called her.
[hesitates] And, you know,
for allowing us to come into the house in…
you know, hit the basement.
And, um, one other name I'll mention is definitely
Red Alert, who is a famed New York City DJ,
whom gave us the shot.
[audience applauding]
But, um, we thank the omnipotent,
the light of the worlds.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. God.
-Yahweh. Jah-Jah. -[audience applauding]
Christ.
We give love…
and reverence to that entity, the supreme creator…
to which we as artists…
humanely emulate.
[inhales, smack lips]
We conjure melodies, harmonies…
poetry,
and safe havens of garages, wood sheds, basements,
bedrooms, and street corners.
To the latter, it has been the terrain
for many of us doo-woppers and hip-hoppers.
[inhales sharply] And yes, to all of you pseudo historians
who might be confused,
the corner doo-wopper and the corner hip-hoppers sang
and rapped the blues.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And what's more Rock & Roll than the blues?
[clicks tongue] But, uh, just like our predecessors,
we had to find spaces
on the outskirts of cities and towns.
Um, a Southern Sun House or Robert Johnson Crossroad
to a transformed room in a hood tenement
on Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx.
[audience cheering, applauding]
The need to express burned in us…
with an art-fueled determination.
A spark, the spark that embers within many of us in this room.
[inhales]
And the spark that burned within the four of us boys
in 1985 in New York City.
And here's a quick story.
[audience applauding]
My oldest sister, Gwen, who's here,
uh, used to date this dude named Skeff Anselm.
And he was the engineer for this guy named Jazzy Jay…
-[clicks tongue] -[audience cheering, applauding]
…who was a great DJ, producer,
and was a part of an organization
in New York City called the Zulu Nation.
And my sister used to date his homeboy,
so you know I was gonna be on her nerves, you know?
So, um…
I begged my sister to have Skeff and Jazzy
come to see my five-man crew at a rehearsal space
in New York City called Giant Studios,
and it was on 14th Street and Sixth Avenue.
And, uh, ironically, we were all about 14.
After Jazzy and Skeff heard us do like two… two records,
he stopped us, and he was like...
I'm sorry for this… [hesitates] …Ms. Dionne,
I… I may say something, but… [chuckles]
Jazzy was like, uh, "Y'all little... is good…
"but your voice,
"little... that… that shit needs to change."
-[audience laughing] -"It needs to mature."
But my voice hasn't matured since I've been…
[audience cheering, applauding]
But, um...
But that didn't det-- But that didn't deter us
because we had that spark I spoke about.
And that spark is something I think that, um,
we all have in us
and that we should all, in this world,
try to do everything we can
to secure our own personal spark.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Um, that's what Tribe was about.
No matter where you stood…
socially…
how you looked, how you sounded,
whether you were first generation here
or you're from somewhere else.
We were just a mixed bag who wanted to be, um,
Grandmaster Flash as much as we wanted to be
Kool & The Gang and Bob Marley,
uh, Earth, Wind & Fire.
As much as we wanted to be Public Enemy,
and Run-D.M.C., and LL Cool J, we wanted to be the Beatles.
Um, that was just how we were tempered.
But, um, I wanna wrap it up
and just say thank you so much to…
[audience cheering, applauding]
…our families.
One thing, gotta thank my momma.
And we definitely have to thank... this is, uh, Kansa,
my boy Ali Shaheed,
who couldn't be here, unfortunately.
Um, I also made a lot of noise in her house, me and Ali
in… in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.
So, we want to shout out, you can say it.
-My mom… -What's her name?
…who's in the back…
-[chuckles] -…Pamela Jones,
thank you so much for raising us the way you did.
-Yeah. -You have made
a lot of things possible in an impossible world…
-Yeah. -…and I just wanna thank you
on behalf of my beloved brother.
-We love you. -Yeah.
-We love you, too. -Well, I love you, too.
-All right. -And we love y'all,
-and especially the fans. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Without y'all, we wouldn't be here.
Thank you so much. Thank you to, like,
all the artists that came from us and all that,
we thank y'all so much. We love y'all. Thank you.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[chuckles] Thank you for those brief comments.
-[audience laughing] -[chuckles]
-[Q-Tip] What d'you say? -I said, "Thank you
"for those brief comments."
-[audience cheering, applauding] -I got something to say.
-[chuckles] Wait a minute. -[indistinct chatter]
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. [chuckles]
Would you like to say something?
-Yeah. -One moment.
Phife's father would like to say something everybody,
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Listen...
They tried to get me off the stage.
I came all the way from Connecticut, New York.
-[audience cheering] -Not to look cute.
I… I wanna say something…
-[audience laughing] -…before I get out of here.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Um…
My name is Walt Taylor, father of Phife Dawg.
And Phife is all about family.
And the only reason I'm here, because of him.
And all my loved ones,
his loved ones are sitting right over there.
-And Phife is all about family. -[audience applauding]
That's why they're here, to support A Tribe Called Quest
and to support Phife Dawg.
But it's-- One more thing, I'm gonna make it very short.
Um, Cher, I got you, babe.
[audience cheering, laughing]
-Love you guys, peace. -[audience applauding]
Make some noise for A Tribe Called Quest,
-first of all. -[audience cheering, applauding]
And now it's my privilege to introduce
a group of artists that will continue
to carry on Tribe's legacy.
In fact, some of these artists built this legacy with them.
-Please welcome The Roots… -[audience cheering, applauding]
…Busta Rhymes, Common, Black Thought, De La Soul,
and Queen Latifah.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ upbeat hip-hop playing, A Tribe Called Quest "Can I Kick It?"]
[DJ Maseo] Yes.
My name is DJ Maseo from De La Soul,
and I'm here with the legendary Roots crew,
and we're here to honor our brothers,
A Tribe Called Quest.
So, if you're a fan of A Tribe Called Quest,
I need everybody to get up off their seats,
put their hands in the air,
and raise the roof off this building
with that beat drop. Let's go.
♪ Put your hands up Put your hands up ♪
♪ Put your hands up Come on, come on! ♪
♪ Put your hands up Put your hands up ♪
♪ Put your hands up Come on, come on! ♪
-♪ Can I kick it? ♪ -♪ Yes, you can! ♪
♪ Well, I'm gone ♪
♪ Can I kick it to all the people ♪
♪ Who can Quest like A Tribe does? ♪
♪ For this, did you really know what live was? ♪
♪ Comprehend to the track for it's why, cuz ♪
♪ Gettin' measures on the tip of the vibe buzz ♪
♪ Rock and roll to the beat of... ♪
♪ Wipe your feet really good on the rhythm rug ♪
♪ If you feeling through the urge ♪
-♪ Do the jitterbug ♪ -♪ Do the jitterbug ♪
♪ Yo, you really need a hug Come on ♪
♪ It's a big shrug ♪
-♪ A life filled with... ♪ - ♪ Fun! ♪
♪ That's what I love ♪
♪ A lower plateau is what we're above ♪
♪ If you diss us we won't even think of ♪
♪ Will Nipper the doggy give a big shove? ♪
♪ This rhythm really hits Like a… ♪
[DJ Maseo] ♪ Snug glove ♪
♪ It's a, come on like a vibe, love ♪
♪ Turn it up ♪
♪ If the plus flies high like a dove ♪
[♪ hip-hop music playing, A Tribe Called Quest "Check the Rhime"]
-♪ Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh ♪ -♪ Come on, come on ♪
-♪ Here we go ♪ -♪ Check the rhyme ♪
♪ Yo, check the rhyme ♪
Y'all want to party? What up, Jayhawks?
♪ 808, come on Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom ♪
-♪ It goes boom, boom, boom ♪ -♪ Now take it back ♪
♪ Hey, yo, hey, yo ♪
♪ Back in the days On the boulevard of Linden ♪
♪ Yeah we used to kick routines ♪
♪ And presence was fittin' It was I, The Abstract ♪
♪ And me, the Five Footer I kicks the mad style ♪
-♪ So step off the frankfurter ♪ -♪ Yo, Phife ♪
♪ You remember that routine ♪
♪ That we used to make spiffy Like Mr. Clean? ♪
♪ Um, um, a tidbit Um, a smidgen ♪
♪ I don't get it, y'all Man, you gotta get the page ♪
♪ Hey, yo, you on point, Phife? ♪
♪ All the time, Tip ♪
♪ You on point, Phife? ♪
♪ All the time, Tip ♪
♪ You on point, Phife? ♪
♪ All the time, Tip ♪
♪ Okay, then grab the microphone and let your words rip ♪
♪ Now, here's a funky introduction ♪
-♪ Of how nice I am ♪ -♪ Of how nice I am ♪
♪ Send a telegram ♪
♪ I'm like an energizer 'Cause, you see, I last long ♪
♪ My crew is never ever... ♪
♪ Because we stand strong ♪
♪ Now, if you say my style is wack ♪
♪ That's where you're dead wrong ♪
♪ I slayed that buddy in El Segundo ♪
♪ Then push it along ♪
♪ You'd be a fool to reply that Phife is not the man ♪
♪ 'Cause you know, and I know that you know who I am ♪
♪ A special shot of peace goes out ♪
♪ To all my pals you see ♪
♪ And a middle finger goes for all you punk MC's ♪
♪ Yo, I love when all you wack MC's despise me ♪
♪ They get vexed, I roll next no one contest me ♪
♪ I'm just a fly MC who's five-foot-three and very brave ♪
♪ On top remaining no home training ♪
♪ 'Cause I misbehave ♪
♪ I come correct in full effect I got my girls in check ♪
-♪ And before I do a show ♪ -♪ Be direct, king ♪
♪ You see, my aura's positive ♪
-♪ I don't promote no junk ♪ -Come on!
♪ Hey, yo, I'm far from a bully but I ain't a punk ♪
-♪ Extremity in rhythm ♪ -♪ Yeah, that's what you heard ♪
♪ So, just clean out your ears ♪
-♪ And just check the word ♪ -[Queen Latifah] Let's go!
♪ Bonita Applebum You gotta put me on ♪
♪ Bonita Applebum I said, "You gotta put me on" ♪
-Said what? -♪ Bonita Applebum ♪
♪ You gotta put me on ♪
♪ Bonita Applebum I said, "You gotta put me on" ♪
-[Black Thought] Come on. -♪ Bonita Applebum ♪
-♪ Hey, hon ♪ -♪ Hey, hon ♪
-Come on! -♪ Bonita Applebum ♪
♪ Go ahead with yourself ♪
♪ Bonita Applebum ♪
-♪ Hey, hon ♪ -♪ Hey, hon ♪
-♪ Bonita, Bonita, Bonita ♪ -♪ Bonita, Bonita, Bonita ♪
-♪ Ah, baby doll ♪ -♪ Baby doll ♪
-♪ Baby doll ♪
-Uh-huh. -♪ Hey, Bonita ♪
-♪ Glad to meet ya ♪ -♪ Oh, baby doll ♪
-♪ Baby doll ♪ -♪ Baby doll ♪
-♪ Oh, baby doll ♪ -♪ For the cunning ♪
♪ Stunning you, miss I must beseech ya ♪
-♪ Baby doll ♪ -♪ Baby doll ♪
♪ Hey, being with you is a top priority ♪
-♪ Baby doll ♪ -♪ Baby doll ♪
-♪ Oh, baby doll ♪ -♪ Oh, baby doll, ha! ♪
♪ Ain't no need to question the authority ♪
-♪ Baby doll ♪ -♪ Baby doll ♪
-♪ Oh, baby doll ♪
♪ Chairman of the board the chief of affections ♪
-♪ Oh, baby doll ♪ -♪ Baby doll ♪
♪ Baby doll ♪
♪ You got mine's to swing in your direction ♪
-♪ Baby doll ♪ -♪ Baby doll ♪
-♪ Oh, baby doll, yeah ♪
♪ Hey you're like a hip hop song you know? ♪
♪ Yeah, baby doll What's your name? ♪
♪ Bonita Applebum, you gotta put me on ♪
-[Black Thought] Come on! -♪ Bonita Applebum ♪
♪ You gotta put me on ♪
♪ Bonita Applebum I said, "You gotta put me on" ♪
-♪ Bonita Applebum ♪ -[Black Thought] Come on!
♪ You gotta put me on ♪
♪ Bonita Applebum I said, "You gotta put me on" ♪
-Come on! -♪ Bonita Applebum ♪
♪ Hey, hon, hey, hon ♪
♪ Bonita Applebum ♪
♪ Go ahead with yourself ♪
-Come on, now! -♪ Bonita Applebum ♪
-♪ Hey, hon, hey, hon ♪ -♪ Hey, hon, hey, hon ♪
♪ Bonita Applebum You gotta put me on ♪
-Check it out! -[Black Thought] Let's go.
[♪ upbeat hip-hop playing, A Tribe Called Quest "Scenario"]
-♪ Hey what we gon do in '92 ♪ -♪ Do! ♪
♪ Even though we had fun in '91 ♪
♪ Wonderful my days herb dream comin' down ♪
♪ Ponna-ponna! New sound leavin' cracks in the ground ♪
-[Black Thought] Come on! -♪ What's goin' on, my man? ♪
♪ Goddamn And now my brain is hurtin' ♪
♪ Listen up, Busta ♪
♪ Rhythm will hit 'em then I get 'em ♪
♪ Rip on 'em, shit on 'em hit on 'em, then I will… ♪
-♪ Sit on 'em ♪ -Whoo!
♪ Open up your mouth if you want the food ♪
♪ To get... Flipmode 'Cause I'm in the mood ♪
♪ Uh-huh! Uh-huh! Yeah man, that's how it goes ♪
♪ Body drippin' with blood comin' out your nose ♪
-♪ Give me a Band-Aid ♪ -♪ What are you askin' for? ♪
♪ More only your sacred and pure ♪
♪ Adverse, Zig-Zag Check it and the Busta new rap ♪
♪ Rap, Busta Rhymes or bust this wicked rhymes ♪
♪ Yeah y'all in '92, I'm packin' my roach spray ♪
-♪ Anyway! ♪ -♪ Ding-A-Ling ♪
♪ Tribe Called Quest Leaders of the New School ♪
♪ Mad brother when stealthy Raow, raow, raow! ♪
♪ To my dragon, baby stop whinin' ♪
♪ I see my influence still shinin' ♪
♪ More crazy in '92, uh-oh Time to go, yo ♪
♪ That's the scenario! ♪
♪ Hey, yo, so don't violate or you'll get violated ♪
♪ The hip-hop sound is well agitated ♪
♪ We never waste our time on the played-out ego ♪
♪ It's Busta Rhymes ♪
-♪ With the scenario ♪ -♪ Watch! ♪
♪ As I combine all the juice from the mind ♪
♪ Heel up, wheel up Bring it back ♪
-♪ Come rewind ♪ -♪ Say what? ♪
-♪ Powerful impact ♪ -♪ Boom! ♪
♪ From the cannon, not bragging Try to read my mind ♪
♪ Just imagine Vocabulary's necessary ♪
♪ When digging into my library ♪
-♪ Let's go ♪ -♪ Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh ♪
♪ Eating Ital Stew Like the one Peter Tosh ♪
♪ Uh, uh, uh All over the track, man ♪
♪ Uh, pardon me, uh As I come back ♪
-♪ Come on ♪ -♪ As I did it, yo ♪
-♪ I heard you beg your pardon ♪ -♪ Come on ♪
♪ When I travel through the town ♪
♪ I roll with the squadron ♪
♪ "Raow, raow," like a dungeon dragon ♪
♪ Change your little drawers 'Cause your pants are sagging ♪
♪ Try to step to this I will twist you in a turban ♪
-♪ Come on ♪ -♪ And have you smelling ripe ♪
♪ Like some old stale urine ♪
♪ Chickity-choco The chocolate chicken ♪
♪ The rear cock diesel Butt cheeks they were kicking ♪
-♪ Yo ♪ -♪ Bust it out ♪
♪ Before the Busta bust another rhyme ♪
-♪ The rhythm is in sync ♪ -♪ Uh ♪
-♪ The rhymes are on time ♪ -♪ Time ♪
♪ Rippin' up the sound Just like ♪
♪ Observe the vibe And check out the scenario ♪
♪ Here we go yo, here we go yo ♪
♪ So what, so what So what's the scenario ♪
-♪ Come on ♪ -♪ Here we go, yo ♪
♪ So what, so what ♪
-♪ So what's the scenario ♪ -♪ Jump up, right ♪
-♪ Here we go, yo ♪ -♪ Check-check it ♪
♪ So what, so what so what's the scenario? ♪
-♪ Here we go, yo ♪ -♪ Check-check it ♪
♪ Here we go, yo ♪
♪ So what, so what so what's the scenario? ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[audience cheering and applauding]
Tribe, thank you, Tribe. Y'all gave birth to me, Tribe.
Congrats, Tribe.
Whoo!
-[♪ upbeat music playing] -[Cyndi over TV] 1984.
It was pop music's best year ever.
I should know. I lived it.
Hey, everyone.
It's me, Cyndi Lauper, back here in '84.
Hi, 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The Rock Hall Museum is celebrating
the 40th anniversary of 1984.
It was the year of Prince, Madonna, Van Halen.
The year of Tina, Boy George, Bruce,
Michael, and me.
This new music called "hip-hop" was breaking through,
and Band Aid brought us together.
It's the year MTV went nationwide
and changed music forever,
bringing acts like Eurythmics
and Duran Duran right into your living room.
♪ 1984 ♪
Traveling through time to 1984
is not the only thing you can do
at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
Not by a long shot.
You can witness the power of revolutionary women in music.
Celebrate five decades of hip-hop.
Rock with Jersey superstars Bon Jovi.
Channel your inner pop star in the garage.
And of course, explore every Hall of Fame inductee.
So, what are you waiting for? Come back to the '80s.
Celebrate the present and get a glimpse of the future,
all at the same time
at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
in Cleveland, Ohio,
'cause Cleveland rocks! And tell 'em Cindy sent you.
[♪ music concludes]
[cheering and applauding]
[♪ rap music playing, Dr. Dre "The Next Episode"]
[announcer over speakers] To induct Mary J. Blige,
Method Man,
and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, Dr Dre.
[audience cheering and applauding]
Yes, yes.
Yes, I'm here to represent for Mary J. Blige.
[audience cheers]
Me and Mr. Meth.
Mary J. Blige has single-handedly created
an entirely new genre of music.
Now, how many artists can say that shit?
How many?
Yeah, her trailblazing album, What's the 411?,
introduced a young Mary to the world
with her powerful R&B vocals
and a storytelling ability and sensibility.
She in turn introduced the world to hip-hop soul,
and paving the way for countless collaborations
between R&B and hip-hop artists we all know and love.
Because let's face it,
you don't just listen to a Mary album,
you feel that shit in your soul, right?
[audience cheering and applauding]
[Dr. Dre] Every single syllable.
When you listen to Mary,
we're reminded we're not alone in heartbreak.
She's been singing our experiences,
soothing us at the same time.
for years with audiences around the world.
And that's what Mary is about.
Mary has empowered us
to keep going no matter how hard things are.
-Right? -[audience applauding]
And that lets us know that there is another day.
Over a 30-year span, Mary has consistently ranked
as the most important artist of a generation,
earning her the moniker, "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul."
-Right? -[audience applauds]
Mary J. Blige is the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul.
As her collaborator and friend,
I am thrilled to be a part of inducting Mary J. Blige
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
[audience cheering, applauding]
All right. Um.
You all look good tonight. Nice.
All right, so... [clears throat]
...Dre and I are here tonight to declare it.
Mary J. Blige is indeed the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul.
[audience cheers]
She's the queen
because everything she's achieved.
She's the queen because when Mary walks
into the room,
you know, you're in the presence of royalty.
Royalty that came from the streets of Yonkers, yo.
And rose up to the stratosphere.
And when you hear her voice, mm-mmm,
when you hear that voice, you know there's no one better.
That sound of that voice is unforgettable,
but it's where that voice comes from
that truly makes Mary the Queen.
She reaches deep inside and challenges herself
to find that strength of a woman
and demands that you do the same.
So, when she sings,
you know what it feels like to be seen,
to live in a world where all of our stories matter.
Mary and I work together
on I'll Be There for You/ You're All I Need to Get By.
[audience cheers]
Uh-huh. That was decades ago, but Mary already had the touch.
And believe me, I felt it.
Like she always does, she raised the track
to impossible heights and took me to places
I didn't realize I could go,
like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony.
[audience cheers]
That's just what she does, though.
When you talk about hip-hop soul,
that's one of its defining moments.
I know that Mary sang about "No More Drama,"
but, um, there is no singer more dramatic than she is.
[audience chuckles]
Please believe that.
She brings out the best in everyone around her.
It's a matter of survival.
You know you need to bring your A-game,
or she'll just blow you off the stage.
No matter what she's singing about,
she's ultimately singing about herself.
She hits you hard with her own personal power.
But then everyone talks about Mary's emotional force,
and no doubt that force is overwhelming.
But no one should ever overlook Mary's intelligence.
I'll say it again.
No one should ever overlook Mary's intelligence.
[audience cheering and applauding]
She is an artist of the very highest order.
She knows exactly what she's doing,
and she is always in command.
Mary knows how to cut loose and hit all the right notes,
and that's why, after all these years,
there are not enough superlatives left
to say about her. I mean,
she needs the whole floor to house all the awards
that she so deservedly got, trust me.
She deserves all the incredible recognition
that comes her way, especially this induction
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
[audience cheering and applauding]
[announce over mike] Let's give a big round of applause.
Mary Blige.
[♪ soft sentimental music playing]
♪ Congratulations ♪
I always knew that I could sing and I wanted to sing.
♪ I hope you're happy ♪
I didn't think that, you know, stuff like that could happen
to somebody like me.
[Mary vocalizing]
[Andre] The head of A&R at Uptown
was pestering me all day, knocking on my door.
♪ ...you remind me, yeah... ♪
"Just listen to this."
♪ You remind me ♪
"Who is this? She's 19 years old."
"Where she living?" "Yonkers."
I said, "I'm coming tomorrow."
♪ I don't remember How we fell apart ♪
It's all what I grew up on, so it's truth.
It's all a part of it being real.
♪ Reminisce on the love we had ♪
She just puts her whole truth into what she sings,
into every single note she sings.
♪ All I really want to... ♪
♪ I don't have to worry about nothin' anymore ♪
♪ I said I wanna be happy ♪
♪ I'm going down ♪
[Mary] You can't teach anybody the flavor.
That's what it's all about.
If you don't have it, you just don't have it.
And it turns out I had it.
♪ ...baby ♪
♪ My whole world's upside down... ♪
[Taraji] So raw, so vulnerable, so bold,
and unafraid to be who she is, she made it okay for people
to say "It's all right to be me."
♪ Wasted my years A fool of a wife ♪
♪ I should have left your ass long time ago ♪
♪ No more ♪
♪ No, no more ♪
♪ No more drama, no more... ♪
There's nothing that can embarrass me anymore.
You don't have to be sad. You don't have to hate yourself.
"You don't have to do this, Mary. Wake up."
♪ No more drama ♪
[♪ soulful music playing, Mary J. Blige "Family Affair"]
[Mary] Something just automatically happens to me,
like, with certain songs.
I can't even explain the place that I go to,
because it's not here.
♪ Making you dance all night and I ♪
♪ Got some real heat It doesn't matter ♪
[vocalizes]
[Alicia] Boy, I wanted to be Mary.
Boy, I mean, what girl didn't? [chuckles]
I started to feel good
about being a little rougher around the edges,
about having a strong point of view.
♪ ...anybody who's ever loved Ya know just what I feel ♪
♪ Too hard to fake it Nothing can replace it ♪
♪ Call the radio if you just can't be without your baby ♪
[audience singing]
I've worked with so many people. I've been blessed
to have these people wanna work with me.
I was a nobody guy with a nobody label,
and she came through for me.
Anything that Mary needs from me is done, like anything.
She pulled me to the side and she said,
you're going to be a star.
[H.E.R.] She celebrates other artists,
and she understands the journey
because she is so honest.
♪ ...love is a temple Love is a higher law ♪
♪ You ask for me to enter But then you make me crawl ♪
♪ I can't keep holding on to what you've got ♪
♪ 'Cause all you got is hurt ♪
She could exist in any genre and you would still love her
because she carries soul in everything that she does.
[Taylor] And it is absolutely foolish...
to try and sing a Mary J. Blige song
'cause she's the greatest singer who ever lived.
[♪ soft music playing, Mary J. Blige "Doubt"]
♪ I made it to the end I nearly paid the cost... ♪
[Mary] I was always blue and always sad,
but singing made me feel free.
That's what I had. That's what I held onto.
♪ I'd do it all again 'Cause I made it to the top ♪
♪ I can't keep doubting myself anymore... ♪
[H.E.R.] You sing one note and you can make everybody cry.
And that's Mary J. Blige.
You know, that's why she's the queen.
♪ I can't keep doubting myself, no... ♪
[Mary] And my heart is that little girl in Yonkers.
My heart is that teenager trying
to get through and making it through.
My heart is not being afraid to expose my truth
and my soul to touch someone else's life.
[vocalizes]
Thank you.
[audience cheering and applauding]
And now, the newest member
of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
We'd like to introduce
-Mary J. Blige. -Blige.
[audience cheering and applauding]
[♪ soft rhythmic music playing, Mary J. Blige "My Life"]
[vocalizes]
♪ La-dee-da-da-da ♪
♪ Da-da-la-la-la-la-la, la-la ♪
♪ Oh Da-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la ♪
♪ La-da-da-da-da ♪
[vocalizes]
♪ My life, my life My life, my life ♪
-♪ Oh ♪ -♪ In the sunshine ♪
♪ If you looked at my life and see what I've seen ♪
♪ La-da-da-da-da-da ♪
♪ If you looked at my life and see what I've seen ♪
♪ My life, my life My life, my life ♪
♪ In the sunshine ♪
♪ Life can be only what you make it ♪
♪ When you're feeling down You should never fake it ♪
♪ Say what's on your mind ♪
♪ And you'll find it's time ♪
♪ That all the negative energy ♪
♪ It will all decease ♪ [vocalizes]
♪ And you'll be at peace with yourself ♪
♪ Mmm, mmm, mmm ♪
♪ You won't really need no one else ♪
[vocalizes]
♪ Except for the man up above ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Because he'll give you love ♪
[vocalizes]
[Mary] Lucky Daye.
♪ My life, my life My life, my life ♪
[kisses]
♪ If you look in my eyes And see what I've seen ♪
[vocalizes]
[audience cheering and applauding]
♪ Move it ♪
[♪ upbeat music playing, Mary J. Blige "Love No Limit"]
♪ Hey, hey ♪
♪ Baby There's no need to tell you ♪
♪ As far as I can clearly recall My love has been here for you ♪
♪ So you don't have to worry at all ♪
♪ I'll sacrifice my time ♪
♪ I'll make sure you're satisfied ♪
♪ And it's no hard thing to the joy I'll bring ♪
♪ I wanna give you all of my love, yeah ♪
♪ Said I have been loving you Loving you every day ♪
♪ I'm loving you ♪
♪ Don't you look no more Love without a limit ♪
-♪ Love without a limit ♪ -♪ Said I have been loving you ♪
♪ Loving you every day ♪
♪ I have been loving you, boy ♪
-♪ Don't you look no more ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
-♪ Love without a limit ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
Come on, Ella.
♪ Baby I'm in need of your love ♪
♪ And you've got that touch that I need so much ♪
-♪ And I am about to explode ♪ -♪ Explode ♪
♪ Really, completely everything you want I'll be ♪
-♪ Good love ♪ -♪ Good love ♪
-♪ Down to the last drop ♪ -♪ Down to the last drop ♪
-♪ And I am not going to stop ♪ -♪ And I am not going to stop ♪
-♪ No, no, no, no ♪ -♪ No, no, no, no ♪
-♪ Everyday ♪ -♪ Everyday ♪
♪ Don't you look no more Love without a limit ♪
Come on, everybody. Put your hands together.
-♪ Loving you ♪ -♪ Loving you every day ♪
-♪ Is all I wanna do ♪ -♪ Is all I wanna do ♪
-♪ Loving you ♪ -♪ Loving you ♪
-♪ Is all I wanna do ♪ -♪ Is all I wanna do ♪
Thank you.
[♪ soft music playing, Mary J. Blige "Be Happy"]
♪ How can I love somebody else ♪
♪ If I can't love myself enough to know ♪
♪ When it's time ♪
♪ Time to let go ♪
-♪ Sing ♪ -♪ All I really want ♪
-♪ Yeah, oh, yeah ♪ -♪ Is to be happy ♪
♪ And to find a love that's mine ♪
-♪ It would be so sweet ♪ -♪ Hey ♪
-♪ All I really want ♪ -♪ Oh ♪
♪ Is to be happy ♪
♪ I wanna be happy, yeah ♪
-♪ It would be so sweet ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
♪ I just wanna be so, so happy ♪
♪ But the answer lies in me ♪
♪ I do believe ♪
♪ That we can be happy ♪
♪ I said I wanna be happy ♪
[♪ soul music playing, Mary J. Blige "Family Affair"]
♪ Come on everybody get on up ♪
♪ 'Cause you know we gots to get it crunk ♪
♪ Mary J. is in the spot tonight ♪
♪ And I'ma make you feel all right ♪
♪ Make you feel all right ♪
♪ Come on baby just party with me ♪
♪ Let loose and set your body free ♪
♪ Leave your situations at the door ♪
♪ But when you step inside Let's get it crunk ♪
-♪ Let's get it crunk upon ♪ -♪ Let's get it crunk upon ♪
♪ In this dancery ♪
-♪ We got y'all open ♪ -♪ Oh ♪
♪ Now ya floatin' ♪
-♪ So you gots to dance for me ♪ -♪ You gots to dance for me ♪
♪ Don't need no hateration ♪
-♪ Holleration in this dancery ♪ -♪ Holler, holler, holler ♪
♪ Let's get it perculatin' While you're waiting ♪
-♪ So just dance for... ♪ -♪ So just dance for me... ♪
♪ Don't, don't need no ♪
♪ Just tryin' to love one another ♪
♪ We just want y'all to have a good time ♪
♪ "No more drama" in your life ♪
♪ Work real hard to make a dime ♪
♪ If you got beef Your problem, not mine ♪
-♪ Leave all that BS outside ♪ -♪ Leave all that BS outside ♪
-♪ We're gonna... ♪ -♪ We're gonna celebrate ♪
-♪ All night ♪ -♪ Let's have fun ♪
♪ Tonight, no fights ♪
♪ Turn that Dre track way up high ♪
♪ Making you dance all night and I ♪
♪ Got some real heat ♪
♪ It doesn't matter ♪ [vocalizes]
-♪ Let's get it crunk upon ♪ -♪ Let's get it crunk upon ♪
-♪ In this dancery ♪ -♪ In this dancery ♪
-♪ ...now ya floatin' ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
-♪ So you gots to dance for me ♪ -♪ You gotta dance for me ♪
-♪ Just dance for me ♪ -♪ ...holleration ♪
-♪ In this dancery ♪ -♪ Come on, so, so ♪
-♪ Let's get it perculatin' ♪ -♪ So, so, so ♪
♪ While you're waiting ♪
-♪ So just dance for me ♪ -♪ So just dance for me ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[cheering and applauding]
[Mary chuckles]
-Killed that shit. -Thank you, I love you.
-Killed that shit. [kisses] -Oh, my God.
-It's all love. You know. -[exclaims] Killed that shit!
-[chuckles] Wow. -Broadway.
-Let's go! -Whoo!
[audience cheers]
Oh, man.
Thank you so much.
I can't...
[hesitates]
Thank y'all so much.
Man, um. Wow, I...
This is... this is a lot.
This is a lot.
And like I said yesterday,
to all the people who know who I am
and where I come from.
Man, it's been a long time comin'.
And there was times in my life I didn't think I would be here,
but we here.
I'm here.
-And I'm grateful. -[audience applauding]
I want to thank, um...
John Sykes, Rick Fram for the nomination.
Of all of you that voted, thank you so much.
I appreciate you.
Um. [chuckles softly]
I have to start first and foremost by...
by... giving praise.
And thanks and honor, and all the glory
to the Most High God.
[audience applauds]
To my Lord.
To my savior, Jesus Christ.
[audience cheers]
Because if it wasn't for him,
I'm telling you, there'd be none of this.
And like I said, "If you're a fan
of Mary J. Blige, you know that I needed God."
I needed something other than man.
[audience chuckles]
That... [chuckles] ...you see how that,
that didn't work, right?
[chuckles]
Um. I wanna thank my mother.
Mommy, I love you so much.
I watched you struggle
as a single mother raising your two babies
in a project that was--
I mean, could have damn near been a prison.
And you did it for us.
You did it.
And you instilled that into us to work hard
and take care of ourselves.
I wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for you.
I love you so much.
You pushed me beyond what I thought I was capable of,
just with your strength.
I want to thank... my family in New York,
my family in Georgia,
my family all over the place.
I mean, I have family everywhere.
And I wanna thank my amazing friends.
I have some amazing friends that hold me down, lift me up.
And I'ma see y'all back up top... [chuckles]
...next week, and we're gonna keep celebrating.
Thank you to the beautiful and talented Ella Mai,
a real one, a beautiful one.
And to the soulful and talented, Lucky Daye,
I love you guys and appreciate you so much.
You're both beautiful people and amazing artists.
And I'm so proud of what you're doing in R&B,
the future of R&B. Y'all are killing the game.
I want to give a special thanks to two of my lifelong friends,
who really embody what it means to be a friend and brother.
Y'all have always been there for me,
from music to television, Method Man and Dr. Dre.
Man, I love y'all.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I love y'all and appreciate you so much.
These guys are here with me today,
and they're my friends, and I call them my friends,
because I won my first--
I was on the Share My World album
or something like that,
and I haven't had a Grammy at all.
Been nominated, but nobody gave me one.
I was like, "All right, whatever."
But then I did All I Need with Method Man.
And I won my first Grammy ever with Method Man.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And then one day, I was just home
minding my business, working hard,
grinding like I always do.
And my amazing friends, Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine,
called me and said, "Hey, Mary,
do you wanna be a part of this little show?"
I was like, "Yeah, whatever, little show, anything for Dre."
And it was the Super Bowl.
I said, "Oh, the Super Bowl!"
-"Oh, yeah." -[Dr. Dre chuckles]
And I won my first Emmy ever with Dr. Dre,
and a Super Bowl performance.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I'm so grateful.
That's what friendship is about, winning together.
Thank you, guys, for being here with me tonight.
[chuckles] Thank you.
Now, if you're in this business,
you're talented, or whatever talent you have,
talent requires a team to be terrific and awesome.
Exchange is the process of life.
And when you stop exchanging, you become stagnant.
I wanna give a big, special thank you
to my team that helps me be terrific
in all my endeavors.
I love you guys, and thank you for helping me.
Lou. Peggy. Sherry.
Robin.
I love-- [sighs] I'm about to--
I love y'all so much. When I came to you guys,
I was fresh out of divorce and had no money.
But we did this damn thing. [chuckles]
And I love y'all.
TriStar team, let's go.
I wanna thank Jim, Kyle, Lila from APA, and Keith,
Amanda Silverman.
And Amanda D.R. from The Lead Company,
Dina and Mariah, Dina D.,
at the Lapointe firm, law firm.
-My sister, Latonya. -[Method Man cheers]
And the Blue Butterfly team, my production company,
my little brother.
I wanna thank my security team
who protects and hold me down in them streets.
And I wanna thank Lam
for just making me feel so beautiful tonight.
-[clears throat] -[cheering and applauding]
To my fans, to my fans,
to my fans, to my fans.
[audience cheers]
To my fans. [breathes deeply]
[audience cheering loudly]
To my fans, y'all endured blood, sweat, and tears with me
and helped me heal...
just as much as you said I helped you heal.
None of this would be possible,
none of this would be happening if it wasn't
for you guys supporting us and cheering us,
cheering us on and for your die-hard love
and... and loyalty.
None of this would be happening.
I wouldn't be here if you didn't cheer for me,
if you didn't buy those records.
[audience cheering and applauding]
There aren't any words that can express...
all that you've done for me and how appreciative I am.
It is imperative that I say this now...
to all the artists who are my peers
and the artists just coming up.
The miracle is in the movement.
Faith without works is dead.
Keep believing and keep moving,
so that God can get the highest glory
through your testimony, so that you can help somebody.
It's not enough to just be beautiful
and talented.
[hesitates, chuckles] Thank you.
But it's not enough. It's not enough.
Sustaining comes from having humility...
and the way you treat yourself and others.
Life is full of peaks and valleys.
So, be careful how you treat others
because you never know who you're gonna need
on your way up or on your way down.
[audience cheering and applauding]
So I say this, move with grace.
Trust the process of your journey.
Share your wisdom and love
and respect with all who crosses your path.
Offer forgiveness because we all are worse in progress.
You don't have to wait until you're perfect
to feel worthy. You are worthy.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -You are worthy.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And when I tell you this, When I was at my worst,
I didn't know this, but God approved of me
at my worst, and He still approves in me,
and He approves in us all.
So just continue to do whatever work you're doing.
This is history for me and my family and my friends,
and tonight I share this induction
with every one of you guys.
[audience cheering, applauding]
If I stopped it all today, I'd like to be remembered
as someone who wasn't afraid to give her life
through her music to help heal,
uplift, and touch the lives of others.
I'm beyond grateful for wisdom, knowledge, understanding,
and self-awareness, compassion, patience.
Well, the patience one I'm still working on.
I don't have much patience. [laughs]
But I'm getting there. I'm beyond grateful.
Beyond grateful for everything. I love you guys.
I am grateful
that I'm loved and I'm capable
now to give love.
When I said I wanted to be happy,
I really meant that.
And I'm not talking about just the happiness
where you're delusional and think everything is okay.
I'm talking about the happiness where you know
there will be trials, but you're just gonna smile anyway
because you believe you'll get through it.
-That kind of happiness. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Almost done. I'm building for expansion.
I'm building for longevity.
I'm building for legacy. And I'm building for history.
This whole time, I was building to be a rock star, and now I am.
The queen of hip-hop soul is a rock star.
Thank you, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
-For this. [chuckles] -[audience cheering, applauding]
I love you guys.
[♪ Kris Kristofferson "Help Me Make It Through the Night"]
[Kris] The road has been something
I've loved all my life.
I was probably born to be on it.
I feel very blessed to strike a chord with the work that I do.
♪ Come and lay down by my side ♪
[Kris] The albums that I've cut represent
what I've been going through.
They're sort of little chapters in the book of my life.
♪ All I'm taking is your time ♪
♪ Help me make it through the night ♪
I hope that I'll just be creative.
Try dying.
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ soul music playing, Four Tops "Reach Out I'll Be There"]
♪ I'll be there with a love that will shelter you ♪
♪ I'll be there with a love that will see you through ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ dramatic music playing, Eric Carmen "All by Myself"]
♪ All by myself ♪
♪ Don't wanna be ♪
♪ All by myself anymore ♪
♪ All by myself ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ emotional music playing, Toby Keith "Don't Let the Old Man In"]
♪ I wanna live this alone ♪
♪ Can't leave it up to him ♪
♪ He's knocking on my door ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ soft music playing, Eagles "New Kid in Town"]
♪ Johnny come lately ♪
♪ A new kid in town ♪
♪ Everybody loves you ♪
♪ So don't let them down ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ upbeat music playing, Stealers Wheel "Stuck in the Middle With You"]
♪ Well, I don't know why I came here tonight ♪
♪ I got the feeling that something ain't right ♪
♪ I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair ♪
♪ And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs ♪
♪ Clowns to the left of me Jokers to the right ♪
♪ Here I am Stuck in the middle with you ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ upbeat music playing, Kool & the Gang "Let the Music Take Your Mind"]
♪ Yeah, that's the way ♪
♪ Whoo! Come on, Kool ♪
♪ Uh, funky baby ♪
♪ Lay it on me now Not so hard, man, we cool ♪
♪ Let the music take your mind ♪
♪ Take your mind? Wanna feel it deep inside ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ rock music playing, Duane Eddy, "Rebel Rouser"]
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ soul music playing, The Spinners, "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love"]
♪ Could it be I'm falling in love ♪
♪ Whoo! ♪
♪ Could it be I'm falling in love ♪
♪ With you ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ upbeat music playing, The Shangri-Las "Walking in the Sand"]
♪ Walking in the sand, remember Walking hand in hand ♪
♪ Remember The night was so exciting ♪
♪ Remember Smile was so inviting ♪
♪ Remember ♪
♪ Softly, softly We'd meet with our lips ♪
♪ Whatever happened to the boy that I once knew? ♪
♪ The boy who said he'd be true ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ rock music playing, Pixies, "Where Is My Mind"]
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ soft-rock music playing, The Allman Brothers Band "Blue Sky"]
♪ You're my blue sky You're my sunny day ♪
♪ Lord, you know you make me high ♪
♪ When you turn your love my way ♪
♪ Turn your love My way, yeah, yeah ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[audience applauds]
[announcer] To induct Ozzy Osbourne
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Jack Black.
-[♪ rock music playing] -[audience cheering, applauding]
What's up, Cleveland? Make some noise!
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[♪ music concludes]
Plumber.
Car horn tuner.
Slaughterhouse worker.
The greatest frontman in the history of rock and roll,
-Ozzy Osbourne. -[audience cheering, applauding]
I remember the first time I heard of Ozzy,
I was thirteen years old, wandering around
the record store.
"What should I get?"
-Sticks? Journey? -[audience laughing]
An older rock aficionado noticed my indecision and he said,
"Stop fucking around, kid.
"This is the album you need to get,
-"The Blizzard of Ozz." -[audience cheering, applauding]
Man, was he right.
Thank you, nameless rock aficionado,
wherever you are, you changed my life.
I remember looking at that...
that album cover,
at Ozzy's face.
Before I even heard the music, I was transfixed.
He looked so cool.
That rad white suit with the white fringe
on the sleeves,
that crazy look in his eyes,
the skull, the cross.
-Holy shit! -[audience cheering, applauding]
The whole thing just looked so badass.
It was the most metal thing I'd ever seen,
and I didn't even know what metal was.
-[audience laughing] -He was teaching me.
I didn't realize I was entering a whole new world
of heavy metal music.
I took that record home.
And when the needle hit the vinyl,
-heaven opened up above me. -[audience laughing]
-I don't know! -[audience cheering, applauding]
Then track two, Crazy Train.
[audience cheering]
There was an explosion of colors in my brain.
Suicide Solution.
Mr. Crowley, Revelation, even Goodbye to Romance.
You best believe Ozzy could take it down a notch.
He could do it all.
Blizzard of Ozz was the best thing
I'd ever heard. A heavy metal masterpiece.
That fucking sound was raw power.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Randy fucking Rhodes.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -Yeah.
Giving Eddie Van Halen a run for his money.
And Ozzy, that voice, it could cut through glass,
magic, joy, beauty.
So then I went back into Ozzy's earlier albums,
to Black Sabbath,
and I was like, "Unholy shit,
"this motherfucker invented heavy metal."
[audience cheering, applauding]
Along with-- Yeah, Along with Geezer Butler,
Bill Ward, and the immortal Tony Iommi,
the darkest, heaviest shit the world had ever heard.
And through all that power,
Ozzy's voice carving
through the sonic blast furnace like an air raid siren.
He made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention,
clear and crisp as a morning bell.
And that smile, he looked so happy,
he looked insane.
So much charisma, the Jack Nicholson of rock.
Okay, so he invented a genre,
had the greatest second act comeback in rock history.
Then what?
How about No More Tears in 1991 with the guitar god,
Zakk Wylde, proving insane lasting power,
five times platinum.
You heard me right, quintuple plat.
[audience cheering, applauding]
It was then that he decided to totally touch
his tender side.
So he called up Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead, naturally.
And together with Zack, they wrote,
-Mama, I’m Coming Home. -[audience cheering, applauding]
And thus, Ozzy took a little dip
into the top 40 just to prove he could.
Then what?
The Osbournes.
Yeah, he teamed up with his family
to create another genre, reality TV.
Maybe the most evil thing he ever did.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -But there is no denying it.
His whole family were fucking hilarious
and intensely entertaining.
Another fucking massive hit.
-Then what? -[audience cheering, applauding]
Oh, maybe just a little thing called Ozzfest.
Only the most successful heavy metal music festival
of all times.
Ozzy, stop creating incredibly successful genre-defining,
world-changing hits.
It's too much success for one lifetime.
And you know a lot has been made of his evil alliance
with the Dark Lord Satan, but in truth,
Ozzy is a loving father and husband and friend,
loyal to his family and friends to the end
of the world and back.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Jack] And now I stand here.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[Jack] Yeah.
Just another nameless, rock aficionado.
And I'm talking to you, thirteen-year-olds watching
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
All five of you,
put down your phones.
Unless you're watching on a phone,
then put it closer to your face.
Old man rock aficionado's about to drop some truth.
Sure.
You could go stream Post Malone
and Taylor Swift and get all the warm hugs
you need for your broken hearts.
Or...
You can stay up all night and get your minds blown
by Ozzy's entire catalog for the first time.
Holy shit! You kids are so fucking lucky.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Ozzy Osbourne,
the fucking Prince of Darkness.
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne "Straight to Hell"]
♪ Straight to hell tonight ♪
I don't know what music would be like if it weren't
for the influence of Ozzy.
It's everywhere.
He left one of the biggest rock bands
in the world and became bigger.
The day I left Sabbath, I thought, what have I done?
I've just blown the biggest thing of my life.
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne "Crazy Train"]
Everybody was wondering, what is Ozzy gonna do?
He's not in Sabbath anymore.
And he comes out with his first two records
and they're fucking amazing.
Crazy Train really is an absolute launching pad.
It's like Ozzy the Rocket taking off into space.
[Kirk] Me and my friends were blown away,
going, you guys have to hear this.
♪ I'm going off the rails on a crazy train ♪
[Rob] And within all of that, you had this guitar player
by the name of Randy Rhoads.
[Zakk] You heard all this new stuff that Ozzy was doing,
and it was just like a new era has arrived.
♪ Mr. Crowley ♪
[♪ music concludes]
I saw seventeen thousand kids that raised their hands
like this, which is the sign of the devil, as you know,
and they said "Ozzy."
[audience chants] Ozzy! Ozzy! Ozzy!
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne "Bark at the Moon"]
♪ Howling at the shadows ♪
♪ Living in a lunar spell ♪
[Ozzy] I'm a split personality.
Ozzy Osbourne and John Osbourne is two different people.
John Osbourne is talking to you now.
But if I want to be Ozzy Osbourne...
[♪ music concludes]
[interviewer] I mean, do you like animals?
Yes, they're nice to eat.
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne "Over the Mountain"]
[anchor] Osbourne has a reputation,
real or not, for biting the heads off bats.
♪ Over the mountain Take me across the sky ♪
[♪ music concludes]
I mean, I suppose in the spirit of rock and roll, I don't know.
[laughs]
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne
"I Don’t Want to Change the World"]
Yeah, I mean, Ozzy is completely nuts,
and that's very good for a frontman.
You know, he just puts it out there
and doesn't give a shit.
[audience cheering]
He's like a loose cannon.
There's that kind of danger,
because rock and roll should be dangerous.
♪ I don't want to change the world ♪
[♪ music concludes]
I think Ozzy's music is timeless.
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne
"Mama, I’m Coming Home"]
It gives me the chills. It's just perfect.
♪ You could have been a better friend to me ♪
♪ Mama, I'm coming home ♪
Ozzy Osbourne's got a voice that is so distinctive.
It doesn't matter what he's singing over,
you know it's him.
Ozzy is more fountain pen than William Shakespeare.
[laughs] He's totally unique.
♪ I'm coming home ♪
[♪ music concludes]
You play Ozzy's voice anywhere in the world
and people go, "That's the Prince of Darkness."
And you can't tell Ozzy's story without his longtime guitarist,
Zakk Wylde.
The dude is a beast.
[host] Welcome to OzzFest!
OzzFest became a staple in the hard rock community.
I think it was hugely responsible
for keeping the genre alive.
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne "No More Tears"]
♪ The light in the window is a crack in the sky ♪
[Ozzy] My audience is better than any drugs, alcohol.
She's the best love affair of my life, my audience.
♪ A stairway to darkness in the blink of an eye ♪
[Rick] I think that the audience has a sense of,
"That could be me."
The idea of being free like Ozzy is very exciting.
[♪ music concludes]
Ozzy's the godfather of metal.
His legacy is so widespread.
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne
"Patient Number 9"]
♪ 'Cause I'm patient number nine ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[Jonathan] He always has a new song, a new album,
and new musical ideas.
His voice is his legacy.
[Ozzy] After it's all said and done,
I wouldn't change a fucking thing.
[audience cheering, applauding]
It is my great honor to officially induct
the greatest to ever lace 'em up
in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the one, the only Ozzy Osbourne!
-Thank you. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Fucking love you guys.
Well, here we are. [laughs]
You know what?
I can't believe I'm here myself, you know what I mean?
Firstly, let me get the thank yous out of the way,
because I'm not going to bore you with a long,
drawn-out fucking monologue.
[audience laughing]
I'd like to thank whoever voted me
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for my solo work.
A great thank you.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, I really...
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
-And more so... -[audience cheering, applauding]
...my fans have been so loyal to me over the years.
I cannot thank them enough.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I've been fortunate over the years to play
with some of the world's greatest guitar players,
drummers, bass players,
and a few of them are here tonight.
But I want to spend one thing for a guy by the name
-of Randy Rhoads. -[audience cheering, applauding]
If I hadn't met Randy Rhoads,
I don't think I'd be sitting here now.
And more so, more than that, my wife Sharon saved my life.
And my grandbabies, and I love them all.
So, with all that, I'm gonna get on with the show
and hand it back to Jack.
Thank you, Ozzy.
Thank you for existing, you legend.
We love you. Let's hear it for Ozzy.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Jack] Yeah.
And now...
to pay tribute to Ozzy,
Chad Smith, Robert Trujillo, Adam Wakeman, Andrew Watt,
Billy Idol, Steve Stevens,
Zakk Wylde, Jelly Roll, and to start it off,
Maynard James Keenan and Wolfgang Van Halen!
[audience cheering, applauding]
All aboard!
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne "Crazy Train"]
♪ Crazy But that's how it goes ♪
♪ Millions of people living as foes ♪
♪ Maybe it's not too late ♪
♪ To learn how to love and forget how to hate ♪
♪ Mental wounds not healing Life's a bitter shame ♪
♪ I'm going off the rails on a crazy train ♪
♪ I know that things are going wrong for me ♪
♪ You gotta listen to my words ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne
"Mama, I’m Coming Home"]
♪ Times have changed and times are strange ♪
♪ Here I come but I ain't the same ♪
♪ Mama, I'm coming home ♪
♪ Times go by, it seems to be ♪
♪ You could have been a better friend to me ♪
♪ Mama, I'm coming home ♪
♪ You took me in, yeah you drove me out, yeah ♪
♪ You had me hypnotized ♪
♪ Lost and found and turned around ♪
♪ By the fire in your eyes ♪
♪ You made me cry You told me lies ♪
♪ But I can't stand to say goodbye ♪
♪ Mama, I'm coming home ♪
♪ I could be right I could be wrong ♪
♪ It hurts so bad It's been so long ♪
♪ Mama, I'm coming home ♪
♪ Selfish love, yeah We're both alone ♪
♪ The right before the fall ♪
♪ But I'm gonna take this heart of stone ♪
♪ I just got to have it all ♪
♪ I've seen your face a hundred times ♪
♪ Every day we've been apart ♪
♪ I don't care about the sunshine, yeah ♪
♪ 'Cause Mama Mama, I'm coming home ♪
♪ I'm coming home ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ rock music playing, Ozzy Osbourne "No More Tears"]
♪ Ow! ♪
♪ The light in the window is a crack in the sky ♪
♪ A stairway to darkness in the blink of an eye ♪
♪ A levee of tears to learn she'll never be coming back ♪
♪ The man in the dark will bring another attack ♪
♪ Oh yeah ♪
♪ I never wanted it to end this way ♪
♪ My love, my darling ♪
♪ Believe me when I say to you in love ♪
♪ I think I'm falling here ♪
♪ No more tears ♪
♪ No, no more tears ♪
♪ Yeah, no more tears ♪
♪ No, no more tears ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[audience cheering, applauding]
Now, before we run out of time, I think it's about time
we learned to do the Crocodile Walk
with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers.
[♪ upbeat music playing, John Mayall "Crocodile Walk"]
♪ See that crocodile walk Hey, and he lookin' my way ♪
♪ And he got no place to stay ♪
I think that's his new guitar player.
♪ A heavy meal he's got to eat ♪
♪ He got a long way to go walk He's lookin' for a home ♪
[♪ music concludes]
I think the important thing about John is that he loved
-the role of being a sponsor. -[interviewer] Yeah.
So he could bring people into the band
and help them to bloom.
[Mick] John Mayall deserves a lot of credit.
A whole bunch of us came out of that band,
but we're worth something.
[♪ rock music playing, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers "All Your Love"]
[♪ music concludes]
[John] Up to the age of 30, I was a graphic designer.
I was trained at art school.
I mean, I'd always played music,
but, you know, when I was 30, I switched over.
[Mike] Most of the other bands were copying
American Black R&B and Blues products.
To me, John was new and original,
but within the Blues framework.
[♪ blues music playing, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers "Another Man"]
♪ Another man done gone Another man done gone ♪
-♪ Another man done gone ♪ -[♪ music concludes]
[Eric] There'll be no album, yes?
This apparently is supposed to be
the album, you know?
[♪ bluesy rock music playing, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers "Have You Heard"]
[♪ music concludes]
[Eric] A lot of the energy that I had managed
to formulate with John stayed there,
you know, and Peter Green actually moved in
and got hold of that.
John usually chooses the people he wants,
chooses very carefully, you know.
He knows what he wants, he usually gets it.
He keeps what he gets.
He's very, what I call, electric.
You know, he's very... He's definitely unique.
[John] For any musician who's ever worked with me,
they always consider one of my tours
a little bit crazy in the sense that it's like a holiday.
It's like a paid holiday.
You know, you just get up there and you play, and...
I hate to use the word jamming
because jamming is without discipline.
You make mistakes and you bounce off each other,
waiting to get paid and all that.
It's all these things.
[♪ rock music playing, The Four Lads
"Standing On the Corner"]
♪ I'm standing on the corner watching every kind of car ♪
♪ Friendly people come and say they want to know your star ♪
♪ I'm walking on Sunset everything is like a friend ♪
[John] I'd put an advert in the Melody Maker,
and Mick Taylor answered that advert.
[Mick] Playing the sort of music that John plays,
um, it gives you a lot of opportunity
to develop your own ideas.
It gives you a lot of freedom, you know,
within the Blues framework.
[Eric] God bless him. He was the focal point of it
and the custodian of it.
♪ The laws must change one day ♪
♪ But it's goin' to take some time ♪
I'm very proud of all the associations I've had,
and I think it's been a great ride.
[Chris] We're not getting very far without his vision,
influence, and talent. He's a cornerstone
of not just British blues rock and roll,
but of rock and roll in general.
[John grunts]
[audience applauding]
[♪ rock music playing, Roy Orbison "Oh, Pretty Woman"]
[announcer] To induct the Dave Matthews Band
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Julia Roberts.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Hello, hello, hello.
-[audience cheering] -[♪ music concludes]
All right, well, the good news is,
we are halfway through.
[audience cheering, applauding]
When I was asked to come here tonight
to perform the heart-racing task
of inducting the Dave Matthews Band
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame...
[audience cheering, applauding]
...I asked one,
what felt obvious and critical, question.
Is there anything that I should not do or say?
Right? Music people can be funny about things,
and I just didn't want to do anything wrong
right off the bat.
A few days later, I got a message
with the answer, and it said,
"When it comes to talking about the band,
"don't play favorites."
[audience laughing]
I thought, "Don't play favorites?"
I've got three kids. I'm in show business.
Favorites? I don't play favorites.
-[fake coughs] Carter. -[audience cheering, applauding]
[Julia clears throat] I wouldn't do that. Carter.
-So, here we are. -[audience cheering, applauding]
[Julia] Carter, I said it.
Spit out my cough drop when I said it, but I said it.
[audience laughing]
So, here we are on this magical night,
and I am deeply honored to be part
of heralding these men.
-Dave Matthews. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-LeRoi Moore. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-Carter Beauford. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-Stefan Lessard. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-And Boyd Tinsley. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Holding up for all time the Dave Matthews Band.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I will speak just briefly here about the beginning.
1991, Virginia,
these young men were all just kicking around
with their individual musical dreams.
Some guy knows Dave, who's a bartender,
and he introduces him to Carter,
who I think knew LeRoi.
Then came Stefan, and last but never least,
Boyd enters the picture.
Now, this is only worth mentioning
because it's just so simple, so gentle, so unelectrifying.
But then they somehow became a band,
one that is commonly referred to as phenomenal, stupendous,
-magnificent... -[audience cheering, applauding]
...and for me, personally, life-affirming.
It's no wonder that they have arrived here
at the Hall of Fame.
The musical talent, the originality,
the sheer quantity of genres they perform,
it's mind-blowing.
And I've been lucky enough to attend
many a Dave Matthews Band concert,
and I don't think I've ever heard
any of their songs played the same way twice.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[Julia chuckles] Right?
The songs, the stories of love and loss, of humanity
and deep connections and resonating responsibilities,
it's all there and more.
The joyous, spontaneous abandon with which they play
is part of how they have become one of the most enduring
and beloved bands of the last 30-plus years.
[audience cheering, applauding]
The first time I ever danced with my husband
was almost 25 years ago to a Dave Matthews Band song.
-[audience cheering, applauding] -[Julia chuckles]
And that was a winning combination,
as I have been swooning over my husband
-and this band ever since. -[audience cheering]
You can clap for that, swooning. You can clap for swooning.
Fans of the Dave Matthews Band, we're not just fans.
We are lifelong fans, avid, ardent fans, devoted fans.
Walk heaven and earth to be their fans. [chuckles]
[audience cheering, applauding]
[chuckles] This is intense. You people are wild.
Let's go.
All right, now simmer down for a minute,
'cause now, I'm going to tell a little story.
Being a friend and a die-hard fan
over these many years, I have...
Well, I was enchanted to learn a few things
when I was doing a little homework for tonight.
I thought I would, you know, ask some questions,
find out a little bit more about the members of the band.
I found out some interesting things.
Stefan Lessard, for example, left high school his junior year
and apparently has a number of aliases.
-[audience laughing] -I didn't see that coming.
Then there's Carter.
Carter, Carter, Carter. Everybody loves Carter.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Carter is a fellow Scorpio. Happy almost birthday.
Now, one thing the internet seems to go
on and on about, but never answers
is the question
of whether or not Carter is left-handed.
There are pages devoted to this pondering.
There is analysis. It's so funny.
I am left-handed
and I will tell anybody who asks me.
-But Carter, it's a mystery. -[audience laughing]
And finally, there is David Matthews.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Don't Google him.
-[audience laughing] -Don't, really.
I did it, and I was immediately filled with regret.
The first story that comes up about Dave Matthews
is how he suffered a stroke, and I was stunned.
I called my best friend, Paige,
who's here tonight, also a die-hard fan, and I said,
"Oh, sweet mother of God, Dave Matthews had a stroke.
"Did you know this? I didn't know this."
And as I'm going on and on, she, of course, wisely,
has Googled it and tells me that, in fact...
if I had read on, I would have seen
that it was a man named Dave Matthews
in New Zealand in his sixties.
He might be musical, we'll never know.
He had suffered a stroke,
but was making a beautiful recovery.
I was very relieved and Googled on
to discover, "Oh, friends with Adam Sandler. Hmm."
-[audience cheering] -Didn't know that.
There was no mention of-- Well, anyway,
he and Ashley have a winery, cool label,
good price point, didn't know.
And then it reads, "When did Dave Matthews come out?"
[audience laughing]
But that refers to when the band first came out as,
you know, a band.
So, these are the things that happen
when you name the band after yourself.
[audience laughing]
I'm also going to take a moment just to add one big, robust,
congratulatory inclusion to four more incredible gents.
Tim Reynolds.
[audience cheering, applauding]
-Jeff Coffin. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-Rashawn Ross. -[audience cheering, applauding]
-And Buddy Strong. -[audience cheering, applauding]
Who, over the years, have brought
their outrageous talents
to the Dave Matthews Band family,
and we are ever so grateful for it.
And finally, I just want to personally give thanks
and praise to a woman who I see as the central pillar,
the tent pole holding up this wild circus tent,
the exceptional Ashley Harper Matthews.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Now, I give you the music and the story
of the band that changed my life.
[♪ upbeat music playing, Dave Matthews Band "Two Step"]
Dave's talent, it's undeniable. It's in the songs,
it's in his voice, it's in his body,
and his band members believe that.
♪ Let's celebrate Celebrate we will ♪
♪ 'Cause life is short But sweet for certain ♪
The Dave Matthews Band is a freight train.
It is a symphony in and of itself.
You separate any of it, it won't make sense.
You put it all together, and it is mind-blowing.
-♪ Hey ♪ -[♪ music concludes]
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ folk-rock music playing, Dave Mathews Band "What Would You Say"]
♪ What would you say Don't drop the big one ♪
[Dave] I worked in a bar in Virginia.
It was a club that had jazz, and so a lot of the guys
in the band used to play there.
♪ Don't bite the mailman What would you say ♪
[Dave] What attracted me to all these guys wasn't so much
the instruments that they played,
but what came through their instruments.
♪ Who's it for There's nobody in here ♪
[Dave] When we first started out we played anywhere,
we played fraternities as often as we could.
Fraternities were packed, I mean,
and the same fraternity kids came to the club.
[Darius] That music was just college,
it was just a great moment
because grunge was so big at the time
and they were definitely not grunge,
but they were so alternative,
the college crowds just loved it.
♪ We were above you were Standing underneath us ♪
[Dave] The first three years we were together,
the band didn't even exist outside of touring.
We hadn't had an album,
we hadn't been approached by record companies.
It was entirely about being on the road.
♪ I was soon to be crazy ♪
[Dave] The audiences grew more and more
because kids would start taping
and then sending tapes around the country.
The word spread so fast.
It was Dave's voice, it was Dave's guitar,
and he was surrounded by these monster musicians
who were pretty quickly playing stadiums.
♪ 'Cause we're Tripping Billies ♪
[audience cheering]
[♪ rock music playing, Dave Matthews Band "Satellite"]
♪ Satellite in my eyes ♪
♪ Like a diamond in the sky ♪
Satellite is one of the most beautiful songs
written by a man I've ever heard.
I can tell these aren't lyrics that he thinks into being,
these are lyrics that course through him.
♪ Oh, when you come ♪
♪ Crash into me ♪
The way I write lyrics is just, you know, my lyrics
make me go... [groans]
...and when they stop, making me go...
[groans] ...then I keep them.
♪ The space between The tears we cry ♪
♪ Is the laughter Keeps us coming back for more ♪
Dave's poetry isn't fortune cookie poetry.
He's not a one-liner guy.
We do live in a catchphrase time,
and Dave's songwriting,
it serves that whole four and a half minutes.
♪ What's this you say You feel the right to remain ♪
♪ Then stay And I will bury you ♪
[Dave] The nice thing about a lot of the songs
is the live thing, is still evolving,
and every night it's gonna be different.
[♪ vocalizes]
[♪ folk-rock music playing, Dave Matthews Band "So Much To Say"]
♪ 'Cause here we have been standing for a long, long time ♪
Dave told me that Roi used to push him.
He was always saying, "Make your vocal lines
"a little bit more saxophone-like."
And if you listen to So Much To Say, you can hear it.
[vocalizes]
He's, like, jumping around like a saxophone.
♪ Let me out ♪
♪ Baby, yeah ♪
[audience cheering]
[Dave] We really love to play live,
and we have some bells and whistles,
but we don't have anything that explodes,
except occasionally the music.
♪ I drink too much I drink too much ♪
♪ Want too much, too much ♪
[Brandi] All we want is to have fans
like the Dave Matthews Band has.
Fans that are wondering
what we're going to put on the set list,
that have connections to our banter
and accept us throughout the years.
♪ And upon the sidewalk ♪
[audience] ♪ People in every direction ♪
[Dave and audience] ♪ No words exchanged, no time ♪
[Dave] I couldn't have begged to have a greater experience
than play in this band.
I want some other experiences,
but I don't feel like I'm entitled to them.
Because, Jesus, how can this happen to one person?
[vocalizes]
♪ Lights down, you up and die ♪
-[♪ song concludes] -[audience cheering, applauding]
[Julia] Oh, I love these guys so much!
I'm thrilled to be the first person ever
on Earth to get to say this. Ladies and gentlemen,
here are the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers,
-the Dave Matthews Band. -[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ soft rock music playing, Dave Matthews Band "Ants Marching"]
♪ He wakes up in the morning ♪
♪ Does his teeth bite To eat and he's rolling ♪
♪ Never changes a thing ♪
♪ The week ends The week begins ♪
♪ He goes ♪
♪ Goes to visit his mommy ♪
♪ She feeds him well his concerns ♪
♪ He forgets them and remembers being small ♪
♪ Playing under the table and dreaming ♪
♪ Take these chances ♪
♪ Place them in a box until a quieter time ♪
♪ Lights down, you up and die ♪
[vocalizes]
♪ Driving along his highway ♪
♪ All these cars and upon the sidewalk ♪
[audience] ♪ People in every direction ♪
♪ No words exchanged no time to exchange ♪
♪ When all the little ants are marching ♪
♪ Red and black and antennae waving ♪
♪ We all do it the same ♪
♪ We all do it the same way ♪
[audience cheering]
♪ Lights down, you up and die ♪
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ soft rock music playing, Dave Matthews Band "Crash Into Me"]
♪ You've got your ball You've got your chain ♪
♪ Tied to me tight Tie me up again ♪
♪ Who's got their claws In you my friend ♪
♪ Into your heart I'll beat again ♪
♪ When you come crash into me ♪
♪ Yeah, baby ♪
♪ And I come into you ♪
♪ In a boy's dream ♪
♪ Telling it like it is In a boy's dream ♪
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
♪ Crash into me ♪
♪ Crash into me, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ Crash into me ♪
♪ Oh and you come crash Into me, baby ♪ *
[audience cheering, applauding]
[♪ upbeat rock music playing, Dave Matthews The Band "So Much to Say"]
♪ Keep it locked up inside Don't talk about it ♪
♪ Just talk about the weather ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Can't see the light ♪
♪ Open up my head ♪
♪ And let me out A-little baby ♪
♪ 'Cause here we have been standing for a long, long time ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Treading, trotting trails For a long, long time ♪
♪ Time, time, time Time, time, time ♪
♪ I find ♪
♪ Sometimes it's easy to be myself ♪
♪ Sometimes, yeah ♪
♪ I find it's better to be somebody else ♪
♪ I got so much to say So much to say, so much to say ♪
♪ So much to say ♪
♪ So much to say, so much to say So much to say, so much to say ♪
♪ Open up my head ♪
♪ And let me out ♪
♪ Baby ♪
[grunts]
[♪ upbeat rock music playing, Dave Matthews Band "Too Much"]
♪ Ooh, straight in Suck up and go ♪
♪ Cool it, swallow, swallow I breathe deep ♪
♪ Take it all, it comes cheap ♪
♪ Like pushing through the doors ♪
♪ 'Cause in between the lines ♪
♪ I'm gonna pack more lines So I can get it in ♪
♪ Ooh, traffic jam got more cars Than a beach got sand ♪
♪ I suck it up, l lick it up I fill it up until no more ♪
♪ I'm no crazy creep I've got it coming to me ♪
♪ But I'm not satisfied The hunger keeps on growing ♪
♪ I eat too much I drink too much ♪
♪ I want too much, too much ♪
[grunts]
[growls]
♪ Too much ♪
♪ 'Cause I eat too much I drink too much ♪
♪ I want too much, too much ♪
-[♪ music concludes] -[audience cheering, applauding]
Thank you very much.
Hello, and so, there was an extra one, so...
Look, first of all, the Class of 2024,
I've said it before,
but it does feel like we're swimming
in very deep water here,
and just deeply grateful for being inducted
with this incredible group of people.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And a funny story.
I was just last weekend with a person
I haven't seen in 30 years,
and they said,
"I was going through some old things of mine,
"and in this drawer,
"and I found the old Tribe Called Quest album
"that you gave me." And I was like, "That's funny,"
because I am being inducted with my band
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
along with the Tribe Called Quest.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And I just absolutely love them.
And then I told Peter already,
I just think the absolute world of you,
I think you're just incredible,
and you're such a big part of my life.
Peter Frampton, what a hero.
I once was in the gym,
and Ozzy Osbourne was running on the treadmill next to me,
and he was like... [grunts] ...and he was so bad.
I was like, "Ah, it's Ozzy Osbourne,"
because... [chuckles]
...I do have a soft spot for Ozzy Osbourne.
And he's just-- Just as what's the truth,
he's one of the nicest people in the world.
He really is. You meet him, he's just like--
You can't-- So, I took my son to see him when he--
My son was little, I went to see Black Sabbath
with my boy, and I mean, there was a lot of blood,
-but it was lovely. -[audience laughing]
But I just have to say now that it is such an honor
to share the stage with these guys,
night after night, and things have changed,
but I'm gonna start my-- I'm gonna get on it now.
Carter Beauford, Stefan Lessard,
LeRoi Moore, we wish you were here.
We miss you every day. Tim Reynolds, I love you.
Rashawn Ross, Buddy Strong, Jeff Coffin.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Okay, I'm gonna go fast.
Not here, obviously. Boyd Tinsley, wherever you are,
we hope you're finding the happiness you seek.
Butch Taylor.
He played keys with us for years.
Thank you so much. Peter Greisar,
the first keyboardist in the band,
thanks for sticking with us as long as you did.
You had bigger plans.
Tawatha Agee's here! I saw Tawatha last night.
I'm so excited. I can't wait to sing with you again
and all the lovely ladies. I'm gonna go fast now.
A thousand thanks to our crew.
I know we're doing the plan
where this is the going out music.
Thanks.
There are so many people, too many people to thank.
I already said--
Somebody said, and then somebody else said
that I was a bartender at Miller's.
But-- And we all met at Miller's.
Well, at least the original guys.
And I, for years, was a fan
of these musicians before I ever told them
that I played the guitar.
And that bar was a great place for musicians.
And the guy who owned that bar is here, Steve Tharp.
Thank you for letting us put a band together.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And another friend of ours
from that bar encouraged me to write songs.
And John D'earth, great trumpet player,
and he's here. We love you, John.
Thank you for encouraging me to take a tape of my music
to Carter and Roi, who are my heroes.
And then they said, "Sure, we'll play with you.
"Whatever. We got time.
"Got nothing to do in the daytime,
"so let's practice."
We drank a lot of liquor at Steve's--
At the bar, a lot of free liquor,
'cause I was a bartender, so I was just...
-[audience laughing] -I have the power.
And then Carter and me and Roi all lived in our mom's houses,
because we were grown men and then at the time--
And us-- But Stefan was in high school,
so he had his own place. And he was
ahead of his time.
I'm trying to think of things to say.
Roi said to me one day,
"You should get Rashawn to be in the band."
I said, "You should get Rashawn to be in the band."
And then when Roi was injured,
and we thought he needed someone to cover for him
for a while, Jeff Coffin stepped up,
our old friend from the Flecktones.
[audience cheering, applauding]
And then when Roi passed,
then Jeff stayed on with us, and we love you for that.
And Jeff-- And also,
when Buddy joined the band, it brought new life to us,
and we're so grateful that he's here with us, too.
[audience cheering, applauding]
I think-- You know, I had so much written down,
and the poor teleprompter driver is just like,
"What is happening?"
-It's all been said already. -[audience laughing]
I mean, you know, I wanna thank Chip Hooper,
who's not with us anymore, for telling us where to go.
And I want to thank my sort of long-lost friend,
Ross Hoffman, for convincing me to finish songs.
I don't think I could have without him.
I don't know who else to thank.
My family, our families. We love them all so much.
And then I wanted to get the most important thing
that I think matters to everything,
about this band,
and probably every band here, is our fans.
-Our fans are the-- -[audience cheering, applauding]
You know.
I mean, it's bananas.
And anyway...
And I blame it
on their persistence, not on the quality of anything,
but we won the fan vote when we were first nominated,
but we didn't get in.
And then, I mean, only because I can see our fans like...
-[imitating keyboard clacking] -[audience laughing]
So, we won this time, but I blame my fans,
our fans, sorry.
But I thought, you know-- And we got in, which is amazing.
Thank you to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But I thought it would have been pretty cool
if we didn't get in again, you know?
[audience laughing]
Because that'll be like... [chuckles] ..."Look at that."
And then hopefully we can pull it off one more time.
But this is-- We're really happy about this.
Thank you to all the artists that we got to share this--
I mean, heroes of all of ours.
Just unbelievable. And thank you, everybody.
I just screwed up the whole speech.
You're all everything. Families, friends, everybody.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Thank you, Julia Roberts. [sighs]
So, I know a lot of you guys are gonna be leaving now,
so we'll play some going away music.
[audience cheering, applauding]
It is the 40th anniversary
of Stop Making Sense by the Talking Heads,
-and... -[audience cheering, applauding]
...I hope I don't--
I'm gonna screw the beginning up.
[♪ rock music playing, Talking Heads "Burning Down the House"]
♪ Ah, watch out ♪
♪ You might get what you're after ♪
♪ Cool babies Strange, but not a stranger ♪
♪ I'm an ordinary guy Burning down the house ♪
♪ Hold tight Wait 'til the party's over ♪
♪ Hold tight We're in for nasty weather ♪
♪ There has got to be a way ♪
♪ Burning down the house ♪
♪ Here's your ticket Pack your bags ♪
♪ Time for jumpin' overboard ♪
♪ Transportation is here ♪
♪ Close enough, but not too far Maybe you know where you are ♪
♪ Fightin' fire with fire ♪
♪ Ah, all wet ♪
♪ Hey, you might need a raincoat Shakedown ♪
♪ Dreams walking in broad daylight ♪
♪ 365 degrees ♪
♪ Burning down the house ♪
♪ It was once upon a place Sometimes, I listen to myself ♪
♪ Gonna come in first place ♪
♪ People on their way to work Well, baby, what do you expect ♪
♪ Gonna burst into flames, ah ♪
You guys want some more?
♪ Burning down the house ♪
♪ My house Is out of the ordinary ♪
♪ That's right Don't wannna hurt nobody ♪
♪ Some things sure can sweep me off my feet ♪
♪ Burning down the house ♪
[audience cheering, applauding]
Thank you all very, very much.
Thank you. Hey, thanks, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Thank you to our fans. And thank you, Cleveland.
[♪ end theme music playing]
[♪ music concludes]