Rolling Stone Australia — June 2017

12 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com Ju ne, 2017

No Sleep Till

Brooklyn

(1) Pharrell

ushered in Nile

Rodgers. (2)

Lenny Kravitz paid

tribute to Prince

with “When Doves

Cry” and “The

Cross”. (3) Ye s

keyboardist

Wakeman. “I just

wanted to have a

bit of fun,” he said.

(4) Lynne was

inducted by Dhani

Harrison, who

recalled dad

George taking him

to his first ELO

show when he was

seven years old.

R&R

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: JAMIE MCCARTHY/WIREIMAGE FOR ROCKAND ROLL HALL OF FAME; KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE FOR ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME; JAMIE MCCARTHY/WIREIMAGE FOR ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME; THEO WARGO/WIREIMAGE FOR ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME

Electric Light Orchestra and Tupac Shakur

• was the best Hall of Fame ceremony in
  years. It began with a celebration of Chuck
  Berry, who died at age 90 on March 18th.
  “Thirty-two years ago, the very fi rst person
  ever inducted into the Hall of Fame was
  Chuck Berry,” said Hall of Fame Founda-
  tion chairman Jann S. Wenner to the au-
  dience at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. “No
  one in this room would be here tonight
  but for this man. He’s called the father, the
  inventor of rock & roll. He put the poetry
  of the common man to the beat, and then
  he laid on that revved-up, motorvatin’,
  double-string guitar attack that laid down
  the law for every rock & roll musician that

folk music of the Sixties and the immense

eff ect it had on popular music, including

rock & roll. Nor can anyone overlook the

role I played in that phenomenon.” Baez

also used her speech to call for tolerance

and inclusion in the age of Trump. Armed

with only an acoustic guitar, she converted

an arena full of rabid Pearl Jam fans with

a spooky “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. (She

altered the lyrics to note that even Donald

Trump can be saved.) She then previewed

her upcoming Four Voices Tour by bring-

ing out Mary Chapin Carpenter and the In-

digo Girls for Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee

(Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” and the Band’s

“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”.

came after. Tonight we say farewell to the

founding father.”

With that, inductees ELO kicked into

Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven”, which they

had covered in 1973, with frontman Jeff

Lynne breaking out a guitar solo that would

have made Berry proud. “It’s such a plea-

sure to get one of these,” said Lynne onstage

afterward. “Because I’ve watched lots, hun-

dreds, of people getting awards.”

Baez was another inductee who had

been waiting a long time for her statue. Her

old friend Jackson Browne made a case for

why the honour was long overdue. So did

Baez herself: “Though one cannot say I’m

a rock & roll artist, one cannot overlook the

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