The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony has a poignant atmosphere this year

CLEVELAND – Saturday night’s Rock & Roll Hall Fame induction ceremony promises to be glittering, entertaining and bittersweet. So many of the award winners were lost this time.

Of the seven original members of Kool & the Gang, there is only one, Robert “Kool” Bell. There will be no living members of the MC5, which recently suffered the deaths of its last two original members, drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson and guitarist and vocalist Wayne Kramer. Foreigner’s original bassist Ed Gagliardi has died and multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald has left guitarist Mick Jones out of action due to Parkinson’s disease. A tribe called Quest lost Phife Dawg.

“I wish George was here and the rest of the other gentlemen – the other original members – because they very much deserve this recognition,” said Hahn Brown, widow of Kool & the Gang drummer and songwriter George Brown, who died in 2023.

In many ways, the Class of 2024 – which also includes Peter Frampton, Cher, Mary J. Blige, Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Matthews Band, the late Jimmy Buffett, Dionne Warwick and the late Alexis Korner, the late John Mayall and the late Big Mama Thornton – is a catch-up course that reflects the fluctuation in the Hall’s leadership.

“In recent years there has been a shift from some of the old guard to artists like Rush and Kiss, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Randy Rhodes, the MC5 and Judas Priest. Whereas before maybe that wasn’t the case,” says Tom Morello, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame guitarist for bands like Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave.

Morello recalls raising the issue of membership with Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen’s manager and former Rolling Stone critic and then chairman of the nominating committee.

He told him, “Me and my friends don’t think much about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame because none of our favorite bands are in it.”

Now there will be a band that has long represented Morello, the MC5, which paved the way for the Stooges, the Ramones, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down.

Saturday’s induction ceremony will take place at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland. It will be streamed live on Disney+. A special featuring performance highlights and standout moments will air January 1 on ABC.

Cher – the only artist to have a No. 1 song in each of the last six decades – and Blige, with eight multi-platinum albums and nine Grammy awards, will help increase the number of women in the hall, which, according to critics, is also low.

Artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years before being considered for inclusion. More than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals voted on the nominees.

There was a brilliant push to bring Foreigner – with hits “Urgent” and “Hot Blooded” – into the hall, with Mark Ronson, Jack Black, Slash, Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney all publicly supporting the move. Ronson’s stepfather is Mick Jones, founding member, songwriter and lead guitarist of Foreigner.

Warwick will arrive for the ceremony just days after attending a memorial service for her longtime friend and collaborator Cissy Houston in Newark, New Jersey. Jennifer Hudson and Teyana Taylor will help her launch.

Other rock, pop and hip-hop royalty will be on hand to kick off the class, including Busta Rhymes, Dr. Dre, Demi Lovato, Dua Lipa, Ella Mai, James Taylor, Jelly Roll, Julia Roberts and Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney, Lucky Daye, Mac McAnally, Method Man, Roger Daltrey, Sammy Hagar, Slash and The Roots.