"Little Steven" Van Zandt, E Street Band guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee member, was recently asked about who he will push for induction into the Rock Hall later this year:

Q: You worked hard to get the Dave Clark Five into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. Who's on top of your list now of bands that ought to be in?

A: Right now the priority is the Hollies. It's ridiculous. I think Johnny Burnette & the Rock 'n' Roll Trio is still high on my list. . . . Paul Revere & the Raiders deserve to be in. Herman's Hermits deserve to be in.

Q: Really?!

A: Absolutely. People forget how important Herman's Hermits were when they started. . . . We all get very elitist about who should be in and who shouldn't, but I consider great, great, great '60s pop music absolutely essential to the development of the art form.

Van Zandt is clearly passionate about the artists who helped shape him as a musician during his youth (he was born in 1950), but does he really think the '60s are underrepresented in the Hall of Fame?

The Rock Hall generally nominates at least a couple of bands from the '60s every year, so you can pencil in The Hollies at the top of your list of potential nominees for the 2009 ballot.

Thanks, Tom.

Alan Light, former Spin editor in chief, and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee, thinks Madonna is worthy of her 2008 induction:

"She has loomed for a long time as a really significant, really influential figure," said Alan Light. "She is as famous a woman -- if not in the world, certainly in the Western world -- as anybody that's alive."

...

As for any gripes the pop singer doesn't belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, save it, says Light.

"If you define rock and roll in any way other than it has to be played with electric guitars and be based on blues changes or whatever, any definition that is more expansive than that -- anything that talks about the rebellious side of it, the counterculture side of it, the creative, ambitious side of it -- she clearly should be there," Light said. "She changed the playing field."

The article also quotes one of the many artists Madonna influenced, Alanis Morissette:

"To me, she's this woman that's deeply feminine, combined with this masculine drive," said Canadian pop singer Alanis Morissette, who was signed to Madonna's record label, Maverick Records, in 1995. "For a long time as a kid, I felt very self-conscious about what a tomboy I was, but she was someone that I could always look up to."

In 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held in Cleveland for only the second time, and it will be the first to be open to the public (as we learned in December). The ceremony will likely be held at the Quicken Loans Arena downtown (aka "The Q," home of the Cleveland Cavaliers), less than a mile from the Rock Hall Museum. Tickets to the ceremony are estimated to be about the cost of a rock concert ($80?), but no details have been set.

The mayor of Cleveland announced today that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will return to Cleveland for the 2009 event after a 12 year absence. If all goes well, it could return every three years.

It was promised in 1997 that the ceremony would return to Cleveland regularly as a part of a rotation that would include New York, Los Angeles, and London. Obviously this never happened since the ceremony has been held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York every year except for the one year Cleveland hosted (and L.A. hosted in 1993).

You can check out a list of artists who will be newly eligible in 2008 (for the '09 inductions) right here.

Update:

When [Rock Hall Museum President Terry] Stewart was asked if the inductions were guaranteed to come to Cleveland every three years, he said having future ceremonies here would be contingent upon the success of the 2009 event.

He quickly was interrupted by the mayor.

"It is guaranteed," [Cleveland Mayer Frank] Jackson said. "We intend to make this work. . . . It will be here in '12 and it'll be here in '15 and it'll be here in '18 . . . I want you to understand: It is going to happen. It will work."

Stewart didn't argue the point.

Holding the ceremony in Cleveland every year would be impractical because many record companies and other key Rock Hall benefactors are based in New York, [Rock Hall Foundation President Joel] Peresman said.

"We need to be able to have it there to get their support," Peresman said. "We're talking about the businesses and we're talking about the corporations that have supported the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame from the beginning."

For 20 of the past 22 years, the ceremony was held in New York. Besides the temporary move to Cleveland a decade ago, the inductions were held in Los Angeles in 1993.

For future ceremonies, the foundation isn't looking beyond New York or Cleveland, Peresman said.

The gala here tentatively is scheduled for a Saturday night in March 2009, although the venue has not been chosen. The Rock Hall plans to reveal more details in the spring.