I’ll be up front with you; I was part of the first TV generation, hooked on the electronic babysitter when I was a kid. I can even tell you what a test pattern is.
I still watch a lot of TV, though I dropped cable for streaming and new channels have popped up with occasional surprises. One is called “Decades” that has a wide variety of pre-cable programming. Remember Dick Cavett? I was watching one of his shows and there was something that seemed really out of place.
Then it hit me. His guests, all of them, were smoking.
The show was taped when most Americans smoked, and I mean REALLY smoked. It was so much a part of our culture that you rarely saw someone without a “ciggie.” My dad was one of them. Four packs a day. He had an ashtray next to his dinner plate. When I was a kid, he would send me to the neighborhood deli for a pack of Luckies. No filters, either. Filters are for girls.
We used to say Dad had “a heart of gold and fingers to match.” When I went to college, you could smoke in class if you brought an ashtray. Think about that. Does anyone even have an ashtray in their house today?
Hall Hits
That leads me to my next point. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame welcomes its 2019 class this spring and, I know I’m courting controversy here, I think they got it right. How do you deny The Zombies, Roxy Music with Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, Radiohead and the rest?
I don’t envy the folks who make the final decisions. Just about everyone on the outside has an opinion, usually based on acts that didn’t get in or they complain about some who did. ABBA? Rap artists? Country? Some gripe about the Motown groups or the “folkies.” Ask them to define rock and roll; most people can’t answer that effectively.
Now, about the acts that have yet to get the nod. Bands like Emerson Lake and Palmer, T. Rex, Jethro Tull – there are plenty of them.
Others I wouldn’t put at the top of my list, but an argument can be made for just about anyone, such as groups like The Monkees. The complaint is they didn’t write their own music. They had hits from Neil Diamond, Carole King, Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart and others. When they told producer Don Kirshner (who’s in the Hall) that they wanted to do their own stuff, Monkeemania started to unravel.
What about bands that didn’t play their own instruments? Many of the best Beach Boys songs just featured their vocals; their back up band was The Wrecking Crew, L.A.’s best session players, so that argument doesn’t hold water.
Then there’s Herman’s Hermits. They had 13 hits and The Who opened for them on at least one tour. I think everyone has a chance, but some of these acts are getting long in the tooth. It’ll be fun when the induction is back in Cleveland.
Boomer Trivia: Last time, I asked who was the Indians announcer at Municipal
Stadium from 1969 to 1972. You couldn’t miss that voice. It was Ron Penfound,
better known as Captain Penny.
For next time: This folk singer from Bedford met his partner at the Blind Owl
Tavern in Kent and had a #1 Billboard hit with a song about…let’s just say it’s
now legally available in Ohio with a prescription.
