Rightful place?
Posted on 08/14/2005 10:04:47 PM PDT by USMale
The original American Idol, Pat Boone, is celebrating his 50th year with a career few singers come close to, I am shocked and astounded to learn Pat Boone is absent from his rightful place in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. How couId this terrible oversight have occurred? No one alive today is more deserving of this honor than Pat Boone.
Hound Dog by Elvis, was a cover. I don't think that covers matter. Most singers don't write their own stuff. As I said, I was there in the 50s and Boone was cutting edge in the material he did--at that time. He was HUGE and appeared on American Bandstand often--something that no mere pop singer would ever be invited to do.
From a Buddy Holly Bio:
It can be argued that Buddy Holly was, in fact, the very first Elvis impersonator. Until a relatively obscure Elvis Presley, opening for country star Ferlin Huskey, came to Lubbock in February of Buddy's senior year, Buddy was primarily playing traditional Country & Western music for the public. After opening for Elvis at Lubbock's Fair Park Coliseum, Buddy decided his destiny and declared to himself, "That's what I want to do with my life!"
Through vision of the future and sheer force of will, coupled with an amazing talent for comprehending the technology of recording, our young, gangly "Be-spectacled One" set out to create one of the most enduring & influential manifestations of the human capability for dreams. His dream would change the world for us all.
While Elvis will always be the King of Rock-n-Roll, Buddy Holly is most certainly its George Washington. There will never be another beautiful Elvis; Elvis was truly a Force of History. However, Buddy Holly gave hope to all the outcasts, misfits, artists, dreamers, shakers, wailers & moaners of the world that if goofy ol' Buddy Holly could make it as a Star, they could do it too.
Buddy brought Rock-n-Roll to the people who truly needed it - those very same people described on the Statue of Liberty's invitation to the wretched refuse of the world. As Paul McCartney of working-class Liverpool observed, "Buddy Holly gave you confidence. He was like the boy next door
Excerpt from Pat Boone during Prodigy chat at
http://pages.prodigy.net/dianamorris/feat1k.htm
QUOTE:
Mr W0nderful (PRODIGY Member) -- Who would you say was your main competition back in the '50s? Was it Elvis? How about Sinatra?
Pat Boone (Speaker) -- Definetly Elvis. He was my opening act in Cleveland, in the fall of 1955, just before his record of "Heartbreak Hotel" was released. When we appeared together, my second record, "Ain't That a Shame," was headed to no. 1. I was able to follow Elvis, but that was the first and only time. He took over the role of King of pop music for awhile. I was glad to be the Crown prince. Sinatra was very complimentary of me at that time. He called me the Great White Hope.
END QUOTE
Maybe today they don't but back then? You know why he covered the songs of those artists. What's cutting edge about that? I don't get it. I'm not saying he's a terrible singer, just that he shouldn't get awarded something for using other people's music.
If I had a buck for every cover of Elmore James ever done I could retire.
Karaoke? :o)
QUOTE,
Susie in Ct (PRODIGY Member) -- Mr Boone, it must have been an incredibly exciting time for you when you look back on your early days in music. What types of things come to mind right away when you reflect back on those days?
Pat Boone (Speaker) -- The spotaneity. The excitement of hearing a song, liking it and going into a studio, perhaps that very day. Recording all of the record with the background musicians and singers, in less than three hours, and perhaps having a hit that would be played on the radio in hours or days. Today, you have to plan six months ahead for the release of a record, even after you've finished recording it. Which is the case with my new heavy metal album, "Pat Boone in a Metal Mood." I finished recording that that album in July and MCA is releasing it in January. And that's very frustrating to me.
Pat Boone (Speaker) -- I liked it the other way.
END QUOTE
It should get more attention. However, consider the Cindy Sheehan mess and who gets attention these days.
And R&R was still evolving at the time...we recognized that Boone and Presley were different, but not as different as we see them now.
Okay fair enough. I can see the point about Boone and Presley being different.
Rightful place?
Pat could sing "We Will Rock You" and it wouldn't be rock and roll. Nice man, but a weenie. Should NOT be in the Hall of Fame.
I think the fact that it's located in Cleveland shows that it wasn't paid off or bribed. Someone got behind the idea and wouldn't let it go. Of course, he was laughed at, at first. And now it's one of Cleveland's biggest attractions--maybe the biggest. Now, it's an "institution."
AGREED.
He wrote a letter to the editor at NewsMax.com not too long ago, and made a few pertinent comments.
Good day!
JM
Who is rushing out door to take my dog to the veterinarian, she hasn't felt good for several days, off her feed, limping.
He's not rock and roll? So just WHAT is rock and roll?
Currently in the RR Hall of Fame are performers such as The Platters, The Drifters, the INKSPOTS!! and many many others who are, like Pat Boone, primarily ballad singers although Boone has done many rock and roll songs during his long career.
So, just WHAT is the criteria for the RR hall of Fame. I think the poster who mentioned his many Christian Albums may be on to something although Presley was also into Gospel.
Pat Boone was never Rock and Roll. He was, at most, Easy Listening.
Sorry, but this was the landmark record that started it all...before Elvis, before Pat Boone - a former country & western group that took the R&B back beat and changed face of pop/rock music.
Bill Haley and His Comets are always given the shaft when it comes to their important influence on rock and roll. Haley began his career in the mid-1940's, and was cranking out some excellent rockabilly stuff on the Essex label when Elvis was still in high school in the early 1950's.
"I'm not saying he's a terrible singer, just that he shouldn't get awarded something for using other people's music."
Sorry - that doesn't make any sense. If that was true, Gene Vincent or Elvis wouldn't belong in the Hall of Fame either, as most of their material was cover versions.
Pat Boone did play a role in early rock, but it would be hard to make a case that he belongs in the rock hall of fame. When rock music first began to be popular circa 1955 or so, most parents hated it. It was raw and gritty and not like the smooth pop ballads that Sinatra, Como, Doris Day, and others were recording. Boone sort of bridged the gap and made rock & roll tamer and more accepted by parents. He did tame cover versions of more hard-edged rock songs by other artists, such as Fats Domino's "Ain't That A Shame" and Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti".
Pat's versions were often huge hits, as were his mainstream pop songs such as "Love Letters in the Sand" and "Moody River". But they could be called rock only in the sense that the Carpenters or Bobby Goldsboro could be called rock. They were Top 40 pop hits rather than rock.
In the case of Pat, the main argument for his importance in rock history is that he made rock more mainstream by toning in down, and recording softer hit versions of established rock songs. He played a role in early rock, to be sure, but not in the truly creative way that Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, and Elvis did.
Being a Christian may well be a drawback but I doubt Pat would be in the rock hall of fame in any event.
Bill Haley & the Comets had the big hit on "Rock Around The Clock" in May of 1955 but they also "covered" the song that was first recorded by Sonny Dae, a black artist.
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