an' it's one - two - three -- what're we fightin' for?

 

That New York Times article about the Jann Wenner Disturbance garnered 1.6 thousand Reader Comments.

4 of them:

Frances Burroughs

Paris

In his remarks about Black and female musicians, Wenner displayed a kind of circular logic:  These groups of people have been silenced and isolated, therefore they have nothing to say, therefore we should keep silencing them....

Peter

Paris

This is hardly a case of "cancel culture."  What Wenner said about women in particular calls into question his ability to be an impartial arbiter of who gets in to the Hall of Fame.  (That said, the very idea of an institutionalized hall of fame for rock and roll is just silly...)

John

Connecticut

Sounds to me like a great promotion for a book that otherwise would have sold few copies.  Nothing (except sex) sells like controversy.  Why do you think every news program these days features trump even though they have nothing new to report.

Controversy and outrage are the coin of the realm!

Tim Lynch

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

On a tangential note, what IS Rock and Roll?  What IS Country music?  Rap?  Hip Hop?  Reggae?  Ska?  Pop?  Frankly, while the Rock and Roll hall of fame is great for Cleveland, the evolution and fusion of genres makes one wonder if Rock still exists; and if so, who are the arbiters and what are the criteria?

_________________________

--------------- [excerpt from an interview with Joni Mitchell, by Cameron Crowe - published in Rolling Stone magazine July 26, 1979] --------------------

Looking back, how well did you prepare for your own success?

        I never thought that far ahead.  I never expected to have this degree of success.

Never?  Not even practicing in front of your mirror?

        No.  It was a hobby that mushroomed.  I was grateful to make one record.  

All I knew was, whatever it was that I felt was the weak link in my previous project gave me inspiration for the next one.  

I wrote poetry and I painted all my life.  I always wanted to play music and dabbled with it, but I never thought of putting them all together.  

It never occurred to me.  It wasn't until Dylan began to write poetic songs that it occurred to me you could actually sing those poems.

Bob Dylan; Joni Mitchell

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