(upbeat music) (Keyboard Typing) - We are (upbeat music) among the coolest museums in the entire world.

We work very hard to have an authentic experience.

If one song is tied to a memory, to a moment, if one song makes you think of the greatest joy in your life, come to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

This is where it kind of all begins.

(upbeat music) It was Labor Day Weekend, 1995, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opened up here in Cleveland, Ohio.

And a lot of people ask, "Well, why Cleveland?"

Back in the day, there was a "USA Today" article about where should the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame be located?

You would call a number.

And Cleveland just blew past other cities, including cities like Memphis or you know, San Francisco, New York, all of which could have had a great story too, to hold the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

It just so happened that Cleveland got it.

And we've been here now almost 30 years ever since.

The story of rock and roll is a really exciting one.

There's no birth date of rock and roll music.

But you know, historians and we always say it begins somewhere between the late 1940s into the early mid 1950s.

There was a disc jockey on the airways named Alan Freed.

And he didn't invent the term rock and roll, but he was one of the people that really popularized that phrase, thinking about what this music was.

And this music was, it felt new and exciting and it was this combination of rhythm and blues, and gospel, and the blues and country music.

And it was really exciting for this young teenage baby boomer audience that they wanted something different from what their parents were listening to.

So Alan Freed is right here in Cleveland and he's talking about rock and roll music.

The big beats.

In 1952 he puts on the Moondog Coronation Ball, right here in Cleveland, Ohio, which is often called the First Rock and Roll Concert.

So in 1983, Ahmet Ertegun, who was the founder of Atlanta Records, he signed Aretha Franklin, he signed Led Zeppelin and so many others.

And Jann Wenner, who founded Rolling Stone Magazine they came together and said, we're going to start the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

By 1986, we had our very first induction ceremony and we honored all those founding musicians, the architects of rock and roll music, like Fats Domino and Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and so many others.

Pretty quickly there was a decision that, okay now we have a ceremony every year.

we need a building.

We need a place to commemorate who we're inducting and just to tell the entire story of rock and roll.

(soft music) It's a jewel here of Northeast Ohio and really it is an iconic building that's recognized all across the globe.

The building has evolved much as the story of rock and roll has evolved.

You know, when we opened our doors in 1995, we were just starting to figure out, how are we going to tell this story, how are we going to display the artifacts that celebrate the most important influential artists in the history of rock and roll music?

Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, a lot of these artists really cite Cleveland as being a key city to help break them either in America or just sort of nationally across the country.

During the time period of the, you know, late 80s, we also just had a really great business plan to support a museum in Cleveland.

We are open 363 days a year.

In the summer, we are a concert venue.

We have a hundred days of live music this summer, we'll have thousands of people gathering to feel the power of live music.

'Cause you can feel that when you see the movies in our theaters.

You can feel that power when you see the different artifacts and exhibits.

But there's nothing quite like being at a live rock and roll show.

So of course the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, we wouldn't be authentic if we weren't also a home and a venue for some of those great, great live music performances.

Because rock and roll is powerful, it's a soundtrack to all of our collective lives.

It is both a great connector of people, but it's also, you know individually important to everyone's personal unique story.

So we try and combine all of those.

And so our goal is when you are a visitor, whether this is your first visit or it's your hundredth visit we want you to feel that connection.

We want you to feel that power and to really be moved when you walk into this museum because we believe rock and roll is the most important art form that's ever existed.

And we want our visitors to feel that excitement as well.

We are a living, breathing museum and that reflects rock and roll music.

Rock and roll is not dead.

It's alive, it's vibrant.

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- We are a living, breathing museum and that reflects rock and roll music.

Rock and roll is not dead.

It's alive, it's vibrant.

(bright music) And our definition of rock and roll is a big tent.

It's a big umbrella and it's very inclusive, which I love.

I wouldn't want to work at a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame that had a very narrow definition.

Rock and roll has never been one thing.

It's never looked one way or sounded one way.

We induct artists in all the genres of rock and roll, from hard rock and heavy metal to progressive rock or funk rock, to punk, to hip hop, to disco and dance.

All those are the stories that we are telling and we want to make sure we tell that complete story.

We're the only Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the entire world.

So there's a great responsibility that we have.

So when you come into this building you are going to see the entire story of rock and roll.

We have seven floors here.

Our first floor kind of, you know, level zero underneath the ground is about 60% of the museum's collection.

And that will show you kind of more of a chronological look at rock and roll history beginning a hundred years ago with Robert Johnson and the blues, and jazz music and gospel music, Mahalia Jackson, bluegrass music, country music, folk music.

So we'd tell those stories and then you go through the entire journey, the fifties, the sixties, different cities that were really important, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Cleveland.

And then you get to the contemporary story, which we also want to make sure we're telling about because that also draws those connections.

So if you are a fan of Lady Gaga, well we want to make sure you know who Freddie Mercury is.

If you're a fan of James Brown or Michael Jackson, we want to tell you who Janelle Monae is, or Bruno Mars.

Making these connections, it connects generations and that's really what music has always done, going back to its earliest days.

As you continue to move throughout the museum, there are a lot of other great stories and experiences that we have to offer.

(soft music) So right now we are in our second floor of the museum and this is called the Garage.

This room here is our jam room where if you are a musician you can come in and jam out with our house band.

We have a house band here every single day who are incredible musicians, can play every single instrument in this room.

And we've seen magic happen in this space.

Visitors become friends.

Hall of Fame inductees come and jam out with visitors or our staff.

This is a really special place, but also it's a learning space.

So if you've never played an instrument it doesn't matter again if you're young or you're a seasoned veteran of rock and roll, we can teach you.

In five minutes we will give you the bare bones of how to play a baseline.

We'll teach you how to play a little piano riff or a guitar riff or you know, a drum film.

This space opened up in 2019 and since it opened it has been the highest reviewed area of the entire museum.

As you continue to walk throughout the building, level three is the actual hall of fame.

So that's where you see all the signatures of the hundreds of inductees we have honored year after year, going back to 1986.

You'll see their signatures, you'll see clips of the induction ceremonies, you'll see an entire exhibit highlighting the current year's class.

But there's also a section for visitors to tell us who they want to see inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

That's an exhibit called Voice Your Choice.

And that's a really great dialogue and if you follow any of our social media feeds, you'll see visitors are very passionate about who is inducted, who's not inducted, who they think should be inducted.

And of course they are because rock and roll is that important.

So if your favorite band, the band that changed your life hasn't been inducted yet.

And I say yet 'cause that's the key word, there's no expiration.

If your favorite band hasn't been inducted yet, of course you want to see him inducted.

Now we give you a space to tell us.

I want to see George Michael inducted.

I want to see Iron Maiden inducted.

I want to see Cher Inducted.

I want to see Dave Matthews Band inducted.

And that's been a really fun part of that visitor experience.

As we keep going into the building our fourth floor has a giant theater.

It's actually a really intimate space where we showcase different interviews or films or movies.

We have an experience called "The Power of Rock" and it's about a 13 minutes film.

It was actually directed by the Oscar winning director, Jonathan Demme.

It was his last film before he passed away.

And it takes a look at 30 plus years of induction ceremony footage.

And essentially for the visitor it recreates the excitement of being front row at the inductions.

So you really feel, I mean, I've seen that film a thousand times and I still get goosebumps watching that performance, watching that film.

Levels five and six, that's the legends of rock and roll exhibit.

(rock and roll music) And it's everything from from Michael Jackson to Whitney Houston, to Bon Jovi to contemporary groups like The Roots.

Again, it's telling that entire story of rock and roll music.

(rock and roll music) I think specifically the handwritten lyrics are really special.

And maybe it's because now, you know, in our digital age that part of the craft has evolved a little bit.

And when you see a handwritten lyric, you also see, you see the journey the songwriter was taken, the original lyric that they scratched out, something written in the margins.

And that is the songwriting craft playing out kind of right in front of your eyes.

So of all the things we have on display and we have some really compelling artifacts, to me, the handwritten lyric, there's something kind of extra special about that.

As a living museum, we are always changing.

So if you visited back in 1995 or in 2005, you're going to come here today, and yeah, the architecture is still the same and you're going to recognize and remember that.

But everything inside it, almost the entire building, I've been here 17 years and almost every square inch of this museum has changed in some capacity.

And that's important because that mirrors the story of rock and roll music, that it doesn't stay, there's no status quo.

Things are always evolving and always changing.

Our mission is to engage, teach and inspire through the power of rock and roll.

Those are like our guiding lights.

You know, what's really unique (soft music) about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is that visitors who walk into our building have an established level of knowledge already.

They already have a whole lifetime of stories and memories and on some level their own level of expertise.

That now comes down to a big responsibility in our part to not just meet a visitor where they are but to still make sure every visitor comes away learning something more, making one more connection, maybe even, hopefully opening their eyes to other sounds of rock and roll that maybe they had once dismissed or kind of wasn't really their cup of tea but they come here and they're like, ah, okay I understand it's importance.

Our mission is to engage, teach and inspire through the power of rock and roll.

Those are like our guiding lights.

So that same feeling that a teenager had listening to Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis back in the fifties we want to tap into that.

With engage, we're thinking about that visitor experience, making sure that every visitor, whether you're six years old or 96 years old, that you feel engaged, you feel welcomed.

We have an incredible team here who welcomes you and connects with you.

You're going to see them dancing and singing along to the music 'cause that's a rock and roll museum.

You're going to come here and we want you to have fun.

We want to really engage you and make that experience really memorable so you come back time and time again and tell all your friends about it.

Teach is super important.

We have reached over 1.1 million students all across the world with our educational resources and programs.

We have an online portal called Rock Hall Edu, completely free, lesson plans, resources, activities, playlists, things for teachers to use in their classroom curriculum because rock and roll can be used and is used effectively to teach in a classroom setting.

It is, you know, you can learn about social movements, you can learn about, you know civil rights, women's rights, LGBT rights.

You can talk about just the platform of an artist.

What is the responsibility of an artist?

You can use rock and roll to teach about science and technology and financial literacy.

And these are things that we do with our free educational program.

And then you have inspire, the third part of our mission statement and that's what we do with our exhibits.

It's the stories we tell.

Rock and roll has always been about telling stories and making those connections.

So we do that through our education programs, we do that through our exhibits and our artifacts.

And we have a lot of fun being here and telling the story every day.

I mean, how could you not working at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but it still is a responsibility that we take very seriously to make sure we're telling the complete story and telling stories of artists or movements or places that may have been unsung.

We want to make sure we're, you know, we're lifting those stories up.

That's a really important part of Rock and Roll's story.

You know, how do artists use their platform to affect change?

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, there are two main entities.

There is the foundation, they are based in New York and that's the group that founded the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame back in the early to mid 1980s.

The foundation also runs the induction process.

Artists become eligible 25 years after the release of their first record.

That's why in 2021 you saw groups like the Foo Fighters or Jay-Z, they got inducted in their very first year of eligibility.

In the class of 2022, Eminem is being inducted in his first year of eligibility.

The foundation also runs that nominating process.

So every year there's a nominating committee.

It's about 40 people comprised of, you know, record industry executives, journalists, scholars, musicians.

Their job is to take those hundreds of thousands of eligible artists and whittle that list down to 15 to 20.

And that becomes the ballot.

So that ballot gets mailed out to a couple thousand voters all across, you know, the world including all of our living inductees.

And that's really cool.

That sort of separates us from a lot of other halls of fame where, you know, the guys from Green Day, they get to vote, Diana Ross gets to vote, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger they get a vote.

Now Jay-Z gets a vote.

So it's also you're being honored for those who are being inducted.

You're also being honored by the peers and the whole history of rock and roll that came before you.

And you know rock and roll music, like any art form is subjective.

So we don't ask our nominating committee or our voters to think about chart success, at least not as a primary criteria.

Certainly a lot of our inductees, the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, the Supremes, Michael Jackson had a ton of hits, but having a hit record does not guarantee your induction into the Rock Hall.

'Cause if it did we wouldn't induct Frank Zappa who had one top 40 hit, we wouldn't induct the Grateful Dead, had one top 40 hit.

Jimi Hendrix had one top 40 hit on the pop charts and it was a cover of a Bob Dylan song.

It's not about record sales, it is about the following.

Musical excellence, influence, impact, and innovation.

Those are the four things we ask our nominating committee and that we especially ask our voters to consider when nominating and voting for somebody to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

With induction, we have four categories of induction and that's very similar to other Hall of Fames.

Our main category, that I think most visitors and fans think about is the performer.

That's that category that's voted on by our voting body.

It's the one where we do the, you know, the big public fan vote for every year.

So that's the one that gets the most like spotlight on it.

But we have three other really important categories of inductions.

One is called our Early Influence.

And again, this honors artists who predate either the major movements of rock and roll or rock and roll in particular.

So this could be anything from country and blues music from a hundred years ago.

Or it could be the German, you know, synthesizer group Kraftwerk who, they don't predate rock and roll from the fifties, they come out in the seventies but they predate all electronic music, kind of, you know that you hear nowadays in EDM and hip hop.

So we consider them to be that early influence and they were inducted in that category in 2021.

So we have the early influence category, we also have the Ahmet Ertegun Award that's named after our co-founder.

And it honors non-performers.

This could be a songwriter, a producer, a disc jockey, an engineer, a promoter, somebody who's sort of behind the scenes, who is really important in that story.

May not be a household name but is critical to the evolution of rock and roll.

And then our last category is called the Musical Excellence Award.

And that one has evolved over the years but it's a great category to honor some of the session musicians.

So if you're a Motown fan, you may have heard of the Funk Brothers, James Jamerson and Benny Benjamin.

Or if you're an Elvis Presley fan, you probably know about, you know, Scotty Moore on guitar or D.J Fontana on drums.

They are all inducted in that category, not household names but essential to that story and evolution of rock and roll.

And that's the cool thing too is there is no expiration date on our process.

So while you have to be out 25 years to be eligible to be considered, there's no expiration.

A group like the Moody Blues, took them 25 years of eligibility to finally get nominated.

But once they got nominated, they got the votes, they got in and now they're in forever.

(Soft Music) We're always looking at the history of our museum and thinking both about respecting where we've came from, appreciating the history, thinking about those milestones that we've reached.

But really I think our main focus is on the future, kind of where we're headed.

How does this museum continue to evolve?

How do we continue to tell all those important stories of rock and roll music?

How do we make sure we are telling the complete inclusive diverse story of rock and roll music.

If you haven't been here in a long time you got to come back 'cause things have changed so much.

And that's one of the things that makes us, I think such a unique museum is we are not just living and breathing in that we're always changing.

We are truly living and breathing in terms of seeing visitors with matching Beatles T-shirts go up and give a big high five to somebody.

I don't think you see those kinds of interactions at other museums.

I see it here every single day.

We are located right here on the shores of Lake Erie in Northeast Ohio.

I'll say there are so many incredible cultural and arts institutions in all of Ohio and certainly in Northeast Ohio.

So if you want to learn about anything, art, rock and roll, science, history, Cleveland has something for you.

So you got to come down to Cleveland, you got to check out all the museums and hopefully we'll see you at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

(soft music) (upbeat music)