Mixtape | Ladies rock the Hall of Fame

INDIANAPOLIS - Twenty-five years ago Lady Soul, Aretha Franklin, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As the first female to be honored for her role in popular music, it’s a crown this diva wears well.

Without a doubt, Franklin has played a role in musical history. She helped make soul music accessible to a much wider audience. Her attitude and presence makes anyone feel like they could be a diva.

She shares the illustrious Hall of Fame honor with a long list of equally notable women, some receiving the award posthumously and some in the prime of their careers. And we should take note what contribution these ladies continuously give to the realm of rock and roll on a daily basis.

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If I had to choose a short list from those ladies, Franklin, Etta James, the Ronettes and Debby Harry all made a direct impact on my own musical taste, let alone an impact on popular culture throughout the last 40 years,

Performers like Franklin, and James, along with Tina Turner and groups like Martha and the Vandellas have been a central influence on almost every generation of musical acts and fashion that followed. Their contributions to popular music are immeasurable, and their positive roles impacted many young musicians.

What came after was another entire generation of female performers that drew from those influences – and earlier influences like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. Patti Smith, Debbie Harry and even Janis Joplin added their influences into the Technicolor fabric that is popular music and can be heard in late 70s punk, like the Ramones, to current indie garage releases like Best Coast.

But what does this all really say to us now in the 21st century? It says that within a world touted as male-dominated, women have had just as much influence on what music is today. How we listen, really listen to what’s being produced today directly relates to the influences most of those women had on all of us.

Although today’s music world may be more equally balanced as far as personal creative control, you can bet that without Aretha, Etta, Gladys, Carol and the other ladies chosen for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – and some yet to be chosen – we wouldn’t be where we are at all.

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