Cindy and I went out to Cleveland a couple summers ago and one of the places that I most certainly wanted to visit was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum. I grew up with rock and roll, I've played rock and roll, I still listen to rock and roll. To me, it was like a pilgrimage to a shrine that I knew I had to visit one day.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is located on Cleveland's lakefront, just east of the Cleveland Browns new football stadium. It's a striking building with a glass pyramid look to it.
Me in front of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Cameras aren't allowed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but they have a courtesy checkroom for your cameras if you bring one.
One of the cool things that was going on when we were in Cleveland was the painted guitars on street corners and in front of businesses and restaurants all through the downtown area. They had a bunch of them inside and outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We were able to take pictures of some of them before we went in.
We got our tickets and went down a long escalator to the museum exhibits. Man, my head was just spinning. The permanent collection pieces were just unbelievable. A whole section on Jimi Hendrix (including a theater with a 15 minute loop of some of his past performances), the suits John Lennon and Ringo Starr wore on The Ed Sullivan Show, guitars and instruments from famous rockers over the years, a "Music of Ohio" section that celebrated a number of rock stars and groups from the state, and a number of clothes and outfits worn by rock stars in the past.
It was just overwhelming to me. There was just too much to see. It took us, probably, 3 hours just to go through the exhibits downstairs. I was in a literal daze.
One of the rooms had a display of a number of photographs shot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. It was pretty neat. There were some famous pictures she shot for the cover of Rolling Stone, as well as a number of other obscure photos and some documentation with them.
After we went through the downstairs exhibits, we went up to the second floor and they had a theater that did nothing but show the speeches of those presenting the inductees and the inductees (or their relatives) themselves. We didn't stick around for that.
We went up to the third floor and there was a special display of the clothing and gowns The Supremes used to wear back in the 60's and early 70's. A lot of the stuff came from former Supreme Mary Wilson's private collection. Cindy was into that pretty heavily. I thought it was neat as they did have the pictures of the gals wearing the dresses next to the dresses on hanging racks or mannequins, but I wasn't as thrilled as Cindy was.
One thing that I was sort of disappointed in was that there was no section in the museum that celebrated the Hall of Fame inductees, either with pictures or plaques. There was a tribute to some of the old radio voices that pioneered rock and roll, but nothing on the inductees themselves, other than the speeches in the one theater.
But the thing that got me more than anything else was the Hall of Fame store. Not so much for the crap they were selling at inflated prices, but for the large selection of hard to find CD's. CD's of bands from the 50's, 60's and 70's that I thought would never make it onto CD. I really wanted to spend a lot of time in there, but Cindy was getting hungry and tired (we spent nearly 5 hours in the place).
I'd really like to go back again some day and take a closer look at not only the exhibits, but at the CD's they have to offer. I can't seem to find any of the ones they offered online, and they don't sell them from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame site, so I'm going to have to take my time and peruse the CD's the next time I'm there.
Cleveland was a surprising city to us. We'll go back again someday.
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