MC5 among Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 2017 hopefuls
The group joins a crowded class of 19 nominees that includes Pearl Jam, Tupac Shakur, Depeche Mode and Janet Jackson
Detroit’s MC5 has an opportunity to “Kick Out the Jams” in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The Motor City rockers are among the 19 acts nominated for the Rock Hall’s Class of 2017, announced early Tuesday. Also vying for induction are Pearl Jam, Janet Jackson, Tupac Shakur, Yes, Journey, Depeche Mode, Electric Light Orchestra, Bad Brains, Chic, J. Geils Band, Joan Baez, Kraftwerk, Jane’s Addiction, the Cars, the Zombies, Chaka Khan, Joe Tex and Steppenwolf.
Ballots will be sent to the more than 800 members of the Rock Hall’s voting body, and top vote-getters will be announced in December. The induction ceremony will take place in Brooklyn in April.
Fans get a voice, too. Public votes can be cast on RollingStone.com, and the top five acts will comprise a “fan’s ballot” that will count toward the official tally.
MC5 was nominated for the Rock Hall once before, in 2003.
The group formed in Lincoln Park in the mid-1960s and released three albums, 1969’s “Kick Out the Jams,” 1970’s “Back in the USA” and “High Time” in 1971, before disbanding in the early 1970s.
But those several years they were together were a monster, and the group’s counterculture politics forever cemented them as rock-and-roll revolutionaries.
Of the group’s original powder keg lineup — singer Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred “Sonic” Smith, bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis Thompson — only Kramer and Thompson are still alive.
Artists become eligible for the Rock Hall 25 years after the release of their first recording.
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