Ten recordings were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame on Wednesday (March 20), following a two-year period in which the Hall was put on hiatus for a reevaluation. As before, this year’s choices are eclectic and wide-ranging, including several that played a key role in creating or popularizing sub-genres – Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (neo-soul), Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” (EDM) and De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising (alternative hip-hop).
Several changes were made during the hiatus period. The number of inducted recordings is down significantly from 25 to 30 in prior years. And while past classes have included repeat inductions by such Hall of Fame mainstays as The Beatles and Ella Fitzgerald, all of this year’s choices are by first-time inductees into the Hall.
Also, the inducted recordings will be greeted with more fanfare than in the past, when each class was merely announced via press release. This class will be saluted at the Grammy Museum’s inaugural Grammy Hall of Fame Gala and concert on May 21 at the NOVO Theater in Los Angeles. Significantly, the event was scheduled more than three months after the Feb. 4 Grammys to give it its own moment.
This year’s induction class consists of six singles and four albums. All four albums were the artists’ debut studio albums (or solo debut, in Hill’s case). The three other debut albums honored were Buena Vista Social Club’s eponymous album, Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction and 3 Feet High and Rising. (Remarkably, Hill has not yet released a follow-up studio album, and Buena Vista Social Club disbanded without doing so.)
The inductees vary widely in terms of their commercial success. The list includes two Diamond-certified albums – Appetite for Destruction (18 million) and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (10 million). But it also includes a single, William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” that peaked at a lowly No. 95 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Some of this year’s inducted recordings were showered with Grammy Awards at the time, including Hill’s album of the year winner The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and The Doobie Brothers’ record and song of the year winner “What a Fool Believes.” But many others weren’t even nominated when they were eligible, including Appetite for Destruction and “I Feel Love.”
The Grammy Hall of Fame was created in 1973 to honor recordings that were released prior to the inception of the Grammy Awards in 1958. Eligibility was soon changed to allow any recording released at least 25 years ago. Counting this year’s 10 inductees, it includes 1,152 recordings.
Let’s take a closer look at the 10 recordings being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame this year. The titles are arranged alphabetically by artist.
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William Bell, “You Don’t Miss Your Water”
Release Date: 1961
Label: Stax
Producer: Chips Moman (unlisted)
Hot 100 peak: No. 95
Grammy nominations: None. Bell finally received his first Grammy nominations in 2017, winning best Americana album for This Is Where I Live.
Notes: The complete thought on this bluesy lament about romantic regrets: “You don’t miss your water/ Till the well runs dry.” Bell, now 84, had a much bigger hit in 1977, “Tryin’ to Love Two,” which reached the top 10 on the Hot 100, but “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” his first Hot 100 entry, may be his most classic work. It has been recorded by such top artists as Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, The Byrds, Brian Eno, Taj Mahal, Jerry Lee Lewis and Peter Tosh & The Wailers.
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Buena Vista Social Club, Buena Vista Social Club
Image Credit: Sven Creutzmann/Mambo Photo/Getty Images Release Date: Sept. 16, 1997
Label: Nonesuch
Producer: Ry Cooder
Billboard 200 peak: No. 80
Grammy nominations: Best tropical Latin performance (won)
Notes: Buena Vista Social Club was an ensemble of Cuban musicians directed by Juan de Marcos González and American guitarist Ry Cooder. Their debut album was recorded at Havana’s EGREM studios in March 1996 and was released through World Circuit internationally and Nonesuch Records in the U.S. The album’s release was followed by a short concert tour in 1998. Footage from those dates, as well as from the recording sessions in Havana, was included in the 1999 documentary Buena Vista Social Club.
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De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising
Release Date: March 3, 1989
Label: Tommy Boy
Producer: Prince Paul
Billboard 200 peak: No. 15
Grammy nominations: Best rap performance for the track “Me Myself and I”
Notes: 3 Feet High and Rising was the first of three collaborations by De La Soul and producer Prince Paul. The album spawned the hit “Me Myself and I,” which reached the top 40 on the Hot 100. The album’s title was inspired by the title of Johnny Cash’s 1959 country hit “Five Feet High and Rising.” This album reached a new peak on the Billboard 200 in March 2023 when De La Soul’s long-unavailable catalog appeared for the first time on global streaming services.
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The Doobie Brothers, “What a Fool Believes”
Release Date: January 1979
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Ted Templeman
Hot 100 peak: No. 1 (one week)
Grammy nominations: Record and song of the year (won both); album of the year and best pop vocal performance by a duo, group or chorus for Minute by Minute
Notes: Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins co-wrote this song, and Loggins was actually first to record it, on his 1978 album Nightwatch. But The Doobies’ record, featuring McDonald’s soulful vocals floating atop a cool synth arrangement, went all the way. The song topped the Hot 100 in April 1979, a pop/rock outlier at a time when disco was at its white-hot peak. It was the band’s second No. 1 hit, following “Black Water” in 1975. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
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Guns N’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction
Release Date: July 21, 1987
Label: Geffen
Producer: Mike Clink
Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 (five weeks)
Grammy nominations: None. The band received its first nomination for its follow-up album, G N’ R Lies.
Notes: How could this album have received no Grammy nominations? It didn’t really break through until 1988. At the end of the 1987 eligibility year on Sept. 30 of that year, it had climbed no higher than No. 70 on the Billboard 200. The album has spent nearly five years, all told, on that chart. It spawned three top 10 singles on the Hot 100 – “Welcome to the Jungle,” the Hot 100-topping “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Paradise City.” The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.
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Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Image Credit: Anthony Barboza/Getty Images Release Date: Aug. 25, 1998
Label: Ruffhouse/Columbia
Producers: Lauryn Hill, Che Pope, Vada Nobles
Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 (four weeks)
Grammy nominations: Nine, resulting in five wins, including album of the year and best R&B album. It was the first hip-hop album to be voted album of the year.
Notes:The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill melded neo-soul and R&B with hip-hop and reggae. Recording sessions took place from late 1997 to June 1998 mainly at Tuff Gong Studios in Kingston, Jamaica. The album spawned three top 40 hits on the Hot 100 – “Ex-Factor,” “Everything Is Everything,” and the No. 1-reaching “Doo Wop (That Thing).” The album, one of the most universally acclaimed releases of the 1990s, has proved to be a hard act to follow: Hill, now 48, has yet to release a follow-up studio album.
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Wanda Jackson, “Let’s Have a Party”
Release Date: June 1960
Label: Capitol
Producer: Ken Nelson
Hot 100 peak: No. 37
Grammy nominations: None. Jackson received her first nomination in 1964 for best country & western vocal performance, female for Two Sides of Wanda Jackson.
Notes: This rockabilly track is one party invitation nobody is going to pass up. Elvis Presley recorded this song (under the title “Party”) for his 1957 film Loving You. His version appeared on the film’s soundtrack album, which topped the Billboard 200 for 10 weeks. Jackson recorded it for her first album, Wanda Jackson, released in 1958. Her version later appeared in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society, which starred Robin Williams. It’s easy to see Jackson’s influence on such subsequent popular singers as Tanya Tucker, Miranda Lambert and Elle King. Incidentally, that “party” is still going strong. Jackson, now 86, cracked the Billboard 200 in 2011 with an album titled The Party Ain’t Over.
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Kid Ory’s Creole Orchestra, “Ory’s Creole Trombone”
Release Date: 1922
Label: Nordskog
Producer: N/A
Hot 100 peak: This pre-dated the Hot 100.
Grammy nominations: This pre-dated the Grammys.
Notes: “Ory’s Creole Trombone” is a spirited example of New Orleans jazz. Kid Ory wrote the piece and first recorded it in 1922 in Los Angeles, which is the version being honored here. The recording constituted the first issued recording session by an African American jazz band from New Orleans. Ory recorded the piece several times over the years. In 1927 he made a recording as part of Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. Ory died in January 1973 at age 86.
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Charley Pride, “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’”
Image Credit: Keith Beaty/Toronto Star via Getty Images Release Date: Oct. 23, 1971
Label: RCA Victor
Producer: Jack Clement
Hot 100 peak: No. 21
Grammy nominations: Best county vocal performance, male. Ben Peters won best country song for writing the song.
Notes: Pride amassed 29 No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, but this was his only song to make the top 40 on the Hot 100. The warm, mid-tempo ballad, which led the country chart for five weeks, was Pride’s signature song virtually from the time it was released in the fall of 1971 until his death nearly 50 years later. Ben Peters won a Grammy for writing the song, which contains this unforgettable couplet: “Kiss an angel good mornin’/ And love her like the devil when you get back home.” Pride was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. He received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2017. He died in 2020 at age 86.
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Donna Summer, “I Feel Love”
Release Date: July 2, 1977
Label: Casablanca
Producer: Giorgio Moroder, Pete Bellotte
Hot 100 peak: No. 6
Grammy nominations: None. Summer received her first nominations the following year for “Last Dance” (which won) and “MacArthur Park.”
Notes: This icy, synthesized smash still sounds modern – and it sounded positively otherworldly when it was released in 1977. It’s one of Summer’s most influential hits, helping to lay the foundation for electronic dance music. “I Feel Love” logged 23 weeks on the Hot 100, more than any other Summer single. The futuristic-sounding smash has been covered by such artists as Bronski Beat, Messiah and Sam Smith. Summer died in 2012 at age 63. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 and received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy earlier this year.