The Joan Baez Ballad Book

Joan Baez

What Joan Baez has to do with rock ’n’ roll (besides having been one of Bob Dylan’s girlfriends): Without folk, there’d have been no folk-rock, and without Baez’s commitment to traditional ballads in particular, there’d have been less enthusiasm for folk songs in general. This 1972 compilation extracts 23 tales of woe from the five albums that she released from 1960 to 1964, before her commitment to social protest made her strident. Never did she put the Lorelei-like purity of her trembling soprano to better use.

A New World Record

Electric Light Orchestra

Out of the Blue charted higher and Discovery sold better, but this 1976 album is where Jeff Lynne most efficiently realized his goal of imbedding perfect pop hooks in orchestral settings and getting a choir to sing backup. “Telephone Line,” “Livin’ Thing,” and “Do Ya” became U.S. hits. And, if not for the unofficial maximum-three-hits-per-album radio rule, “So Fine” and “Shangri-La” would’ve probably followed suit. “Rockaria!” meanwhile, topped U.K. charts. In it, Beethoven rolls over and tells Chuck Berry the news.

B-Movie Matinee

Nile Rodgers

For some reason, the Rock Hall isn’t honoring Rodgers as a member of Chic but with an “Award for Musical Excellence.” So, Chic aside, how musically excellent was he? His rhythm guitar forged a link between late disco and early rap, and he produced practically everyone who was anyone. This 1985 solo outing still sounds lively too. Preferring it to Adventures in the Land of the Good Groove (1983) would be a close call except that Adventures contained “Yum Yum,” his least excellent song, musically or otherwise, ever.

The Ultimate Yes: 35th Anniversary Collection

Yes

The 31-track, U.S. version of this 2004 compilation (2003 and only 21 tracks in the United Kingdom) boils everything that was ever good about Yes down to its essence. It proves that when the eight members receiving Rock Hall honors this year concentrated more on well-structured songs than on untethered virtuosity and other excessively fanciful flights, they could rock plenty. And not only rock, but also sing. Impressive—yea, even lovely—harmonies abound. Even the group’s mid-’80s experiments with funk feel of a piece.

Encore

The induction of the Electric Light Orchestra—specifically, the group leader Jeff Lynne, the keyboardist Richard Tandy, and the drummer Bev Bevan—into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is long overdue.

But the inclusion of Roy Wood, who left midway through the band’s second album (long before it hit its multi-platinum stride) is puzzling, especially given the exclusion of the violinist Mik Kaminski, the cellists Hugh McDowell and Melvyn Gale, and the late bassist-vocalist Kelly Groucutt.

Electric Light Orchestra in 1975. Michael Putland/Getty Images

Admittedly, Kaminski, McDowell, and Gale contributed little to the group’s recordings, and they were frequently inaudible onstage (victims of primitive ’70s technology). But their showmanship was as much a part of ELO’s live presentation as the lasers or the famous Tour ’78 spaceship set. And Groucutt, who sang harmonies and occasional lead vocals on the albums and more of both live, was downright crucial. Could Lynne, Tandy, and Bevan have accomplished what they did without him? Maybe. But they didn’t. —A.O.