Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame To be Injected with The Jersey Sound

Written By Mike Greenblatt

PHOTO: Robert Kool Bell

Kool & The Gang (Jersey City), Dionne Warwick (East Orange) and Mary J. Blige (Saddle River) will be feted at the 2024 Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony October 19 at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland:  Kool and Blige in the Performer Category, Warwick winning the “Musical Excellence” Award.

Robert “Kool” Bell, the last surviving original member of the band, told Andy Greene of Rolling Stone that he was overjoyed. “It’s been 60 years! We finally made it!” Bell will be seen in the upcoming feature film documentary, The Jersey Sound. The announcement came live on ABC-TV’s American Idol. Bell was watching. “We had a party,” he says. “I was here with friends at my house. When Lionel Richie said our name, we all sang `Celebration.’ It was like, `celebrate good times, come on!”

Fellow inductees in the Performer Category include Cher, the Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Ozzy Osbourne and A Tribe Called Quest. Others  winning the “Musical Excellence” Award are Jimmy Buffett, MC5 and Motown songwriter/producer Norman Whitfield. Alexis Korner, John Mayall and Big Mama Thornton win the “Musical Influence Award.” And Motown Executive/TV Producer Suzanne de Passe wins the Ahmet Ertegun Award. The event will be stream live on Disney+, air on ABC-TV at a later date and also be available on Hulu.

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Mike Greenblatt

MIKE GREENBLATT has been writing for Goldmine magazine and New Jersey's Aquarian Weekly for more than 35 years. His writing subjects fill the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He's interviewed Joe Cocker, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Carlos Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, and members of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. He was 18 when he attended Woodstock in 1969.

In addition to writing about music, Greenblatt has worked on publicity campaigns for The Animals, Pat Benatar, Johnny Winter, Tommy James and Richard Branson, among others. He is currently the editor of The Jersey Sound.

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