DavesMusicDatabase.com is devoted to ranking, rating, and reviewing music of all genres and eras. The DMDB blog serves up album and song reviews, best-of lists, music history snapshots, and music-related essays.
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The website offers little explanation of the Hall, including when it began or if it is even still operational, but acknowledges is neither has a building nor gives actual tangible awards to inductees. Categories include artists, songs, session players, writers, publishers, sidemen, background vocals, producers, and humor. Inductees in the “artists” category are listed below. See other Hall of Fames.
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First posted 10/27/2012; last updated 5/5/2022. |
Live at the Apollo |
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Recorded: October 24, 1962 Released: May 1963 Charted: June 29, 1963 Peak: 2 US Sales (in millions): 1.0 Genre: R&B |
Tracks:Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
Note: chart peaks are for studio versions. Total Running Time: 27:23 |
Rating: 4.473 out of 5.00 (average of 25 ratings)
Quotable:“There is no more exciting document of live performance in the history of R&B.” – Barney Hoskyns, Amazon.comAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
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Doing Justice to the Genius of James BrownJames Brown is now widely acclaimed as “The Godfather of Soul,” but at the time of this album’s release, he was “still widely unknown outside the African-American community.” JD Apollo “predates the brittle but powerful funk grooves which would later make Brown the most sampled man in show business and focuses on his earlier and (relatively) more conventional hits, the building blocks of his pioneering sound are all here in high-octane live versions.” AMThe album “not only gave Brown national prominence in America, it also made clear the arrival of soul music.” CM “Soul had grown out of traditional gospel and 1950s R&B, and it combined the devotion of church music and the looming desires of secular grooves. With his mastery of the call and response style and his seditious tone…Brown was the preacher ready to minister to more than just souls.” CM “By the end of these thirty-two minutes, no one will doubt that James really was the hardest working man in show business (and this without even seeing him dance!).” AM Even though “you can’t see what Brown…was doing…the audience’s response….make it all easy to imagine.” CM “There is no more exciting document of live performance in the history of R&B.” AZ In fact, it is “one of the most thrilling live albums in pop history.” TM It has gone “down in history as one of the best live albums ever made.” JD Brown Bets on HimselfHis studio albums failed to do “justice to his dynamic performance style” NRR so Brown, inspired by the top-20 success of Ray Charles’ live In Person album, TB asked his record label to record one of his shows. Syd Nathan, the founder of King Records, “refused, arguing that no live record could sell without an accompanying single.” TM knowing “his live performances contained electricity unable to be reproduced in the studio,” RV Brown bankrolled the project himself, TL putting up $5700 “to finance the recording at the end of a week’s residency in the legendary Harlem Apollo.” TBWhen Nathan heard the results, he relented and agreed to release Live at the Apollo, TM although an initial pressing of only 5000 copies TB made it clear he was still skeptical. However, “demand became so great…that DJs played the album in its entirety.” TL It ended up on the Billboard charts for more than a year, peaking at #2 and selling a million copies. It became “a watershed album, both for James Brown and for the burgeoning soul music movement.” AM Capturing Him LiveHarlem’s Apollo Theater was “the ultimate shrine of black American music.” AZ “Like many R&B artists, he knew it as a place where even seasoned performers are tested, and knew…that positive word of mouth from the show would travel everywhere.” TM “Brown doesn’t merely tame the notoriously fickle Apollo crowd” TM of “approximately 1500 deliriously elevated fans;” CM “he blows them clear to the red-velvet back wall of the theater.” TM“The Apollo audience, hysterical with adulation, plays as big a part in Live at the Apollo as Brown himself.” AZ This “seminal live recording [now stands as] a time capsule documenting the latter days of the Chitlin’ Circuit and an album that influenced countless artists across genres. It’s equal parts Saturday at the juke joint, Sunday sermon and last dance of the night.” PM “Hearing Brown’s emotive style and soulful crooning elicit both fevered screams and intense concentration from the Apollo audience showcases the raw power of ‘Mr. Dynamite’ at his dynamic best.” PM He “puts on a flawless show of dynamism that lost nothing in the transfer to vinyl.” TL The BandBrown is “helped immeasurably by backing vocalists the Famous Flames, who cushion and caterwaul…and a backing band…who had been honed by years on the road with their fearsomely disciplined leader.” CM They are “in stellar form, tight as a fist (especially the horn section) and supporting their leader with both strength and subtlety,” AM moving “like a single organism, with the horns ‘answering’ Brown’s guttural moans and bone-rattling wails, the bass and the rhythm guitar prompting an impossible-to resist swaying of the hips, and the tight snare drum hits on two and four sweeping us up, hypnotizing us, and virtually reprogramming our heartbeats in time with Brown’s.” JD“Individual members shine through, whether it’s the alternately sighing and slashing guitar chords of Les Buie or the rousing rhythms that Clayton Fillyau produces for the intoxicating ‘Think.’” CM Through it all, though, “Brown is truly the star of this show.” AM “Live at the Apollo left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was a live performer without peer, and that his talent could communicate just as strongly on tape as in person.” AM
The Songs“The album seems like one continuous medley – Brown follows hit after hit with staggering verve.” RV “The set contains only six full songs, and most of those clock in at under two minutes.” JD “Deftly swinging from up-tempo grooves to romantic ballads (albeit delivered with Brown’s typically abundant enthusiasm),” JD Apollo “captures the sound of Brown baring his soul with an almost unbearable intensity, which drives the audience into a manic chorus of shouts and screams.” AM“In the two minutes of Think, Brown and his agile Famous Flames create a rippling wave of raw emotion.” TM The album also finds Brown “whirling together love ballads including I Found Someone.” TM On Please Please Please, Brown “offers a pleading epic on the vicissitudes of romance.” TM “The entire performance is linked by instrumental bridges as the band builds up to the big medley – a six-minute merger of bits and pieces…then hurtles through the frantic farewell of Night Train.” JD “Some listeners have suggested that the length of the recording and the effect of alternating the pounding, up-tempo grooves with the seductive slow jams evokes an expert session of lovemaking…One thing is for sure: The tone of the banter between Brown and the audience (especially the women) is positively orgasmic at times, as during” JD “the slow burn seduction of Lost Someone.” CM “The song builds with intensity until the bottom drops, a…move that sends the audience into hysterics.” RV and “is one of the most heart-stopping moments in soul.” AZ |
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First posted 10/24/2011; last updated 9/27/2024. |
Good Kid, m.A.A.d City |
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Released: October 22, 2012 Peak: 2 US, 11 RB, 16 UK, 2 CN, 23 AU Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.3 UK, -- world (includes US and UK) Genre: hip-hop |
Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts.
Total Running Time: 68:23 |
Rating: 4.339 out of 5.00 (average of 19 ratings)
Quotable: “Lamar is the James Joyce of hip-hop” – professor Adam Diehl, Georgia Regents University Awards: (Click on award to learn more).
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About the Album: All Music Guide’s David Jeffries called this the “biggest debut since [Nas’] Illmatic.” AMG It wasn’t really Lamar’s first outing. His Section.80 was independently released through Top Dawg Entertainment in 2011. A series of mixtapes followed which caught the attention of Aftermath and Interscope, leading to a major label record deal. Thanks to “cool and compelling lyrics, great guests,…and attractive production” AMG Good Kid, m.A.A.d City “would be a milestone even without the back-story.” AMG The album is Kendrick’s “story of growing up in Compton, surrounded by gunfire, gang warfare, police brutality, drugs, liquor, dead friends.” RS’20 He had “a film director’s eye for narrative but the voice of a poet;” RS’20 this was “like a West Coast answer to Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets.” RS’20 “It spawns a kind of elevated gangsta rap that’s as pimp-connectable as the most vicious Eazy-E, and yet poignant enough to blow the dust off any cracked soul.” AMG Lamar “goes for emotional detail instead of gangsta bravado.” RS’20 XXL’s Jaeki Cho called the album “one of the most cohesive bodies of work in recent rap memory.” WK It was “potent and smart enough to rise to the top of the pile” AMG both commercially and critically. It sold 242,000 copies in its first week and debuted at #2 on the Billboard album chart. It also landed four Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year and was named to many end-of-year lists, topping lists from BBC, Complex, New York, Pitchfork. WK In 2014, the album was studied as part of a Georgia Regents University composition class alongside works such as James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man. WK PopMatters’ David Amidon said the album offers a “sort of semi-autobiographical character arc.” WK Exclaim!’s Del F. Cowie says the album follows a transformation of Lamar’s character “from a boisterous, impressionable, girl-craving teenager to more spiritual, hard-fought adulthood, irrevocably shaped by the neighbourhood and familial bonds of his precarious environment.” WK That environment is Lamar’s native Compton. He has a “Springsteen-sized love for the home team,” AMG but is willing to address his “city’s plagued condition” WK and “harsh realities” WK through songs about “economic disenfranchisement, retributive gang violence, and downtrodden women while analayzing their residual effects on individual and families.” WK Swimming Pools (Drank) is a “cautionary tale” AMG about addiction which is “as hooky and hallucinatory as most Houston drank anthems.” AMG It “breaks off into one of the chilling, cassette-quality interludes that connect the album, adding to the documentary or eavesdropping quality of it all.” AMG “Soul children will experience déjà vu when Poetic Justice slides by with its Janet Jackson sample sounding like it came off his Aunt’s VHS copy of the movie it’s named after.” AMG The closing Compton is a “journey through the concrete jungle” AMG which “is worth taking because of the artistic richness within, plus the attraction of a whip-smart rapper flying high during his rookie season” AMG which also features Dre “in beast mode.” AMG “Any hesitation about the horror of it all is quickly wiped away by Kendrick’s mix of true talk, open heart, open mind, and extended hand.” AMG Notes: The deluxe edition added bonus tracks “The Recipe” with Dr. Dre, “Black Boy Fly,” and “Now Or Never” with Mary J. Blige. The iTunes deluxe edition also added “Collect Calls” with Kent Jamz and the single version of “Swimming Pools (Drank).” The Target deluxe edition and UK deluxe edition each included the first three tracks plus “County Building Blues” and the Black Hippy Remix of “Swimming Pools (Drank).” The Spotify deluxe edition included the first three tracks plus a Black Hippy Remix of “The Recipe” featuring Black Hippy. |
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First posted 10/13/2020; last updated 4/22/2022. |
 | Love Me DoThe Beatles |
Writer(s): John Lennon, Paul McCartney (see lyrics here) Released: October 5, 1962 First Charted: October 11, 1962 Peak: 11 US, 11 CB, 13 GR, 11 HR, 1 CL, 4 UK, 6 CN, 17 AU, 6 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 2.0 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 23.4 video, 100.0 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details. 
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About the Song:In 1958, a 16-year-old Paul McCartney skipped school and wrote most of the song “Love Me Do,” with his friend John Lennon helping out. SG After they formed the Beatles in 1962, they were signed to Parlophone Records in the UK on June 4. Two days later, they recorded “Love Me Do” at their first session. Producer George Martin was curious about the group and, as he said, “I spent an evening, afternoon, and evening with them in Abbey Roads Studio. I fell in love with them.” TC However, he said they didn’t yet show signs of being great songwriters. “The best they could offer me were pretty ordinary songs. I thought ‘Love Me Do’ was the best.” TC That first version had Pete Best on drums and didn’t see release until the Anthology collection in 1995. On September 4, the Beatles recorded the song again with new drummer Ringo Starr. Martin wasn’t satisfied and on September 11 they recorded again with session drummer Andy White while Starr played tambourine. In the UK, the Ringo Starr version was released as a single, but in the U.S. the single version and the one on the Please Please Me album was the one featuring White. “Love Me Do” marked the Beatles chart debut in the UK, reaching #17. When reissued 20 years later, it hit a new peak of #4. In the United States, when Beatlemania took off in 1964, the song charted as an import via the Canadian branch of Capitol Records. By May 30, the song had climbed to the pinnacle of the Billboard Hot 100. The song “has a tough R&B feel with a delicious pop melody” TC and sports “unearthly Everly Brothers-style Lennon/McCartney harmony singing” SG Its “hooks seem to bubble up naturally, as if they’d always existed. And it hinted at a future where this band would be perceived as something more than just a soundtrack to teenage-girl screaming.” SG The song is “a graceful lope, a sunny front-porch jam that would’ve sounded at home on the radio next to, say, Buck Owens’ speed-freak California country.” SG The harmonica – which John Lennon shoplifted in 1960 in Amsterdam – “is one of the things that makes the song,” SG echoing McCartney’s melodies. Lennon was inspired by Delbert McClinton’s playing on Bruce Channel’s song “Hey! Baby.” FB Resources:
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First posted 6/23/2022; last updated 9/19/2023. |
