(MENAFN- Arab Times) LOS ANGELES April 18 (Agencies): Numbers matter more than usual this year at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame whose annual ceremony on April 18 marked 30 years of the Cleveland institution's induction tradition. The cliched rock 'n' roll attitude of diminishing trust for anything over 30 doesn't apply here where the overall effort for both the museum and the celebrated live and ultimately televised ceremony is all about taking stock of rock history and cementing legacies.
And then there is the magic No. 25 that's the number of years required after an artist's first album before they are eligible for induction. This year inductee Green Day the much-imitated pop-punk band has crossed the quarter-century mark. The Hall of Fame museum itself is 25 years old and it has been 25 years since the death of guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan one of several 2015 inductees in the posthumous category. Vaughan joins a sizable group that includes another influential blues-based band that left an indelible mark on the larger pop culture Paul Butterfield Blues Band (featuring the late riff-ready guitarist Mike Bloomfield). Lou Reed who died in 2013 and early R&B group the '5' Royales being given the Early Influence Award will also be missing. Spotlight Other inductees of the living kind include Ringo Starr (whose old bandmate Paul McCartney was to present the award) Joan Jett & the Blackhearts and spotlight-dodging pop-soul legend Bill Withers lured into a bright spotlight in Cleveland. 'We have a very eclectic make-up of people who have certain strengths in certain areas and certain deeper knowledge in certain areas' says Joel Peresman Hall of Fame Foundation president. 'You're always going to have people putting up artists from different genres and different times.' Of the larger showing of posthumous inductees this year Peresman says: 'With Lou Reed's passing it put that in the top of people's minds. Whether they're alive or dead really is irrelevant. The goal and the charge of the nominating committee is really to put people up that they feel have the legacy and the influence and the musical excellence to be inducted.' While Vaughan won't be showing up for the ceremony his band Double Trouble will play two songs 'Pride and Joy' and 'Texas Flood' with Vaughan's brother Jimmy and Doyle Bramhall Jr. joining the core band of bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Shannon says he thinks Vaughan 'would be honored' by the induction 'and I know he would want the band inducted too. We were like a family.' With Beck and Karen O. set to musically honor Reed and the Butterfield band to be represented by Zac Brown and Tom Morello the Hall of Fame has drawn on past experience offering spotlights to the deceased. Last year Nirvana minus the late Kurt Cobain kicked up dust with guest female vocalists at the microphone including this year's inductee Jett Kim Gordon Lorde and St. Vincent's Annie Clark. In 2013 Jennifer Hudson was the big-voiced surrogate for the late Donna Summer singing 'Bad Girls' and 'Last Dance' in a silver sequined dress. Also: KINGSTON Jamaica: Bahamian R&B singer Johnny Kemp who is best known for the hit song 'Just Got Paid' has died in Jamaica. He was 55. Jamaica police said Friday that Kemp was found floating at a beach in Montego Bay on Thursday morning. It had not yet been determined how he died. Police said Kemp arrived in Jamaica on a cruise ship but added that they did not have further details. Reach Media Inc. said Kemp had been scheduled to be on a Caribbean cruise this week but the US-based parent company of the 'Tom Joyner Morning Show' said it did not have further details. Kemp was nominated in 1989 for a Grammy Award for 'Just Got Paid' in a category that included Bobby Brown and Luther Vandross. The song was a No. 1 hit on the US Billboard R&B chart. Kemp appeared on a 2007 Keith Sweat DVD called 'Sweat Hotel Live' and had been performing at musical events across the US in recent years.
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