Donna Summer
3
Donna Summers presents a bit of a dilemna. The issue of what qualifies as Rock and Roll has been contentious and plagued the Hall of Fame from the beginning. They have from the start acknowledged Rock and Roll's debt to R&B and Soul (and Blues and Country and even Miles Davis) as it was practiced in the 50's and 60's but are now having to come to terms with acceptance of the later day developments of those forms and consider Funk, Disco, and Rap/Hip Hop. It seems that they have tended to take the broadest possible view and included early rapper Grand Master Flash last year. Donna Summer would be the first exclusively Disco icon to make it (for The Bee Gees arguably disco was a phase, albeit their most successful phase). And her inclusion would be warranted by her domination of the charts in the late 70's early 80's. But the Hall is signalling then that their musical purpose is essentially the Pop Top 40 Hall of Fame and twenty years from now there will no doubt be nominees like Britney Spears, Akon, Eminem and Backstreet Boys on the ballot.
