Rockin' it in Cleveland

I've been to the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Hitsville USA (now the Motown Historical Museum) in Detroit, the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville -- and now I can say I've been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

During our recent road trip, Simone and I found ourselves far enough ahead of schedule to make a spur-of-the-moment side trip to Cleveland. Instead of bearing down and arriving late and tired in Pittsburgh last Saturday, we opted to leave the Ohio Turnpike and headed for the big city on the shores of Lake Erie. What a cool thing it turned out to be.

From our heavily discounted hotel room on Lakeside, the main drag downtown, we walked to the Rock and Roll Museum in 10 minutes and spent three hours there, leaving reluctantly at the 9 pm closing time. I could have easily spent twice as much time. Tickets were $22 each but even in that short time, I felt I got my money's worth.

For one thing, it's spacious and well organized. There was a special exhibit dedicated to all things Bruce Springsteen. But, really, the exhibits feature a little of everything -- handwritten compositions of hit songs, vintage posters and playbills, musicians' instruments, stage clothing, and plenty of interactive stations where you could use touch-screen technology to select audio samples by year, artist, genre.

At the risk of sounding like a starry-eyed groupie, I can say some of the cool items on display included: John Lennon's piano and grade school report card; Steven Tyler's scarf-draped microphone stand; Mick Jagger's outrageous stage outfits; Darryl “DMC” McDaniels' black eyeglass frames; Elvis Presley's high school ROTC certificate and one of his hideous Vegas-era outfits; and a collection of Stevie Nicks' concert dresses. Very classy.

What was striking about so many performers -- judging from their clothes -- is how small and trim they were (or are). Among them: Lionel Richie, Rick James and two sidemen from Santana -- percussionist Michael Carabello and bass player Dave Brown, both part of the band's searing performance at Woodstock.

For another thing, most of the featured music and artists speak to my generation. Sure, I was a little kid when the doo-wop sound was in vogue and I was born too early to appreciate many of the pioneering black artists like Robert Johnson and Howling Wolf. But I could totally relate to the exhibits that highlighted the artists and styles that characterized the British Invasion (The Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Animals...); Motown (The Temptations, Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Steve Wonder...); the San Francisco sound (Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Quicksilver Messenger Service...); and the L.A. club scene (The Byrds, Poco, The Eagles, Jackson Browne...).

Of course, there was more. The Seattle grunge and New York/London punk scenes and exhibits pointing out the similarities between black gospel music and country music ("the white man's blues").

The building itself, designed by architect I.M. Pei, is striking, and with 55,000 square feet of exhibit space, there's plenty of room for permanent and temporary exhibits. Obviously, the museum has had a huge economic impact for Cleveland, a distressed city that could use the help. If you get a chance to go, don't pass it up.