The 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony will feature Cher and Mary J. Blige

CLEVELAND (AP) – The Rock & Roll Hall Fame Induction Saturday night's ceremony promises to be starry, exciting – and bittersweet. So many of the award winners were lost this time.

Of the seven original members of Kool and the gang, There is only one, Robert “Kool” Bell. There will be no living members of the MC5, which recently suffered the deaths of its last two original members, drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson and guitarist and vocalist Wayne Kramer.Foreigner Original bassist Ed Gagliardi and multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald have died and guitarist Mick Jones is out due to Parkinson's disease. A tribe called Quest Phife Dawg lost.

“I wish George was here and the rest of the other gentlemen – the other original members – because they very much deserve this recognition,” said Hahn Brown, widow of the Kool & the Gang drummer and songwriter George Brown, who died in 2023.

In many ways, the vintage of 2024 is one of them Peter Frampton,Cher,Mary J. Blige, Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Matthews Band, the late Jimmy Buffett, Dionne Warwick and the late Alexis Korner, the late John Mayall and the late Big Mama Thornton – is a catch-up class for reflection Fluctuation in the hall management.

“In recent years there has been a shift from some of the old guard to artists like Rush and Kiss, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Randy Rhodes, the MC5 and Judas Priest. While that may not have been the case before,” says Tom Morello, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame guitarist for bands like Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave.

Morello recalls raising the issue of membership with Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen's manager and former Rolling Stone critic and then chairman of the nominating committee.

He told him, “Me and my friends don't think much about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame because none of our favorite bands are in it.”

Now there will be a band that has long represented Morello, the MC5, which paved the way for the Stooges, the Ramones, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down.

Saturday's induction ceremony will take place at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland. It will be streamed live on Disney+. A special featuring performance highlights and standout moments will air January 1 on ABC.

Cher – the only artist to have a No. 1 song in each of the last six decades – and Blige, with eight multi-platinum albums and nine Grammy awards, will help increase the number of women in the hall, which, according to critics, is also low.

Artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years before being considered for inclusion. More than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals voted on the nominees.

There was a brilliant push to bring Foreigner – with hits “Urgent” and “Hot Blooded” – into the hall, with Mark Ronson, Jack Black, Slash, Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney publicly supports the move. Ronson's stepfather is Mick Jones, founding member, songwriter and lead guitarist of Foreigner.

Warwick will arrive at the ceremony just days after attending a memorial service for her longtime friend and co-worker, Cissy Houstonin Newark, New Jersey. Jennifer Hudson and Teyana Taylor will help her launch.

Other members of the rock, pop and hip-hop elite will be on site to introduce the lessons Busta Rhymes, Dr. Dre, Demi Lovato,Dua Lipa, Ella Mai, James Taylor, Jelly Roll, Julia Roberts, Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney, Lucky Daye, Mac McAnally, Method Man, Roger Daltrey, Sammy Hagar, Slash and The Roots.