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was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame March 2004 Bruce Springsteen inducted Jackson Browne into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 
"I first met Jackson Browne in the early seventies. It was at the Bitter End. I was brought down there by David Blue, a folk singer, after a set I did at Max's Kansas City. On David Blue's word, Jackson was kind enough to let somebody he'd just met get up on stage and play a song during his set. I watched Jackson play. That night he was accompanied by his great sideman, David Lindley. As I listened that night I knew that this guy was simply one of the best. Each song was like a diamond and my first thought was 'damn, he's good.' My second thought was 'I need less words.' The emotions of all the music was right out there on the sleeve and I've remained a major, major fan since then. I remember watching him that night and he was kind of quintessentially California, right down to, like, the lost surfer haircut; good lookin' guy, great songwriter and we became pretty friendly. So over the next few years, Jackson was gracious enough to let me open up at several of his gigs. Now being a little competitive, the first thing I noticed was Jackson didn't have much of a show. He just stood there in the baggy jeans and the t-shirt, singing his serious songs. That was it. Being a little competitive, I also noticed that Jackson drew and enormous amount of good looking women. Great lookin' women who stood there staring at the stage, entranced. His hair was perfect. And that was something I aspired to myself. Both the hair and the women. 
So, tonight this is an unlooked-at part of Jackson's work that I'd like to focus on for a moment. The great songwriting? Alright. I could deal with that. I don't need to stand here tonight and dwell on the obvious. But the gals that came to the show! Ya see, what most people don't realize, and for me this was a big part of Jackson's rock 'n' roll credentials, was that Jackson Browne was a bona fide rock 'n' roll sex star. And my wife says he still is. He tried to hide it but not too much, I guess. Now, being a little competitive, I also noticed that while the E Street Band and I were sweatin' our asses off for hours just to put some fannies in the seats, that obviously due to what must have been some strong homo-erotic undercurrent in our music, we were drawing rooms filled with men. Not that great lookin' men either. Meanwhile, Jackson is drawing more women than an Indigo Girls show. It's true that Jackson wrote some of the most beautiful breakin' up music, break your heart music of all: Sky Blue and Black, Linda Paloma, In The Shape of a Heart. I think that what drew women to Jackson, besides the obvious, was that they finally felt they were listening to a guy who knew as much about love as they did. And what drew men to Jackson, besidesthe obvious, I guess, was that when they listened to him, they realized they knew more about love than they thought they did. 
In seventies, post-Vietnam America, there was no album that captured the fall from Eden, the long, slow after-burn of the sixties; it's heartbreak, it's disappointments, it's spent possibilities better than Jackson's masterpiece, Late For the Sky. It's just a beautiful body of work. It's essential in making sense of the times. Before the Deluge still gives me goosebumps and it raises me to cause. Late For the Sky, when those car doors slam at the end of the record, they still bring tears. And there was no more searching, yearning, loving music made for and about America at the time. In this and so much of Jackson's writing, the slow meticulous crafting of the songs, the thoughtfulness. Jackson was one of the first songwriters I met who demonstrated the value of thinking hard about what you were saying, your subject. The Pretender, These Days, For Everyman, I'm Alive, Fountain of Sorrow, Running on Empty, For a Dancer, Before the Deluge, now, I know the Eagles got in first, but, let's face it, and I think Don Henley would agree with me, these are the songs they wish they'd written. I wish I'd written them myself, along with Like A Rolling Stone and Satisfaction. 
But, uh, Jackson's influence and his voice has always been his own. He's one of the true activist musicians I've ever known. World In Motion, Looking East, Lives In the Balance, he followed his muse wherever it took him. Risked his, and he paid whatever the cost. He's long put his mouth, his money, and his body where his politics are. Lives In The Balance sounds more urgent today than it ever did. The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, they gave us California as paradise and Jackson Browne gave us Paradise Lost. Now I always imagine, what if Brian Wilson, long after he'd taken a bite of that orange the serpent offered to him, what if he married that nice girl in Caroline No, I always figured that she was pregnant anyway, and what if he moved into the valley and had two sons? One of them would have looked and sounded just like Jackson Browne. Cain, of course, would have been Jackson's brother in arms, Warren Zevon. We love ya, Warren. But, Jackson to me, Jackson was always the tempered voice of Abel. Toiling in the vineyards, here to bear the earthly burdens, confronting the impossibility of love, here to do his father's work. Jackson's work was really California pop gospel. 
Listen to the chord changes of Rock Me On the Water and Before the Deluge, it's gospel through and through. Now I always thought that in our fall from Eden, besides the strains of physicality and the bearing of earthly burdens, our real earthly task was that an unbridgeable gap, or a black hole was opened up in our ability to truly love one another. And so our job here on earth, the way we regain our divinity, our sacredness, and our general good-standing is by reconstructing love and creating love out of the broken pieces that we've been given. That's all we have of human promise. That's the way we prove ourselves in the eyes of God and facilitate our own redemption. Now, to me Jackson Browne's work was always the sound of that reconstruction. So as he writes in The Pretender: We'll put our dark glasses on, and we'll make love until our strength is gone, and when the morning light comes streamin' in, we'll get up and do it again. Amen. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming my very handsome friend, Jackson Browne into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame." Jackson Browne's Acceptance Speech: I'd like to thank my mother and father who brought me up in a house filled with music and books. And my sisters and my brother who taught me to play piano and allowed me to sort of appropriate his piano style. I feel fortunate to grow up in the bosom of a bunch of friends and musicians; people who all wrote, who all learned each other's songs and my songs and sang them back to me. I'd like to thank Lowell George and the great California band Little Feat who was always a sort of mentor, not only to me, but to so many of our other friends. Warren Zevon who was a person, a hero of mine, who I learned so much from by being allowed to work with him. J.D. Souther, Don Henley and Glenn Frey who I spent a lot of time singing with. I'd like to thank David Geffen who believed in my songs. I'd like to thank David Crosby who agreed to come and sing on my first record,and who sang on so many of my best songs. And Graham Nash, who joined him in doing that and who became, along with my great friend, one of my best all-time friends, Bonnie Raitt, a co-conspirator in political activism. In using, in trying to harness popular music as a force for social change. I'd like to thank Jon Landau for the work he did on my "Pretender" record. I'd like to thank all the deejays and people in radio; self-empowered people who played what they wanted to play, and played me. I want to thank you for that. There are so many musicians I feel so fortunate to have played with; chief among them would be my long-time collaborator and musical mentor, David Lindley. I'd like to thank the various people who have helped me raise my children. I would also like to thank my partner of 12 years, my beautiful, my stunning mystery companion, Dianna Cohen. There's something I'm quoted as having said in your program and when I'm often asked about music and politics and I answer and it's actually not something I said. It's something Little Steven said, and something which I generally give him credit for it when I do say it. But for some reason tonight he's not credited in this book. But it's something he's said: "What is more personal than your politics?" I want to thank you for allowing me to put my personal politics in, inside the songs and for listening to them, for hearing them. They say that music is a very empowering thing. I'm happy to have had a lifetime doing it. Thank you for this job and thank you for this honor. Thank you to Mary for transcribing the speech and submitting it to this site. Prince Dances Into Rock and Roll Hall By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - Prince burst into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Monday with some blistering funk, joined by the regional stew of Bob Seger's heartland rock, ZZ Top's Texas boogie and Jackson Browne's California smoothness. George Harrison became the third ex-Beatle inducted for his solo work. British jam band Traffic and the '50s harmony group the Dells were also honored. It was clearly Prince's night, though, as he opened the ceremony with a trio of 1980s hits and came out later to upstage Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Harrison's son, Dhani, on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Dressed in a white suit and displaying nimble dance steps, Prince performed three songs that caught the breadth of his work: the rock anthem "Let's Go Crazy," the topical "Sign O' the Times" and funk groove of "Kiss." 
A restless perfectionist, the Minneapolis-based singer often played every instrument on his discs. He said he was preoccupied early in his career with maintaining his freedom. "I embarked on a journey more fascinating than I could ever imagine, but a word to the wise to the young artists Ñ without spiritual guidance too much freedom can lead to spiritual decline," he said. He also warned youthful musicians: "A real friend and mentor is not on your payroll." Chart-topping rappers OutKast and soulful singer Alicia Keys both cited Prince as influences. "There are many kings," Keys said. "King Henry VIII, King Solomon, King Tut, King James, King Kong and the three kings. But there is only one Prince." Browne co-wrote "Take it Easy" for the Eagles, then was successful on his own with "Doctor My Eyes," "The Pretender" and "Running on Empty," chronicling the turn of the 1960s utopian dream into the cynical '70s. The "No Nukes" concert organizer has mixed the political with the personal throughout his career. 
"I want to thank you for allowing me to put my personal politics in my songs," he said. "Music is a very empowering thing. I'm thankful for having had a lifetime doing it. Thank you for this job." Bruce Springsteen inducted Brown, noting with some jealousy that while he and his E Street Band usually drew an audience filled with men Ñ and not particularly good-looking men Ñ Browne was a magnet for women. Springsteen called Browne a "bona fide rock 'n' roll sex star." "Jackson was drawing more women than an Indigo Girls show," Springsteen said. Browne performed "The Pretender," paused to thank his manager, then sang "Running on Empty." Seger, who still lives in the Detroit area, burst from regional to national fame with the hits "Night Moves," "Old Time Rock & Roll" and "Like a Rock," the latter a longtime Chevy commercial theme. Fellow Michigan singer Kid Rock inducted Seger, calling him one of music's most overlooked performers. In the Detroit area, Seger is God, Rock said. "Bob Seger's music not only influenced me, it taught me to be proud of where I come from. I still am," he said. "He set the bar for all of us who came from the Midwest." Seger brought up his Silver Bullet Band for their first public performance in nine years. They sang "Turn the Page" and the wedding staple, "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll." Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, two fellow members of the Traveling Wilburys, were on hand to salute Harrison. The guitarist joins John Lennon and Paul McCartney as Beatles also honored for their solo work. Harrison's biggest hit, "My Sweet Lord," came in a burst of pent-up creativity following the Beatles' breakup. He recorded infrequently in the decade before his November 2001 cancer death, but a well-received posthumous disc came out in 2002. 
"He often said he wasn't pursuing a solo career," Petty said. "He never hired a manager or an agent. He just loved playing music with his friends." For all his solo albums, he was saluted with two group efforts, the Traveling Wilburys tune, "Handle With Care," and the Beatles song, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Hirsute blues-rockers ZZ Top were an early MTV staple with the boogie hits, "Legs" and "Sharp-Dressed Man," helped by the presence of little-dressed women in their videos. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards gave a semi-coherent induction speech, praising the band's consistency and longevity. Richards wore a colorful headband and what appeared to be a collection of jewelry and fishing lures hanging from his hair. Traffic featured teen prodigy organist Steve Winwood, who later went on to solo success. The pastoral, jazzy Traffic had hits with "Glad" and "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys." Although former Traffic member Dave Mason was inducted, he didn't perform with the band. The Dells, a vocal harmony quintet that hit with "Oh What a Night" in 1955, were the inspiration for the film "The Five Heartbeats." With only one personnel change, a group formed in high school is still performing together more than 50 years later. Dells member Chuck Barksdale said he hoped the hall would open its doors to other vocal groups, like the O'Jays, the Manhattans and the Whispers. Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner also received a lifetime achievement award. |