Cleveland rocks, if you haven’t heard.
The travel trip to take this December is straight to the the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The venerated museum will host two special events that explore the relationship between war and music. The 150,000 square-foot Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, located in Cleveland’s rapidly developing North Coast Harbor, is home to major artifact collections, four state-of-the-art theaters, and year-round educational and concert programming.
On Thursday, December 3 at 7 p.m., authors Doug Bradley and Craig Werner will discuss their newest book, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War.
In this book, a new and unique light is cast on the music of the 1960s, 272 pages of anecdotes and first hand accounts of how popular music was at the center of American experience in Vietnam. For some vets, folk group County Joe & The Fish’s song “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die” was pivotal. For others it was Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools.” Or Creedence Clearwater Revival’s scathing “Fortunate Son.” The authors reveal how embedded music in the war years was and how it helps heal psychic wounds. The book includes the voices, often in the form of solos composed specially for this book, of many of the most prominent writers and musicians who have contributed to the story, among them Eric Burdon, Country Joe (of Country Joe and the Fish), James Brown, John Fogerty, and Bruce Springsteen.
This event will take place in the Museum’s Foster Theater and is free with a reservation through the Rock Hall website at or at the Rock Hall Box Office. Seating is limited. The event will also be live streamed at rockhall.com.
Then on Wednesday, December 16 at 7 p.m., the Rock Hall’s education department will host an evening spotlighting Rock Hall inductee Bill Graham.
As a young boy, concert promoter and artist manager Bill Graham (born Wulf Wolodia Grajonca in Berlin in 1931) lost his mother at Auschwitz. After being moved to orphanages in Berlin and France, he landed in the United States — one of the “One Thousand Children” who were rescued from Nazi Germany. After an early career spent working at hotels and restaurants in the Catskills, Graham moved to San Francisco and quickly revolutionized the rock music industry by instilling a new standard of professionalism to the business. Graham’s two groundbreaking venues – the Fillmore West and the Fillmore East – changed the face of rock music by booking bills that mingled jazz, blues, and folk artists with the psychedelic rock bands of the day. Graham was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
This event is free of charge with a reservation through the Rock Hall website or at the Rock Hall Box Office. Seating is limited. The program is presented in conjunction with Violins of Hope Cleveland, a community-wide collaboration that aims to inform, educate and inspire Northeast Ohio residents. For more information, please visit violinsofhopecle.org.
Open seven days a week, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s mission is to engage, teach and inspire through the power of rock and roll. The institution carries out its mission by giving voice to the stories of the people, artifacts and events that shaped rock and roll — through Museum exhibits, materials in the Museum’s Library and Archives, traveling exhibitions, and a wide array of innovative educational programs and activities.
Museum admission is $22 for adults, $18 for adult residents of Greater Cleveland, $17 for seniors (65+), $13 for youth (9-12), children under 8 are free. A 6% Admission Tax that goes to support Cleveland Metropolitan Schools is added to each ticket at purchase. Museum Members are always admitted free, for information or to join the membership program call 216.515.8425.