Twenty one recordings were added to the American Recoding Academy’s Grammy Hall Of Fame last week, including Led Zeppelin's ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and Petula Clark's hit ‘Downtown’. Most of the recordings added this time round come from the sixties and seventies – organisers sensibly reckoning a certain distance in time is required before a track or album can be deemed truly ‘classic’.
"The purpose of the hall of fame is to spotlight recorded musical masterpieces that have significantly impacted our musical history," Recording Academy president Neil Portnow told reporters. "This year's selections are outstanding recordings and compositions of social significance that uniquely represent pieces of our country's cultural history."
Tracks from the sixties included: Peter, Paul and Mary's ‘Blowin' in the Wind’, Judy Collins' ‘Both Sides Now’, Henry Mancini's film theme ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ and the aforementioned ‘Downtown’.
Eleven recordings from the 1970s were inducted including: Eagles' ‘Hotel California’, Carole King's hit ‘It's Too Late’, Bruce Springsteen's album ‘Born to Run’, Ike & Tina Turner's version of ‘Proud Mary’, Paul Simon's album ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’, Elton John's double album ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, and Fleetwood Mac's album ‘Rumours’.
Older additions this time round include: Ethel Waters' 1933 version of ‘Stormy Weather’, jazz legend Thelonious Monk's 1949 album ‘The Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1 & 2’, the New York Philharmonic's 1956 recording of 'Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 99’ and the Flamingos' 1959 single ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’.