Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announces 2024 nominees, many have Nashville ties

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has announced 15 nominees for its class of 2024.

However, unlike recent years when Country Music Hall of Famers Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson were inducted, 2024 will not see a continuation of that movement.

2024's nominees are:

• A Tribe Called Quest

• Mary J. Blige

• Mariah Carey

• Cher

• Dave Matthews Band

• Eric B. & Rakim

• Foreigner

• Peter Frampton

• Jane's Addiction

• Kool & the Gang

• Lenny Kravitz

• Oasis

• Ozzy Osbourne

• Sinead O'Connor

• Sade

Though none of those 15 artists have direct roots in Nashville's Americana and country-driven success, there are multiple times 2024's nominees have had significant moments in Music City.

Carey, Cher, Foreigner, Frampton, Kool & the Gang, Kravitz, Oasis, O'Connor, Osbourne and Sade are first-time nominees.

To be eligible for nomination, an individual artist or band must have released its first commercial recording at least 25 years before the year of nomination.

Osbourne was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 as a member of Black Sabbath.

The Class of 2024 will be announced in late April and formally enshrined during an induction ceremony held in Cleveland this fall. Inductees will be determined by an international voting body of 1,000 artists, historians, and music industry members, plus a fan vote on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's website.

The induction ceremony will stream live on Disney+. Following its premiere, it will be available on Hulu and will receive a special broadcast airing on ABC.

Rock Hall at the Ryman

Related – and notable – the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has a sister venue relationship established with Nashville's Ryman Auditorium. The space earned a Rock Hall landmark dedication, joining an elite list of historic rooms that includes Austin City Limits and Los Angeles' Whiskey a Go Go.

Currently, the venue is the winter home of Johnny Cash's "The Highwaymen"-era tour bus. The "Rock Hall at the Ryman" attraction can be accessed by all who purchase a Ryman daytime tour ticket.

Artifacts from James Brown, Luke Combs, the Foo Fighters, Mickey Guyton, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley and Billy Strings are among many present in The Ryman.

Acts coming to or recently in Nashville

Cher appeared with Sonny Bono twice in Music City (once at the Municipal Auditorium and at the Tennessee State Fair at Nashville's Fairgrounds) in 1973. As a performer, her most recent Nashville appearance was at Bridgestone Arena as a headlining act five years ago. Most recently, "The Cher Show" – a touring, Tony Award-winning musical that delves into the "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" vocalist's six-decade career played at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Jane's Addiction opened for Smashing Pumpkins at Bridgestone Arena in Oct. 2023.

The "Been Caught Stealing" performers' first major Nashville gig was at The Cannery 35 years ago in support of Iggy Pop.

Dave Matthews Band brought "deep cuts and good vibes" to Bridgestone Arena as recently as May 2023.

The two-and-one-half-hour set highlighted more than three-quarters of the songs played as being no shorter than six minutes. Zac Brown joined Matthews for "a particularly inspired" take on Jimi Hendrix's five-decade-old version of Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower."

After five decades together, British-American rock act Foreigner's farewell tour will visit Nashville's Ascend Amphitheater on July 12, 2024. The "I Wanna Know What Love Is" performers also released "Foreigner: Rockin' at the Ryman" in 2011, a TV special taken from a two-hour concert recorded a year prior.

Hip-hop pioneers

As hip-hop culture's crossover achieved a decade of popularity between 1987 and 1996, Eric B. and Rakim and A Tribe Called Quest appeared in Nashville.

The former's Dec. 1987 appearance on a Municipal Auditorium holiday triple-headlining billing with Public Enemy and Eazy E caused a tragic riot that, as the New York Times notes, killed two teenagers in a crush at the venue's exits.

In 1996, A Tribe Called Quest appeared at MTV's Smokin' Grooves Tour (with Ziggy Marley, The Fugees and Busta Rhymes) at the now-defunct Starwood Amphitheater.

Soul icons' influence

Country favorites like Missouri-born Grand Ole Opry member Sara Evans count Mariah Carey's vocal stylings as a critical influence.

"I'd put on her records and try to [mimic] everything she did," stated the "Suds In The Bucket" vocalist. Carey's debut album, featuring the quartet of No. 1 hits "Vision of Love," "Love Takes Time," "Someday" and "I Don't Wanna Cry," was released when she was a 19-year-old aspiring country star waiting tables in Nashville.

"Putting on [Mariah Carey] records to achieve everything she did vocally upped my game."

Sade's work in Nashville has included appearing at Bridgestone Arena while touring her "Soldier of Love" album in a co-billing with John Legend in 2011.

As for Mary J. Blige? Two years after Sade and Legend appeared at Bridgestone, 2013 saw the "Real Love" performer appear alongside Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles to perform "Do You Hear What I Hear" and "Winter Wonderland" on the Country Music Association's annual Christmas special. Nine years later, Blige appeared with openers Ella Mai and Queen Naija at Bridgestone Arena on Oct. 26, 2022.

Soulful funk and rock pioneers in music city

Lenny Kravitz can count performing "American Woman" onstage at 2013's CMT Awards at Bridgestone Arena among his many groundbreaking career moments.

"I've always got that little butterfly for two seconds," Kravitz told CMT before taking the stage. "But this is what I do, and it feels natural. It's a whole new crowd."

"You know, I've always had influences of country in my music, back to [1995's] 'Can't Get You Off My Mind' and songs like that. Country and rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues all work together so well."

Aside from My Morning Jacket playing a memorable version of "Get Down On It" at Bonnaroo in 2008, Kool and the Gang's smooth funk has an intriguing and varied Nashville lineage.

The band appeared at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in 2022 and opened for Van Halen at Bridgestone Arena in 2012. However, get engaged in a long conversation with Country Music Hall of Famer Marty Stuart and at a gig when he was a teenager -- alongside Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris and acts like Canned Heat, Chick Correa, The Eagles, REO Speedwagon, Quicksilver and Kool and the Gang, he and bluegrass legend Lester Flatt played nine encores after a 45-minute set in 1973.

70s and 80s pop/rock favorites with deep performance ties

Peter Frampton most recently appeared in Nashville in Nov. 2023 at the Ryman Auditorium. After spending ten weeks on top of the Billboard charts via his 1976 album "Frampton Comes Alive," Frampton's roller-coaster career briefly landed him in Music City in the 1990s.

He returned more significantly in the 2010s.

At present, his Studio Phenix space in Berry Hills has yielded two albums: "All Blues" (2019) and "Frampton Forgets the Words," a 2021 collection of instrumental cover tracks.

"You're never at a loss for help in this town, musically. It is a musician's [and] a songwriter's playground. People are great here," stated Frampton to The Tennessean in a 2020 interview.

Insofar as Ozzy Osbourne, during his triple-platinum album-selling, top-20 charting "Bark At The Moon" era of success, toured alongside then-breakout heavy metal act Motley Crue, visiting the Municipal Auditorium in May 1984.

However, in 2019, upon retiring as Municipal Auditorium's General Manager, Bob Skoney recalled to the Tennessean a night six years before his solo headlining set when, while still fronting Black Sabbath (with Van Halen opening), Osbourne "vanished."

He recalls learning the following day that Osbourne had gone to the wrong room in his Nashville hotel. After a housekeeper let him in, he immediately fell asleep.

"[Fans piled chairs] in a heap in the middle of the room. Here come trash cans from the balcony; they're throwing them down on the floor. They tried to [set stage curtains on fire]...they sure wreaked some havoc."

1990s-era superstars play unexpected Music City gigs

On Mar. 26, 2006, British rock favorites Oasis played at the Ryman Auditorium in support of their sixth studio album, "Don't Believe the Truth."

Noel Gallagher returned to the venue as a solo act a decade later, but in 2006, the Ryman gig was part of an era where the "Don't Look Back In Anger" band visited 26 countries and headlined 113 shows for over 3.2 million people. A rockumentary film made during the tour, entitled "Lord Don't Slow Me Down," was released in October 2007.

Pop icon Sinead O'Connor was scheduled to play a two-night stand at Nashville's City Winery in March 2020. However, the "Nothing Compares 2 U" performer and social activist's set was canceled by the onset of COVID-19.

Insofar as her other notable Nashville roots, Willie Nelson's 1993 album "Across The Borderline" featured the unexpected tandem recording of a version of her duet with Peter Gabriel on "Don't Give Up." Moreover, O'Connor re-recorded Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" in 1995. And in 2003, a pair of songs -- a take on Dolly Parton's "Dagger Through the Heart" and a version of The Everly Brothers' "Love Hurts."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announces 2024 nominees, many have Nashville ties