The first round of "Early Influences" is closed. There were 5 voters so a candidate needed 4 votes to be inducted. Here are the results:

INDUCTEES (votes)
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup (5)
Wynonie Harris (5)
Mills Brothers (5)
Roy Brown (4)
Amos Milburn (4)
Lucky Millinder (4)
Charley Patton (4)
Ravens (4)


NON-INDUCTEES (votes)
Tiny Bradshaw (3)
Joe Liggins (3)
Big Jay McNeely (3)
Roy Milton (3)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe (3)
Dixie Hummingbirds (2)
Julia Lee (2)

INDUCTEES SO FAR

EARLY INFLUENCES:
Roy Brown
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup
Wynonie Harris
Amos Milburn
Lucky Millinder
Mills Brothers
Charley Patton
Ravens


Moving on to the next era, artists who made their first record in the 1950s.

To be eligible for this category the artist has to have released his first record between 1950 and 1959 . Each voter is just going to vote YES or NO on each candidate. In order to be inducted the candidate has to get 2/3 of the vote. You can vote for all 15 candidates if you want to.

THIS ROUND WILL CLOSE ON SUNDAY FEB 10 at 10 PM EASTERN:

Here are the candidates:

Johnny Ace
Jesse Belvin
Johnny Burnette Trio
Jerry Butler
Chubby Checker
Clovers
Five Royales
Carole King
Cliff Richard
Jack Scott
Huey "Piano" Smith
Joe Tex
Billy Ward and the Dominoes
Larry Williams
Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller)

MY VOTES:

Johnny Ace
Jerry Butler
Chubby Checker
Clovers
Five Royales
Carole King
Cliff Richard
Huey "Piano" Smith
Joe Tex
Billy Ward and the Dominoes
Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller)

I'm guessing if Sampson had voted that we would have had several more inductees. I'm sure he would have voted for Liggins, McNeely, Milton and Tharpe, and possibly for Bradshaw. With 6 voters, a candidate stilll would have needed 4 votes to get in.

On my Hall Of Fame pages you can use anyone with a 7 or above as somebody I think is deserving of induction if you don't want to wait around for me to cast a ballot. For the Early Influences Tharpe and McNeely both got a nine, the Dixie Hummingbirds, Bradshaw, Lee and Liggins got eights, though the last two were borderline 7/8, not that it matters.

As for who got in, Crudup and the Mills Brothers would never get my votes.

General observation - people give way too much credit to blues acts and not enough to gospel.

(The numbers are for their qualification scores on the HOF pages)

Johnny Ace (8)
Jesse Belvin (7)
Jerry Butler (7)
Clovers (8)
Five Royales (7)
Huey "Piano" Smith (as a sideman, absolutely; with the Clowns he'd get a 6. So I'll vote for him, but with that as asterisk)
Joe Tex (7)
Billy Ward and the Dominoes (8)
Larry Williams (6 - but since Gene Vincent and Carl Perkins are in with equal qualifications as Larry, I'd vote for him)

Thanks, but each round is up for a full week, so there's plenty of time to vote. We'd love for you to participate, but you've got to actually do so for us to count your votes.

Are you familiar with the Mills Brothers 1930s material?

Thanks, your votes have been tabulated.

No Chubby Checker, huh? I guess we should not be surprised, even though his subjective accomplishments are staggering.

So you dont see Carole King as a hall of fame artist?

I like the Mills Brothers and know their work, but I probably calculate the Early Influence candidates qualifications for the Hall differently than you. For that category in my eyes it's not their overall achievements that matter, but their direct influence on the birth of rock itself. The further back from rock's conception (1947/48) you get, the less their influence is directly felt, even though with them the vocal group course began. I understand people seeing things differently, but I'm much more concerned with giving the birth of rock groups like the Ravens credit and feel it's a much closer connection than someone doing things 15 years earlier.

No. Carole King is in already for her writing, which is where her greatest accomplishments are found. She had one staggering album "Tapestry" and some other good things, but I don't consider those quite enough. I'd give her a 6 strictly as an artist, and since a few of the songs she cut on those albums were songs she wrote for others who had the definitive versions, that kind of points again to where she's most deserving of credit.

SIDE QUESTION:
Since the "5" Royales are among those up for this vote, I'm trying to definitively peg down when their album Dedicated To You was released. Most sources say 1957, but this site http://www.bsnpubs.com/king/02king500/02king500.html that actually has all of the King Records LP's by release date has it squarely in 1958. The numbers of the records surrounding it would seem to verify that, but I figured if anyone would know for sure it might be you.

That's reasonable, so I assume that you would not induct Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, etc ?

I've got it as 1958, but I don't have 100% proof of that.

No, I wouldn't. I thought the deification of Robert Johnson as the father of rock was the single worst thing to happen to the accurate portrayal of Rock History, it skewed everything to a 60's guitar-centric ground zero starting point, which is exactly the WRONG way to trace anything. You find the beginning and move forward, not randomly pick a point from the middle and go backwards. That being said, I love Robert Johnson and definitely see how his work DID get picked up on by rockers down the road in the 60's, but it had NOTHING to do with rock's birth. He was all but unknown to those creating rock 'n' roll in the late 40's and his music hadn't been heard widely enough in the 30's to have been influencial even in passing. At least the Mills Brothers were known and their innovations had clearly influenced groups that came along between their arrival and rock's birth.

Thanks, that's what I'm going with unless definitively proven otherwise.