Time for the 1968 Hall of Acclaim election.

Select the ten most deserving artists, based on records released through the end of 1967.

When considering your vote, you may want to check out the top 50 eligible candidates. For a reminder of who’s already been inducted, see the results thread.

For your ballot to be eligible, you must submit a ranked list of your ten most deserving artists.

***IMPORTANT!***
Also, for your top FIVE artists (at least), you must explain why they deserve to be in the HOA. You may recycle your comments from past elections if you wish, but I want us to have a context for WHY we're selecting these artists. Ballots without comments for the top five will NOT be counted!

In addition, you may nominate up to three people for the Backstage Wing. This is optional; your ballot will still be eligible even if you don’t vote for Backstage candidates.

Deadline for ballots is Sunday, October 19.

Voting is now open.

1. Bill Monroe – The only person eligible in the competition who invented an entire musical genre (bluegrass), discovered some of it’s leading innovators (both Flatt & Scruggs), and wrote some of its most enduring songs (Blue Moon of Kentucky, My Rose Of Old Kentucky, Molly & Tenbrooks, Uncle Pen).

2. The Kinks – Waterloo Sunset is pure pop perfection. You Really Got Me ain’t too shabby either. That's great range.

3. Jimi Hendrix – Best electric guitarist ever, and so much more.

4. George Jones – Hits so far: She Thinks I Still Care, Why Baby Why, White Lightning, The Race Is On, Just A Girl I Used To Know, The Window Up Above, I’ve Got $5 & It’s Saturday Night, Walk Through This World With Me.

5. Buck Owens – Together with Don Rich he popularized the Bakersfield Sound, which inspired both the Beatles and the Byrds (and was damn fine to listen to in it’s own right).

6. The Byrds

7. Patsy Cline

8. Howlin’ Wolf

9. The Velvet Underground

10. The Temptations

Backstage:

1. Ahmet Ertegun
2. George Gershwin
3. Willie Dixon

1. George Jones - country music's greatest male singer. see paul's list of songs.
2. Jimi Hendrix - again, what paul said. a visionary electric guitarist, but also a great songwriter and performer and an occasionally great lyricist and singer. truly a legend.
3. Merle Haggard - proto-outlaw and one of country's best songwriters. hits at this point include Swinging Doors, The Bottle Let Me Down, I Threw Away the Rose, Branded Man and Sing Me Back Home
4. The Byrds - god, that rickenbacker. they're starting to get a little more experimental and druggy with their last album, Younger Than Yesterday, which had some embarrassing moments (Crosby's "Mind Gardens" is horrible) but also some great songs (Have You Seen Her Face, Time Between) and another fantastic Dylan cover (My Back Pages).
5. Woody Guthrie - still hoping

6. The Kinks
7. Bill Monroe
8. Velvet Underground
9. Howlin' Wolf
10. Aretha Franklin

Backstage

1. Bacharach/David
2. Ahmet Ertegun
3. Alan Lomax

01. THE KINKS: Having inducted yet The Beatles, The Stones and The Who now it’s time to induct The Kinks to complete the royalty of British pop bands of today. The evolution of the band output is fascinating right now, although parallel to some of their peers. They began as a rhythm & blues band as arrogant as The Stones and as noisy as The Who, but they are now the most English root-conscious of the four, going even further than The Beatles and deeply integrating sounds coming from British music-hall. During this process Ray Davies has revealed as a smart, intuitive and lucid observer able to dissect the peculiarities of British society.
My favourite album: Something Else by the Kinks (1966).
My Top 5 Songs: Waterloo Sunset (1967), All Day and All of the Night (1964), Sunny Afternoon (1966), A Well Respected Man (1965), You Really Got Me (1964).

02. THE BYRDS: the result of the following sums is always the same. Folk + Rock, Dylan + Beatles, tradition + innovation, harmonies + Rickenbakers, jingle + jangle. The Byrds, of course.
My favourite album: Younger Than Yesterday (1967).
My Top 3 Songs: My Back Pages (1967), Here Without You (1965), Mr. Spaceman (1966).

03. JACQUES BREL: one more push, allez, viens, Jacques, viens, viens…

04.LOVE: during 1967 the focus has clearly displaced from Carnaby Street to Haight Ashbury intersection. I could have voted for The Doors, Jefferson Airplane or Moby Grape but my choice is Love, the band commanded by Arthur Lee able to manage an explosive live act and to release filigrees as their recent last album.
My favourite album: Forever Changes (1967).
My Top 3 Songs: Alone Again Or (1967), She Comes in Colors (1967), The Red Telephone (1967).

05. THE SUPREMES: the Factory girls.

06. THE DOORS.
07. JIMI HENDRIX.
08. THE VELVET UNDERGROUND.
09. ARETHA FRANKLIN.
10. PINK FLOYD.


And at the backstage:
01. BRIAN EPSTEIN: he committed suicide last year, it goes to show that sometimes success is not enough to succeed.
02. AHMET ERTEGUN: the Atlantic label has been a continuous source of good music during the last two decades, being the main promoter of raw black sounds like R&B and soul music. And Ahmet keeps his legendary nose, during 1967 he’s beginning to sign some white artists like Cream or Buffalo Springfield. Favourite song: RAY CHARLES Drown in My Own Tears (1956).
03. BURT BACHARACH & HAL DAVID.

1. The Monkees- How are the Monkees not on that top 50 list? More of the Monkees and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones came out in '67 (Headquarters as well, but that's not as great as those two). The only thing essential that's missing is Valleri.

2. Pink Floyd- The only album needed to get them in has been released.

3. The Kinks- Something Else should get them in but it will be before their best is released.

4. Herman's Hermits- One of my favorite singles bands from the 60's. Pick up a greatest hits and you'll realize how good of a pop band they really were especially if you're an early-mid years Beatles fan.

5. Neil Diamond- All of the essentials have been released and now he'll slowly slip into cheesiness minus Cracklin' Rosie.

6. Jimi Hendrix
7. The Byrds
8. Velvet Underground
9. The Zombies- O+O hasn't been released yet, but a couple of the great singles from the album have been heard.
10. Donovan

Next year?: The Supremes, The Hollies, Art Blakey, Simon and Garfunkel, Lovin Spoonful

1. Jimi Hendrix - The ultimate guitar god. His first studio album, "Are You Experienced", contains some of his most legendary songs like "Purple Haze" and "Foxy Lady".

2. The Byrds - The greatest American band not inducted. They were influential in every 60s rock genre. I heard they will even experiment with country.

3. The Velvet Underground - They released what some consider to be the best record ever. And they say bananas are good for you. Full of potassium.

4. Aretha Franklin - What a voice. "I Never Loved a Woman the Way I Love You" is the greatest soul record ever released by a female singer.

5. The Kinks - My first four picks were all Americans, but it's still the Brits making the greatest pop music. Ray Davies & co. are true masters. "Waterloo Sunset" is more than just fine.

6. Jacques Brel
7. The Supremes
8. Howlin' Wolf
9. The Doors
10. Charlie Parker

Backstage Wing:
1. John Hammond
2. Willie Dixon
3. Ahmet Ertegun

1. THE VELVET UNDERGROUND. They’re not going to get any better than the banana album. This is clearly not a “realist” pick—very few people outside of Manhattan (hell, very few people north of 23rd Street) knew this band in 1967, and it would be a few more years before their influence became clear. But, as somebody once said, almost nobody bought it, but everyone who did started a band…and if we wait until VU becomes reasonably well-known, we might well get to a point where Reed & Cale aren’t together anymore.

2. JIMI HENDRIX. Let me elaborate a bit on Paul’s “and so much more”—Jimi is now (correctly) seen as a visionary who created a basic template for lead guitar. Even now, it’s kind of shocking how many people sound like him…or at least like pale imitations. But Jimi was reinterpreting a whole mess of earlier blues guitarists, starting with Chuck Berry (much as the Beatles reinterpreted Little Richard, Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers). Jimi had an astonishing sense of history, and the genius to turn twelve-bar blues into something simultaneously transcendent and popular. Like VU above him (and a handful of other artists), he is one of the turning points of rock history.

3. THE BYRDS. A shame they only fly this high on my ballot once they’re starting to crack up.

4. BILL MONROE. And now I’m starting to put some distance between big Bill and Jimmie Rodgers. Call me a frontrunner…

5. HOWLIN’ WOLF. His first time in my top five. The finest of the blues shouters.

6. ARETHA FRANKLIN
7. JIMMIE RODGERS
8. WILSON PICKETT
9. JEFFERSON AIRPLANE. They feel like a guilty pleasure to me, but I love Surrealistic Pillow. If we must have psychedelia, these guys beat the Doors any day…
10. JACKIE WILSON

Backstage:

1. BRIAN EPSTEIN
2. AHMET ERTEGUN
3. TIMOTHY LEARY

(That last one is partly to see if anybody bites; but I think there’s a reasonable case to be made for him.)

Four from my list made it, so lots of room for new entries...

Who will it be?

- Marvin Gaye? -- A couple of sweet hits, and then two awesome duets. Don't think that's enough.

- Stevie Wonder? -- More worthy than Marvin at this point, sounding so sweet. But he's not breaking through yet like the Temptations and the Supremes.

- Cream? -- I always forget (since I don't own it) that Disraeli Gears is a pretty nice album. I'm not a fan of the straight ahead blues thing... bands of that ilk only get interesting once they expand their palate. But there's some nice songs, including that monster riff that's so nice it has become a parody almost. Might consider them after they release Goodbye, which includes my favorite song of theirs, "Badge"

- Aretha? -- Closest newcomer to getting on the list, but not making it.... How could I put the Supremes on but not Aretha? It's a cumulative thing.

My list...

1. Django Reinhardt - The best guitarist on this list. Now come on, don't be sore Jimi.

2. The Kinks - "David Watts, "Death of a Clown," "Waterloo Sunset" -- pretty good threesome to have on one album.

3. The Impressions -- Not such a great year for them... they move up based on others getting voted in and the super strength of their work from a few years earlier.

4. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Please note the full name of the artist. Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell deserve entry too. (Not as much as Jimi... but just as much as Ringo Starr and Bill Wyman.)

5. The Supremes -- I undervalued them last year. Their string of hits is just too massive.

6. The Velvet Underground -- Too conceptually important to ignore.

7. The Temptations - It's time... Their sweet sound is ready to get a vote.

8. Simon & Garfunkel - I had forgotten that Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme had been released as of last year. They might have made it onto my list. Add a couple of singles ("At the Zoo" and "Fakin' It"). And there's another song that has been pressed onto celluloid, but is less than a month away from being released on vinyl.

9. Buffalo Springfield -- Put aside their hit, which is not as bad as you remember. Their two albums are full of very different sounding songs. With all of the California bands popping up now - the high functioning stoners (Jefferson Airplane), the low functioning stoners (early Grateful Dead), the homecoming king (The Byrds), the newcomer popular kids (The Mamas and the Papas), the hoodlums (the Doors), the A.V. Club genius (the Beach Boys), the kid that everyone likes, but isn't in one clique (Love) - for my money the most interesting music is coming from Buffalo Springfield. The highlights of their two albums beat Pet Sounds, even if individually neither of them do.

10. Patsy Cline

Gone but not forgotten: The Platters, Dinah Washington, the Shangri-Las

Backstage:

1. George Gershwin
2. Wexler/Ertegun
3. Alan Lomax

1. Jacques Brel : toujours
2. Jimi Hendrix : one of the best debuts of all time + a great second album, 2 absolute classics in 1 year
3. Georges Brassens : my favorite artist at that time, but his best is behind him now
4. The Byrds : see my blog . Iposted about "Mr. Tambourine Man"
5. Leadbelly : yes, he’s still here !
6. The Kinks : They’re cutting an impressive string of singles
7. Doc Watson : Folk and bluegrass genius
8. Aretha Franklin
9. Rev. Gary Davis
10. The Velvet Underground

Backstage

1. Ahmet Ertegun
2. Alan Lomax
3. Art Rupe

1. Jimi Hendrix – In his first year of recording, he’s already done nothing less than forever redefine how the music’s signature instrument is played. I’d say that merits first-ballot induction.
2. The Byrds – What made them the greatest folk-rock band was that they successfully synthesized the best elements of both folk and rock, like no one before or since.
3. The Kinks – Their first singles stripped rock and roll down to its most brutally primal elements; then they spent the next few glorious years building it back up again, creating some of the most sophisticated music of the era.
4. The Velvet Underground – Changed rock like few other artists, although at the time it was happening nobody really knew it yet.
5. Aretha Franklin – The rest of the industry saw a failed journeyman singer; Jerry Wexler saw a nascent superstar who merely hadn’t found her niche yet. He helped her find it this past year, gloriously, and she’s been a Queen ever since.
6. Bill Evans
7. Howlin’ Wolf
8. Ornette Coleman
9. Sonny Rollins
10. The Supremes

BACKSTAGE WING
1. Rudy Van Gelder
2. George Gershwin
3. Jerry Wexler