The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony was held last Saturday evening at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, and it included sad news about Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor.
During Duran Duran's induction, singer Simon LeBon read from a letter from original guitarist Andy Taylor, who was unable to attend the ceremony. It was revealed that Taylor is suffering from stage four metastatic prostate cancer, which was first detected a little over four years ago, but had never spoken about publicly until now.
Taylor wrote, "Although my current condition is not immediately life threatening there is no cure. Recently I was doing okay after some very sophisticated life extending treatment. That was until a week or so ago when I suffered a setback, and despite the exceptional efforts of my team, I had to be honest in that both physically and mentally, I would be pushing my boundaries [to attend]."
The entire letter is posted on Duran Duran's website. It also includes some thoughts from Taylor about the band, his role in it and what continues to make them special.
Dolly Parton, who had originally turned down her nomination because she felt she wasn't rock enough, has fully embraced her induction after becoming more aware of the Rock Hall's definition of rock. She was the evening's final inductee, and explained that she was dedicating her award award to her husband Carl, who is a big rock fan who has regularly had it on in their home during their 56-year marriage.
Parton explained that she had talked about doing a rock album for years, but that this honor had lit the spark for her to finally record it, and that she previewed a song from it during her performance.
Olivia Rodrigo performed her take on "You're So Vain" during the Carly Simon segment, and Dave Grohl played lead guitar for Lionel Richie on "Easy."
Duran Duran’s Simon LeBon spoke about the power of music during their induction speech:
"Music is something which can overcome such issues as race, politics and gender. Music...music brings people together. Over the 40 years I've been working I've come to believe that the essence of our job is this. We get to make people feel better about themselves."
Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics spoke on performing their songs with Dave Stewart once again at the Rock Hall Ceremony:
"It's always a bit like getting back on a horse when you've fallen off. It's um -- we were in the rehearsal studio, the rehearsal space, we had the best band. Because as you can hear, they are so top of the range. They were playing the songs so brilliantly, so in the pocket and it was just like wsssshhh. Sort of took it up a notch in a way from what I remember. And it was lovely. It was easy."
Sheryl Crow spoke about aspiring to be like Pat Bentar as a young singer:
"I had headed to college to study classical music and voice, but what I really wanted to be was Pat Benatar."
During her acceptance speech, Pat Benatar spoke about husband Neil Giraldo:
"My partner, my love, 43 years ago in a rehearsal studio in New York could you ever have imagined this night tonight? So I'm guessing we could've probably done this separately on our own in our own way, but it wouldn't have been this much fun."
From his induction speech, Lionel Richie spoke on a funny thing about his success:
"We are celebrating tonight probably one of the funniest things, funniest jokes in my life. Because all the songs that I wrote and recorded were told to me by so many people, 'These are the songs that will destroy your career.'"
Get more on Duran Duran, the Eurythmics, Dolly Parton, Pat Benatar, Carly Simon and Lionel Richie on iHeartRadio.
[Source: Classic Hits Today]