The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Told with grit, reverence, and doses of gleeful mischief, The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a front-row seat to music history—and the madness behind chasing down the world’s greatest collection of rock relics. Craig Inciardi was a rising star at Sotheby’s, wheeling and dealing in rock memorabilia, when he got the call to help launch the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum. The catch? There was no museum. Just a “guitar of no importance and three interesting sheets of paper.” With a green light and few guardrails, Inciardi hit the road and became the Indiana Jones of rock history—working out of Rolling Stone’s offices, answering to Jann Wenner, and tracking down legends for their sacred stuff. His journey took him to Ozzy Osbourne’s country estate (where Ozzy greeted him with a gun), Keith Moon’s boyhood home, and Art Garfunkel’s secret stash of letters from Paul Simon. Along the way, he landed the guitar Pete Townshend used to write “Tommy,” Otis Redding’s leather coat worn before his fatal plane crash, Patti Smith’s duct-taped boots, Aretha Franklin’s handwritten notes, Debbie Harry’s stagewear, and John Lennon’s glasses that were worn on the day he died. And that’s only a fraction of the rock-relic stories on offer. Meanwhile, Inciardi pulls back the curtain on the hall’s chaotic birth: the cutthroat induction debates, the backstage meltdowns, and the legendary all-star jams with Jagger, Dylan, Springsteen, and more. Equally fascinating is Inciardi’s first-hand account of the chaotic formation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame itself, taking us backstage to the very first induction ceremonies, an innocent time when long overlooked musicians and some former enemies, celebrated each other and jammed into the night with friends and family looking on, to the secret induction meetings where top record company executives and managers bitterly argued over who would be included and who wouldn’t.