UNDERMINED: The Case For Phish Finally Earning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction

Disclaimer:  This article was solicited by no one and does not speak for anyone but myself – a grumpy Gen-Xer who thinks it is the appropriate time for a jeremiad about an amazing Gen-X thing that of course has not gotten appropriate recognition. That said, please enjoy the piece and get off my lawn.  

Jam Bands belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This includes one of the greatest rock acts the world has ever heard.

Part I:  Let’s Talk about Rock Music and Jam Bands

Before getting to the portion of this piece which digs into the bona fides of a musical quartet from Burlington, Vermont, let’s dive into some background and framing on rock music and the institution of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, AKA, the Rock Hall, opened in 1995 in Cleveland, Ohio. The Rock Hall was the brainchild of Ahmet Ertegun, the founder, and chairman of Atlantic Records. The Rock Hall’s Mission Statement is brief, a matter of fact, and oddly argumentative: “The Rock Hall’s mission to engage, teach and inspire through the power of rock & roll is important.”  At any rate, this mission statement seems to cast a wide net. Let’s celebrate rock!

As an American and a huge fan of rock and roll music, I am delighted we have a Rock Hall. I think it is a great and good and important and necessary thing. Does America really need the National Mustard Museum of Middleton, Wisconsin or the Stetson Museum of Deland, Florida? That’s not for me to say. But I’m sure glad we have the Rock Hall. 

Rock and Roll is undoubtedly an American creation – many books and articles have been written on this subject and a thorough rehashing of that history is not warranted here. One very abridged take is that Black musicians including Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and James Brown took inspiration from another American creation, the Blues, and transformed that music into a more up-tempo, energized, and electrified sound. While Anglo musicians such as Buddy Holly were early performers of this genre, it was Elvis Presley who can be largely credited with making Rock and Roll explode onto the world stage. The tidal wave of Presley was then followed in the mid-1960s by the tidal wave of The British Invasion, spearheaded by The Beatles. 

While some rock supergroups of the 1970s were establishing themselves around this time, a third tidal wave of rock—one might say a historic tsunami– hit in the late 1960s and 1970s in the form of “Classic Rock.” This rock tsunami includes titans such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Eagles, and The Who and artists such as Elton John, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, and Stevie Wonder. This third tidal wave was a true “golden age” of Rock and world music in general. Hundreds of outstanding rock albums were minted and performed. For my money, in terms of rock music, we’ll never see anything like it again. 

Rock & Roll music is to many, though surely not all, wonderful stuff. Not to take anything away from other forms of music, but I think many of us are much happier living in the 21^st Century with the existence of the jubilant scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where the protagonist spontaneously leads a parade in a rousing rendition of The Beatles “Twist and Shout.” Recently in my hometown of Austin, Texas, many tens of thousands sojourned to the Circuit of the Americas to hear The Rolling Stones play in their seventh decade of performing. 

Now – it is a not-controversial and obvious statement that Rock and Roll cannot be defined as a single type or form but is significantly varied. Of the bands mentioned already in this piece, one could draw lines between pop-rock, classic rock, and psychedelic rock. Then there is also heavy metal, grunge, punk, alt, Americana, etc.

Between the golden age of Classic Rock and today, various forms of rock music have flourished or taken a turn in the limelight. Punk exploded in the late 1970s with acts including Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash. The 1980s are largely remembered as an era of melodic metal bands such as Bon Jovi and Def Leppard along with early MTV era “image” bands including Duran Duran and Wham. The 1990s saw the rise of a grunge rock sound epitomized by acts including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains.  Rock music is still widely popular today, led by more straightforward rock and pop-rock acts including Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Maroon 5, and Foo Fighters, to name a handful. 

As a Gen-Xer who grew up learning to love the Classic Rock of the 1960s and 1970s I will stake the following claim, which perhaps contains some amount of controversy: Much of the sound, form, and spirit of that third era lived on into the future under a new moniker of “Jam Band” music. This is particularly– but not exclusively– true of rock bands from that era who played and recorded long-form and improvisational songs and sets including Rock Hall inductees The Allman Brothers Band, Neil Young, Frank Zappa, and of course, The Grateful Dead.

Bob Seger once famously sang, “Today’s music ain’t got the same soul I like that old-time rock and roll.”  Now, I am not going to speak for Mr. Seger, but I am guessing that if he wanted to set out for a weekend and find music that soothed his soul, the (in various stages of covid-disruption) Jam Band-heavy Lockn’ Festival or Mountain Jam Festival or Delfest would do the trick. There isn’t some wildly complex theory or idea here – at these festivals, one hears a lot of rock-sounding music and a lot of rock instrumentalism. Are there variations of and deviations from Rock at these festivals?  Absolutely. But don’t tell me Seger wouldn’t feel more at home there than at Coachella or Lollapalooza or the Austin City Limits Music Festival unless you are also planning to sell me some oceanfront property in Nebraska. 

A strong connection between Classic Rock and Jam Bands can also be found in classic rock bands of the 1970s integrating contemporary jam band artists into their acts. When I lived in New York City I caught The Allman Brothers Band a couple of times at their annual March runs at the Beacon Theater. The shows were fantastic, and in no small part because Warren Haynes of Gov’t Mule and Derek Trucks of then The Derek Trucks Band were seamless and wonderful additions to the group. Trucks is a spellbinding guitarist and has helped fill the void of great rock guitarists we lost too soon, including Duane Allman, Lowell George, and Stevie Ray Vaughn. For a run of shows in 1992, Carlos Santana had an up-and-coming Jam Band open for him, and for their last formal run of shows in Chicago in 2015, The Grateful Dead brought on that same band’s guitarist in perhaps a more openly symbolic passing of the torch.

The notion that the undisputed grand pappy of “Jam Bands,” The Grateful Dead, spawned some entirely new and different and narrowly confined niche of rock music is simply false. There isn’t some huge fissure and mystical difference separating Jam Bands from Classic Rock. I would argue the two biggest characteristics of a band being rightfully awarded the Jam Band title are 1) significant musical improvision at live shows and 2) significant variation in the songs played at live shows.  Under that definition, one could drop acts not necessarily given the “Jam Band” title such as Wilco, The Dave Matthews Band, and My Morning Jacket into the Jam Band bucket.  But the main point here is that while these bands may qualify as Jam Bands under this definition, they are most definitely rock and roll bands as well. 

Now, as is often discussed with this matter, can some of these “Jam Bands” be defined and connected in non-musical ways?  Most certainly. It’s no secret that many of these groups have a heavy spirit-of-the-60s following including bands such as Widespread Panic, moe., The String Cheese Incident, and Umphrey’s McGee.  But this following does not somehow mean that the music these bands play and perform is not at its core rock music.

One more time, for inflection: Today’s Jam Bands very much embody and carry on the spirit of classic rock and roll; particularly the groups and artists from that era who delved more into improvisation and long-form rock. 

Part 2:  Let’s Talk About The Rock Hall And Jam Bands

Back to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As Established, we have it, it exists in Cuyahoga County, Ohio: and to my knowledge, there is only one. We do not have a situation as exists, say, in heavyweight boxing, where there are competing claims to the throne. But a few key observations about what the Rock Hall is, or has become, are now warranted. 

First, The Rock Hall quite clearly has expanded its inductees beyond the genre of rock music. I don’t think anyone within the Rock Hall would dispute this, or anyone without who doesn’t have an extremely post-modern understanding of music. The institution has branched out to include the genres of pop music, jazz, musical composers, and hip-hop artists, to name a handful.   

I personally don’t have a big issue with this. A re-branding of the institution might make sense on some fundamental logical level.  I.e., We are now: The Music Hall Of Fame (Except For Country Music, Because They Have Their Own Thing).  But, frankly, I am very pleased that some of these non-rock groups have been honored by an institution with clout and a global microphone. As a prime example, I believe that just as glorious and wonderful the 1970s were for Rock and Roll, the 1990s were for Hip-Hop and Rap. (and as long as we’re here, seeing more additions of 90s Hip-Hop/Rap groups such as A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, and Outkast would be great). But I digress. A primary conclusion to be drawn here is that in the Rock Hall, Rock Bands are now competing with non-rock bands and artists for acknowledgment, celebration, and inclusion. This mission creep would seem to be more acceptable so long as worthy traditional rock bands are still getting their due.   

Second, as the Rock Hall has expanded the genres of musical groups and artists it inducts it is probably a safe assumption to say that these various inductees resonate more or less with different individuals and audiences. If one were to draw a Venn Diagram of folks who are big fans of Bob Dylan, The Notorious B.I.G., and Radiohead it might not be a huge group standing in the middle. The point here is that universal appreciation of a musician or group doesn’t appear to be a barrier to Rock Hall induction.

Third… and once again we veer into a land of possibly controversial proclamations… it seems a fairly reliable ticket to earning an invite to the Rock Hall is a robust commercial success. Now – I don’t think that metric is necessarily invalid or discredits the institution. Bands connecting with a wide musical audience seem like a legitimate measure of the importance of their music. And to be accurate and fair, The Rock Hall has not limited admission to groups and artists who achieved broad commercial success. Many inductees may be known to rock aficionados but are probably complete unknowns to many casual music fans. Try going around the Thanksgiving table next year and ask how many people are intimately familiar with Bobby Darin or Clyde McPhatter.  

Where my beef lies are that “Jam Bands” have been largely absent from admission or consideration in recent times.  This is a genre that is admittedly not known for cranking out platinum records, top-40 hits or being name-dropped at the Grammys. One possible, if not probable, explanation for this – and it is admittedly difficult to try to communicate this without sounding a bit condescending, is that long-form and improvisational rock music may take a little more time, effort, and attention to get into.  Anyone who feels like they need just one listen to Frank Zappa’s “Son of Mr. Green Genes” or Led Zeppelin’s “Achilles Last Stand” or Pink Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother” to catch all the nuances and grandeur of those pieces is simply not telling you the truth.  And then there is the barrier-to-entry problem – a lot of Jam Band music is not played on commercial radio. Wilco wrote a very good song about this phenomenon titled “The Late Greats.”

And the big problem here, as outlined in Part 1, is that these Jam Bands are in large part the modern embodiment of classic rock music. The Rock Hall’s more recent inductees seem to suggest a tacit understanding that rock greatness does not always follow commercial success or universal admiration.  Yet… here we are. 

So, as a fan of Rock, I hereby protest about this omission generally. However, one group, in particular, stands out in several, I will now argue, unique and substantial ways. Their continued absence from the Rock Hall is a serious and goofy miscarriage of rock and roll justice. So, without any more beating around that bush…

Part 3:  Let’s Talk About Phish

Phish is a four-person musical group formed in 1983 in Burlington, Vermont.  The band consists of Trey Anastasio on guitar, Page McConnell on keyboards, Mike Gordon on bass, and Jon Fishman on drums.  One might say they are … a Jam Band.  

Thesis:  You don’t have to like the band Phish.  But you have to respect them.  At the top of that pyramid …

Live Rock Performance:

No rock band has quite accomplished what Phish has in terms of variation and imagination in live rock performance.

No two Phish shows are ever the same, and the band has an extremely deep bullpen of songs to draw from.  Those who purchase a ticket to a Phish concert can afterward use that ticket to download a free recording of the show.

Now, Phish certainly doesn’t own a monopoly on this phenomenon.  Other bands mix up their setlists as well, including the aforementioned-grand pappy Dead. But the extent to which Phish has done so is without parallel and quite astonishing.

On phish.net one can peruse the different setlists Phish has performed dating back to 1983.  It’s quite the encyclopedic tome. One can track the first time a song was played (or covered), how many times it has been played, and how many shows have passed since it was last played. For example, the band played a version of the song “Ghost” at this year’s (2021) Halloween show in Las Vegas, a song that debuted live in 1997 and has been performed 190 times.

And it’s not just that Phish concert setlists are always different, the songs themselves are played very differently from one performance to the next. This particular “Ghost” was a very long-form version, clocking in at nearly 27-minutes while the studio version is a mere three minutes and 52 seconds. Sometimes Phish will play an existing song within a song or perform a completely unique melody within a song (Type II). For example, at a New Year’s run concert at Madison Square Garden in 2016, during a performance of “Tweezer,” the band transitions away from the song’s traditional riff to a sweet and soulful melody that is embraced for a handful of minutes, abandoned for some time when Anastasio and Fishman engage in a very bluesy call-and-response back and forth, and then resurrected once more when the song reaches its final climax. That soulful melody exists for that one performance and moment in time.

Aside from these singular examples a couple of very notable events stand out. First, in 2017, the band performed a run of 13-shows at MSG– “The Baker’s Dozen”– without repeating a single song.  In an internet clip the band Metallica can be seen discussing the feat and joking about the self-imposed burden the band placed on themselves. But for Phish and their fans, this is a beloved calling card.  

Second, at concerts on Halloween, the band has traditionally covered an entire album of another band, including, for example, when they covered The Beatles The White Album in 1994. Later years would see them covering in full albums from The Who, Talking Heads, Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, Little Feat, and David Bowie. That may be impressive in and of itself, but in recent years, this trend has been mixed in with the band performing an entirely new album of their creation. In 2018 the band did so posing as the fake Scandinavian band Kasvot Växt and this year as the group Sci-Fi Soldier, replete with costume and a full-scale Las Vegas sound, light, and pyrotechnics show to boot.

Without beating this horse ad nauseum, a repeat of the punchline—Phish playing wildly varying setlists and song renditions at all their concerts for nearly four decades running (punctuated by a couple of breaks), is an astounding, historic musical accomplishment. And here I’m not even asking you to agree with me on the following piece:  suffice it to say that these gents are trained professionals and don’t sound like a high school garage band, I would argue that their live performances are astonishingly good. I have re-listened to live versions of dozens of songs scores of times.  But put that to the side and just take a good look at the technical accomplishment. It is off the charts.  

So there is that.  But Phish is an extremely memorable and loveable rock band by many other measures as well.  Below is not an exhaustive list by any means, just some highlights.  

Studio albums:

Songwriting is hard.  I’m not sure this fact is appreciated enough. Many bands are remembered as “one-hit wonders.”  Others crank out one great album and then can never quite match the grandeur of that first or famous LP.  At this juncture, it is worth mentioning Anastasio’s partner in songwriting crime, Tom Marshall.  Friends since grade school, Tom is credited with writing the lyrics to many Phish songs that Anastasio then sets to music.  A good songwriter is often the difference between a musician or a group being remembered or forgotten, or enjoying moderate success versus a voyage to stardom.   

At any rate, I would argue that Phish put out a series of eight great studio records from the late 1980s through 2000, beginning with Junta (originally released as a bootleg cassette) and ending with Farmhouse.  This is not to take away from the value or worth of any of their other records, but to point out that this is quite a solid canon of foundational studio recordings and already rarified air among what bands are able to produce.   

Some 14 years after Farmhouse the band released Fuego. Produced by Bob Ezrin– who worked with other great HOF-inducted artists such as Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, and Peter Gabriel—this solid album contains rousing rock and roll songs including the title track and “555”, as well as other more soulful and playful tracks. This point bleeds into the next section, which we’ll jump to now…

Longevity:

While no group may ever match the longevity of The Rolling Stones, who have been touring since the time of Moses, Phish scores highly on the bell curve here.

The “History of Phish” is divided by fans into three (or four) various eras:  Phish 1.0 (lasting from 1983-2000), Phish 2.0 (lasting from 2002-2004), and Phish 3.0 (lasting from 2009 through now, or, through when Covid hit). Without generating controversy in the ranks, Phish 2.0 and 3.0 were brought about by the band deciding to take a break (sometimes, as with the end of 2.0, a break that may have been permanent).  The fourth break was dictated by world events, ergo we may now be in Phish 4.0. I’m not sure how much that matters.  

A couple of points to be made here – first, that’s a damned long time for a band to keep going in general, and to be selling out major arenas (which Phish started doing towards the tail end of 1993). Second, as mentioned in the previous section, this run has been accompanied by the band continuing to crank out new and good material. While some epic bands of the 1960s and 1970s met the end of that era with the tragic death of a founding member (including the already broken-up Beatles or Led Zeppelin) or a forthcoming bitter divorce (cough cough, Pink Floyd), there are many rock bands who peaked creatively during that time and never really regained the magic touch. Phish is solidly part of an outlier group here. They have continued to create and innovate through the decades.  

Audience Appreciation:

I’m a big music lover, with an appreciation for a wide variety of music. And there are a lot of rock bands that I cherish and will continue listening to until the day that I die. But I think it is worth serious brownie points when a band comes along and makes a deep and lasting impact on the lives of their fans. The band is more than just a happy listen – it is a family member, a part of the tribe. Now, I am happy to pass around a lot of credit here. Does KISS fall into this bucket for fans who have dressed up in the band’s outfits and makeup for shows and NFL games for decades? Does the music of the Rocky Horror Picture Show qualify for those who continue to perform live re-enactments? Or how about a Japanese audience developing a lifelong love affair with the group A-Ha while most of the rest of the world appeared to largely move on from the band? Sure…Why not.

For me, Phish has not just been a sound I have enjoyed, it has been an inextricable part of my life. I was 15 years old when I saw my first concert in Columbus, Ohio. My friend and I were solidly some, if not the, youngest people there.  And I have been attending concerts ever since, going from the young kid to one of the many middle-aged fans one sees at shows these days. Phish has traveled with me through the life events of college, marriage, children, moving to different cities, and taking different jobs. It’s as much an appreciation as it is a hobby.  

Now, does everyone play “Sample In A Jar” from Phish’s album Hoist at their wedding as my wife and I did?  No. But I have many friends from where I have lived in my life (Ohio, Indiana, New York, and now Texas) who are similar, if sometimes not greater, Phish enthusiasts. One of my buddies from New York has attended over 300 concerts and has an anecdote about being kicked out of a concert after-party in the 1990s by Jon Fishman (I have no reason not to believe this). This lifelong fandom feeds from the band’s drive to create and innovate and give something special and different to their fans year after year. 

Rock Commerce:

Since I brought it up earlier in a kind of pejorative way, I would now like to flip the script and try to give Phish some credit here. Has Phish ever put out a quadruple-platinum album? No. Have they had a #1 radio hit? No. Do they have 89.6 million Twitter followers a la Taylor Swift?  No. But have they in some substantial way generated a good deal of rock and roll commerce through the years? I would say yes.

One answer here lies with album sales – not only has the band put out 15 studio albums (one of which is platinum scoring, and many others gold), the band has released dozens of live albums as well. And this is not to mention the scores of other unofficial recordings that have been bandied about the world in different ways starting with cassette tapes and moving on into the digital era. And then there is the character Yogurt from Spaceballs emphasis on merchandising. Along with albums, lots of authorized and unauthorized Phish gear has been keeping cash registers and online checkout portals steadily busy for quite some time. 

As mentioned earlier, the band has been selling out large arenas since the early 1990s  Hell, there is a banner hanging for them in Madison Square Garden celebrating their accomplishment of most consecutive performances by a rock group at the joint (only Billy Joel has played more concerts at the World’s Most Famous Arena). When Phish has put on their summer weekend-long concert events in the Northeast their encampments have temporarily become one of the larger population centers in a region or an entire state.  So, there’s all that commerce the band has generated for venues, hotels, restaurants, bars, individual merchants, etc.

Lastly, Phish has been credited in part with the rise of the modern-day music festival, including those Bob Seger may hypothetically enjoy more so or less so. The co-founder of Bonnaroo, Rick Farman, credited those Phish mega-concerts from the 1990s such as The Clifford Ball and The Great Went as being the inspiration for the launch of the Tennessee-based festival in 2002. Music festivals are now something of a cottage industry in and of themselves, employing small armies of people to put on and pumping millions into local economies. So, don’t tell me Phish hasn’t contributed in some substantial ways to the rock and roll economy.

But that’s not all! Phish has also been do-gooders in this arena, establishing the Waterwheel Foundation, which has benefitted various causes and interests through the years. So, like, in addition to the myriad number of ways that Phish has produced great rock the Rock Hall could also, if they need more nudging, perhaps consider altruism as well. 

I could keep going with the bona fides, but I am going to stop there. I’ll let others add on here in the global comments section. In summation, I just can’t see how the above body of work shouldn’t deserve an entree to Rock Hall land. I also think this is a clear-cut the-facts-don’t-lie situation. As stated in the disclaimer, two decades into the 21^st Century is a fine time for a not-so-short diatribe on how the Rock Hall has given short shrift to a type of music that is very much the successor to Classic Rock, and to a band who will be remembered and enjoyed for their rock greatness through the ages.