The Joy of Cleveland & Other Musical Cities (excerpt from chapter 19)

We had never been to Cleveland and didn't know what to expect at the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame Museum but I quickly discovered a place with tasteful memorabilia. All that stuff captured not just the spirit of rock n' roll but also the many elements that composed it in song. Sections were separated by city, such as Detroit and the Motown sound, Seattle and grunge rock, San Francisco and psychedelia and so forth. Music of the eras played but the details of the displays really interested me.

Where else would you see a photo of Roy Orbison in his high school yearbook, authentic Beatles and Johnny Cash concert posters, a Syd Viscious doll and the Temptations' microphone stand (with four mikes)? Everywhere, there were guitars, from Carl Wilson's 1981 Gibson to John Lennon's 1964 Ricken-backer to Paul Simon's 1965 acoustic Guild. Clothing ranged from Keith Moon's shoes to Fat Domino's stage jacket to Run DMC's funky eyeglasses. There also were items that humanized these rockin' saints, such as Phil and Don Everly's report cards!

Okay,I was caught up in all that stuff, staring way too long at the displays while the music churned in my head. I realized that it was pure nostalgia, all those instruments,clothing,concert souvenirs and pieces of the early lives of future rock stars. But there was something else I started noticing and then started searching for at each exhibit. It was the song lyrics, in their original form, as inspiration came into the heads of so many great writers.

I discovered typed manuscripts with hand-written corrections for Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love" and the Grateful Dead's "Truckin" (a song that my old "4 A.M. Band" once muddled through). I saw a battered, hand-written page of "In My Life," a beautiful Lennon-McCartney collaboration. Whose handwriting was it? Who found the words to make it rhyme? Where was the melody? I wondered, then felt an eerie tinge upon seeing another scrawled page from Jimi Hendrix title "Purple Haze -- Jesus Saves." It became more than just a '60s feeling when the lyrics of U2's "The Ocean," circa 1980, appeared in shaky writing on a small sheet of paper.