2007 Inductees

This guitarist founded the group Rathbone and moved with it to Los Angeles. He left to tour and record as a member of Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band, playing lead guitar on the Like a Rock album. After three years with Seger, he spent nearly a decade with Chicago. In addition to many projects with Chicago, he composed, wrote lyrics, played guitar and was the vocalist on Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus, which was not released until 2008. He joined Veronique Sanson, a popular French performer, for a couple of years before settling back in Los Angeles. He continues to work and is signed to Goblin Girl Label.

“Around 1975 we started “as Blue Riddim Band,” drummer and bandleader Steve “Duck” McLane explained. “We were playing ten percent ska, ten percent calypso, maybe twenty-five percent straight up R&B, and the rest of it would be reggae. People were just everywhere, on top of each other, dancing.” Blue Riddim became the first American band to play the Sunsplash Festival in Jamaica.
“We were voted co-“Best Band” of the entire festival,” McLane said. “It blew me away that we blew them away. I was expecting pineapples and cantaloupes thrown at us. We’re playing these old songs, and we’re also from America, and we’re also white. It’s five o’clock in the morning, and they’re going, ‘What in the…?’” The original song they played that day, “Nancy Reagan,” became a reggae classic. In 1986 the Blue Riddim Band became the first American reggae band of any color to be nominated for a Grammy Award for its live Sunsplash Festival recording.

The Common Few? started in Chanute, KS, in 1964 and played through 1971. They played a lot of soul music during the early years, mostly in Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma The Common Few? was actually the evolution of several earlier incarnations that were short lived, i.e. The Argonauts, The Executers and The Slippers. In 1968, The Common Few? recorded their only single, Love Makes A Man which received regional recognition. Take a look at their video collage of photos then and now.

Reviewer Rex Reed called Marilyn Maye “just plain miraculous.” Included in the ranks of Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and Billie Holliday, Maye appeared a record seventy-six times on the Johnny Carson Show. As a child, she competed for money and prizes in amateur venues in Topeka. She won a thirteen week appearance on WIBW TV’s B’rer Fox Show.
“I was 11 years old and every Saturday I sang a song and did a specialty number at the Jayhawk Theater,” she explained on her website. “And at the end of every show I sang ‘God Bless America.’ I think I sang it more than Kate Smith because the show was extended and I sang it for almost two consecutive years!”
While performing at a club in Kansas City, Marilyn was discovered by Steve Allen and became a regular on his show, and there she was discovered by RCA. Recording an album in the Living Room, a New York City club, she was spotted by Ed McMahon, who insisted she perform on the Tonight Show. The audience reaction was so tremendous that Johnny Carson extended an open invitation for her to perform whenever she was in town.
Her career has taken her to the stage in Mama and Hello, Dolly.
Among her numerous awards, including a Grammy nomination, is the 2008 Governor’s Arts Award for Distinguished Artist presented by the governor Kathleen Sebelius and the Kansas Arts Commission.

Since her early days singing in her family’s country band, to her days with Wichita rock groups, Martina has made and impression. She does in now on a bigger stage as a multi-platinum selling recording act for RCA. She has sold more than 15 million records and has been named Female vocalist of the year more than once by the ACM and CMA.

With a more soulful sound than most Topeka bands, the Suns toured extensively and were named by Teen Screen magazine the top act in the Midwest & picked for stardom. After losing most of their equipment in a bus crash, they passed the name on the the Dalton Gang from Coffeyville , who kept the name going after moving to Lawrence . Both versions are included in this nomination.

Lead singer Roger Calkins made the girls swoon; guitarists credit Frank Plas as an inspiration; and drummer Mike Weakley found success later with the Electric Prunes in California.

Formed in 1968, Tide was led by guitarist Jim Stringer and it was an eclectic ensemble whose sound incorporated a mix of free jazz, country, blues and rock. They were known for instrumental virtuosity, original compositions and fearless improvisation.