Cleveland Rocks For Curator Of The Hall

By Ken Schlager

You could say that Jim Henke has the perfect job.

Trained as a journalist and raised on rock'n'roll -- and in a suburb of Cleveland, no less -- Henke is VP of exhibitions and curatorial affairs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

In other words, he's the guy who convinces the rock stars and their families to lend or donate their career artifacts to the museum. He's also the guy who decides what to display and how to display it.

Beginning in 1976, Henke spent almost 18 years at Rolling Stone, 10 as music editor. He wrote cover stories on rock legends such as Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Jerry Garcia and the Clash and edited two of the magazine's historical anthologies.

As a key member of the Rolling Stone staff, he was present at some of the early planning meetings for the Hall of Fame, thanks to the involvement of the magazine's publisher, Jann Wenner. So, when the Hall needed a curator, the native Ohioan was a natural candidate. Ironically, he had made a career change the year before, leaving Rolling Stone in 1993 to become VP of product development for Elektra Entertainment.

But the Rock Hall gig was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and Henke has made the most of it, leaving his stamp on every inch of the museum, helping to create an institution that informs, inspires and entertains its visitors.

Billboard spoke with Henke as the Hall of Fame prepared for the March 13 induction of its latest class of rock stars.

Q: How did you go about getting this job?

A: I had actually grown up in Cleveland, so that is the first little bit of history and my degree was in journalism and my first job out of college was actually working at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a daily newspaper here, in a news job. I wound up getting hired by Rolling Stone.

Long story short, I had been about 15 years at Rolling Stone as a writer and I was music editor there for a long time. When they first started working on the Hall of Fame -- it was 1983 when the idea first started coming up -- Jann Wenner was very active in the organization and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and he would occasionally have meetings up at Rolling Stone.

Because I was the music editor at the time, he would occasionally invite me to the meetings and I would usually just sit in as more of a viewer. When they finally picked Cleveland as the site, which I think was 1986, I think part because I was from Cleveland, I sort of got a little more involved in some of the meetings. But then again, it was not an official capacity.

Then I left Rolling Stone at the end of 1992 and went to Elektra Records and was Vice President of Product Development there. At some point they finally hired their first real museum director [Dennis Barrie] at the Hall of Fame here in Cleveland ?When he came on board, they already had I.M. Pei selected as the architect and they had an exhibit design and all this stuff. He asked to see what the collection was and basically there was very, very little here so [Barrie] in a panic called the board in New York and said we need someone who can help us collect stuff. They only had about a year and a half before the museum was supposed to open.

So I guess [the board] called Jann and said you know we need someone to help us get this collection together? I got a call from Jann wanting to know if I would be interested in coming back to be the museum's curator. I guess it was because I had enough connections in the music world and I sort of knew the history -- when I was at Rolling Stone I had edited a couple of their books on the history of rock ?n' roll and stuff like that.

I had always joked that I was the one person from the music industry who might want to move to Cleveland because I had grown up in Cleveland.

Q: Was there an existing museum collection when you signed on as curator in 1994?

A: There wasn't really too much. It was more like some stuff from fans. There was very little of any substance.

Q: What was your first move to change that?

A. Because Jann had a relationship with Yoko Ono and John Lennon, he had called Yoko and said, "Jim is going to be the curator now." I had met her a few times when I was at Rolling Stone. Through Jann's arrangements we got Yoko to give us a nice collection of John Lennon memorabilia. It is on a long-term loan, but it was his "Sergeant Pepper" uniform and the leather jacket that he wore when the Beatles played in Hamburg and also some early song lyrics and school report cards.

So that was the first big collection we got after I got on board and that sort of opened the door to trying to get more. It was always a really nice thing to say, "Hey, look what we have from John Lennon's estate."

Q: What were some of the other early challenges?

A: There was a design team that was supposed to create exhibits, but it was all sort of being done in a vacuum. Myself and Dennis Barrie, the [museum] director at the time, sat down and went through everything and tried to have it make more sense. But we were working and the basic parts of the building had already been designed, so we sort of had to make changes.

One of the things that I thought was very important was that it couldn't be a dull museum. You actually had to hear music and video and things like that and that hadn't been really figured in so prominently. We had to try and add those elements and then other stuff too. It had to somehow be serious and also be fun and somehow represent the spirit of rock'n'roll.

I also thought it would be fun to include things like stage props and no one had really thought about that before so we basically had to take [the design] plans and get things to work in there. Then the other obvious thing was that we really didn't have a budget to buy things? it was really a matter of convincing primarily the artists or their managers to either loan us stuff or give us stuff. It was really a big sales job.

Q: How did you handle that?

A: I put together a little staff that was for the most part other journalists that I had known. I had selected them from either geographic location -- like someone who was out in California and someone who was down in Nashville -- or sort of by their area of expertise. If someone knew a lot about the blues and folk, stuff like that. That was another one of the things I thought it was really important -- to go back and cover the roots of rock'n'roll, let it not be all about iconic artists of the '60s.

In terms of the sales job, the thing we started doing even as the building was being built, whenever artists would come through Cleveland I'd invite them down to the museum and the construction site and show them the blueprints and try to explain what we wanted to do. And to this day we still do that. It's probably our most successful thing. Even though it's been open for 10 years now, a lot of them don't quite know what it is. They may think it's just a glorified Hard Rock Cafe type of thing. Ninety-nine times out of 100, artists who come through here end up really liking it and are much more likely to give us stuff.

Q: What's it like when artists visit the museum?

A: It sort of varies. We offer them our guided tour and sometimes they'll ask us if they can do it after hours. Green Day was here this past summer and they came down after the show. A couple of people on my staff took them around. It was just them and the security people and that was it. And there are other people that don't mind walking through when there are visitors here.

One interesting story -- Les Paul said that he was going to give all his collection to the Smithsonian. I would try to call him every so often and convince him to come here. It turns out that he actually, many years ago, had one of the very first quadruple bypass heart surgeries at the Cleveland Clinic here. So one day I get a call from him saying that he was going to be coming through Cleveland to go visit his doctors at the clinic. He thought he might come visit this museum that I keep calling him about.

So we took him through -- he came through during the regular hours. People recognized him and came up to him to talk to him and all that. He really loved that. He also loved the museum and at the end he said "you know what, you're absolutely right. This is where my stuff should be." I got a great collection from him, a nice exhibit that we now have on the second floor. On the opening night he actually brought his band out and played here. That was a good example of someone who once they saw the museum they liked it.

Q: Do you actually get out and walk around the museum yourself to see how people react to the exhibits?

A: We try to do that. We also get e-mails sent to our Web site from people who have been here with ideas and suggestions. We've also got a visitor comment thing.

I do try to get out and walk around. I mean it's fun out here during a busy day. During the summer when it's really busy and sort of noisy and there's music playing all over. People are talking or they'll be listening -- people can listen to headphones and they'll be dancing. Stuff like that is fun to see.

Q: What have you learned from this?

A: One of the things that has most impressed me since I've been here is that, I always imagined it would be more iconic stuff like the John Lennon "Sergeant Pepper" uniform that people would care about and the esoteric stuff they wouldn't really care about. But what really impresses me is that most of the visitors, I'm always amazed, they pore over these handwritten lyrics or memos and things like that, that we have in our cases. They really do come and spend a lot of time here and focus on the stuff.

There was a time early on... people called and asked how long they should spend here. We use to tell them two hours. And then it got to the point where you can't even see half the museum in two hours. I finally, at one point a couple of years ago, started a two-day ticket so that they get a little discount if they wanted to stay for a second day. Basically, people spend five, six hours here easily here. For a museum, I think that's pretty rare.

Q: Everyone who comes to the museum must have a favorite object that really touches them. For me, for some reason, it was Brian Jones' dulcimer. For my son, it was Paul Simonon's broken bass from "London Calling." What does it for you?

A: I like the handwritten stuff. I like the John Lennon manuscript for "In My Life."

Q: Is there a kind of holy grail out there? Something that you really want to get for the collection?

A: Bob Dylan is one person we've tried over the years to get stuff from and haven't gotten too much stuff from him. Although now we are going to have a Bob Dylan exhibit that was curated by the folks out at [Experience Music Project]. He was the one guy we have been consistently going after and haven't had a whole lot of luck with. There are little things here and there, but there's not one particular item that we badly need or anything like that.

Q: You now have to compete for objects with other museums like EMP in Seattle. And then there's eBay, which has given people a new sense of the value of memorabilia. Has this made your job more difficult?

A: It's sort of gone both ways. In a lot of ways it's a little bit easier for us now because we've been around for 10 years and have a reputation. If we call someone, they're more inclined to cooperate with us. Likewise, when bands come through they want to do stuff with us. People are always interested in giving us stuff.

One thing I have noticed is that the bands themselves are becoming more aware of the value of this stuff. A couple of bands even have an archivist on staff. There's a more awareness in general of the value of this stuff. Like you said about eBay and all that stuff. People want to save things or whatever.

But I would say that 85%-90% of what we have come more from artists as opposed to individual collectors. Although there are some collectors that we do work with regularly who have been very generous.

Q: What percentage of the collection is on loan?

A:It's probably 50/50. There's some stuff on loan, some stuff are donations. The thing we've found though was that most of these stuff we have from musicians that are on loan, they tend to just keep on renewing the loan and eventually they end up donating it. But it's not like they sign a loan for two years and then take it back. They do leave it here and are pretty happy to have their stuff here.

Q: You've got all sorts of artifacts at the museum but overwhelmingly it seems to be about clothing and guitars. What does that say about rock'n'roll?

A: Well that's one of the tricky things about this museum. It's one thing I always talk about. We're a different kind of museum in the sense that the actual art is available online or in the CD store. It's not like they're going into an art museum where you look at the painting and it's the original Picasso. If you want to hear the original U2 song you can go buy it in a store.

So that's a tricky thing in that we're displaying the ephemera of the subject, although we do try to tell as much of a story as we can. That was one of the reasons for including more audio and video stuff. I do like seeing the handwritten lyrics where you can see how John Lennon or Bono crossed this verse out, re-wrote it in and then re-wrote something else in. I tend to like that kind of stuff.

Q: Any special plans for the future, new things that you're planning or special exhibits coming up?

A: This coming spring we're opening an exhibit on Ray Orbison and it's in conjunction with what would have been his 70th birthday. We're also doing a little exhibit on the Mamas & Papas, which ties in with a play that Denny Doherty is involved with -- a musical that's going to be in Cleveland for about five weeks.

Our big exhibit this summer is going to be our Bob Dylan exhibit that we're taking from the Seattle museum. We are looking at some other things. We're looking at ways to improve the experience overall. We're looking at maybe making some redesign of specific areas and things like that but that's out in the future.

Q: I know you have a lot of objects that aren't out on display right now. How do you feel about the amount of space you have for displays?

A: I think it's a fair, decent amount of space. And certainly between the theaters and everything else, it gives people a lot to look at. So that's not too bad of a problem.

Q: How do you keep things fresh for people who might want to come for a return visit?

A: We change our big exhibit at least once a year and we tend to add two or three small ones once per year to freshen things up.

Q: The decision to put the Hall in Cleveland is still controversial for some people. In retrospect, do you think it was the right decision and why?

A: I think the thing about Cleveland or why they often don't get the proper respect for Cleveland [is a lack of understanding about] the way they actually got it. It was the government leaders, then the corporate leaders in Cleveland who wanted it to put Cleveland on the map and making it a tourist destination -- which it has done. Most of our visitors come from outside the region, from out of state and out of the country.

There was also a grassroots movement here of fans that really wanted it. I can sort of relate to that, growing up in Cleveland. In the ?60s and ?70s it was a great music town. There were always great radio stations here and there were always a lot of bands playing. I remember when I left Cleveland and went to go see the Rolling Stones when I started to interview bands, they started talking and ask "Where are you from?" and I'd say Cleveland and virtually all of them would say "Oh that's the best place to play, they have the best audiences there."

So Cleveland, even at its worst years when it was at its lowest, it was always a good rock'n'roll city. It's a great place to have [the museum].

It really was this combined effort. It was interesting because when we had the opening a friend of mine name Joel Sullivan from a newspaper out in San Francisco came to cover it. He had been a part of the effort to have the Hall of Fame in San Francisco and he would say, "You know I can never figure out why Cleveland would've gotten it and not San Francisco." But when he came here he realized "Gosh, the mayor's here, the governor's here, that person's here, this person's here" -- and in San Francisco it was this small music community that wanted it and their mayor wasn't involved.

So I have to give Cleveland the credit for that. I think one of the really good things that people don't realize is that its done a lot for the city of Cleveland and there's a huge population around the area, with Chicago and Detroit and all that, so we do get a lot of visitors around here that are visiting from neighboring states. I'm happy that it's here. I'm happy for the city of Cleveland.

Q: This year's inductees are a uniquely diverse group of artists. Anything in particular you're anticipating at the induction ceremony?

A: I don't know too much about who's going to be there yet. One thing I think is really nice about this year is that people like the Sex Pistols and Lynyrd Skynyrd and Black Sabbath, I think the all three are deserving and influential in their various areas of rock'n'roll. I think they've been overlooked in the past so I'm really glad that they're all getting in. I think definitely that it's a good move and it should provide some excitement at the event.

Q: You were at Elektra for just a year before taking this job. Any regrets about leaving label life?

A: I actually was torn about leaving when the job offer came up, because I'd only been there for a year and was slowly learning my way around. I was enjoying what I was doing.

Basically I just realized that it was unlikely that anyone ever again in my life was going to offer me the opportunity to open up a museum. It appealed to me because I thought my background -- I like museums and I like history. So at the time, I was very torn and ultimately made the decision to come here. In retrospect a lot of people I know who are in the music business were like "That was really smart of you to get out when you did." And I told them that it wasn't an intentional thing, it was just that another opportunity came up.

I'm very happy to be doing what I'm doing. I don't know what would've happened had I stayed in the music business but I'm very happy. It's an interesting mix of using my journalism background and my love of music in love of history and all that. What we're doing here is telling stories. It's slightly different from doing it on magazine but you're using three-dimensional artifacts and you can use video and music and other stuff, so basically what we're trying to do is tell the story about the artist and his music.

Q: So it's kind of like a living magazine.

A: That's it.

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