Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Curator - Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Questions - Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Jim Henke
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.
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