Straight from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rock on TV exhibit is a trip down memory lane, with video from shows like Shindig, Hullaballoo, Soul Train, and American Bandstand; and artifacts, like one of Eric Clapton’s guitars, a Paul Shaffer keyboard, and costumes worn by Cher and Michael Jackson (not the same ones by both).

I wrote a two-page paper on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and its politics for my college freshman rhetoric class (how do I remember that?), so I was happy to see that show well-represented in the exhibit, especially because of two famous incidents it references.

One was Pete Seeger singing Waist Deep in the Big Muddy for a second time, after his first rendition was deleted by the network from an earlier show because of the song’s anti-war message. The other was Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, going a little overboard when blowing up his drum set on stage, apparently causing some permanent hearing loss for Pete Townsend.

Darlene Love appears in several of the videos, commenting on various shows, including, of course, both Late Night and Late Show with David Letterman, which forever etched her name in TV music history for the 28 times she performed Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) on them.

Letterman is lauded as someone who brought a lot of rock acts onto his show. Apparently, other hosts, like Johnny Carson, and Ed Sullivan, who famously had The Beatles and Elvis Presley, among other rock acts, on his show, only did so kicking and screaming.

It’s a stretch to call all the music highlighted in the exhibit “rock”, but my only real complaint is the varying, overlapping sound levels that sometimes make it hard to hear at a few of the stations, even if you’re not Pete Townsend.