BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — A tribute to some local music pioneers here, in western New York.
The Buffalo Music Hall of Fame announced its 2021 inductees, Tuesday morning.
The announcement was made at its new headquarters on Amherst Street in Buffalo, where a ribbon cutting ceremony also took place.
When you look through the list of inductees, you can see the progression of Buffalo both musically and culturally. You can see the story of a city that is constantly adding to its identity and not satisfied with resting on its laurels," Johnathan Vera with the Buffalo Hall of Fame said.
The new class includes nine inductees from a wide range of musical genres.
This includes; Edie Lehmann Boddicker, who works in films, commercials and tv shows; Scott Celani, who plays colleges clubs and festivals all over the region; Bob Leatherbarrow, a studio drummer who has played with many jazz greats, the "Rick James Stone City Family, formed by the King of Punk Funk in 1978. Others are Juini Booth, Steve Fister, Richie Merlo and Maria Sabastian.
We spoke with two of the new hall-of-famers, who tell 7 Eyewitness News they are honored and humbled.
It is home sweet home for the Buffalo Music hall of fame as its new headquarters has moved to Buffalo, from Niagara Falls.
"To be honored by the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame, I am so humbled and I am thankful and it is a wonderful growing community, and we have so much to offer," 2021 Buffalo Hall of Fame inductee, Robin Grandin said. "It means everything and I am so thankful for all the friends and family and musical friends, and all the music that I was able to create all this time and I'm going to continue to create."
The music organization rolled out with this year's nine new inductees.
Grandin said, "It means everything and I am so thankful for all the friends and family and musical friends, and all the music that I was able to create all this time and I'm going to continue to create."
The singer-songwriter has toured the United States and Canada with her Nashville band "Hurricane Jane".
Grandin, who is also an instrumentalist, has released four albums and has written more than 360 originals.
Grandin said, "We have so many plans for the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame headquarters here, and that includes workshops, that includes seminars, that includes functions and events. It means that we have a presence here in the community and it's extremely exciting because after all, Buffalo Music Hall of Fame-- our music is heard around the world."
Guitarist, LeRoi Johnson, is receiving his second hall-of-fame induction, but this time, he is under musical group: The Rick James Stone City Family."Rick would probably smile and be happy for everybody. He brought a lot of people from Buffalo to the forefront of music," LeRoi Johnson said. "It's important to acknowledge those people who were part of the family. It takes a family to make a star."
Johnson believes bringing funk out and crossing over into the pop culture theme was great.
"We worked somebody like the Temptations- that's a group that I grew up listening to and to be able to revive that group, that was really important to us," Johnson said.
He added that the musical group made an impact when they opened up MTV to a diversified audience.
"That's one of the things that I look back on and say, we did do that. We confronted MTV which was just a platform for rock n' roll, and made them, forced them to change to a platform that was diversified and inclusive," Johnson said.
The new headquarters is located at 340 Amherst Street, in Buffalo.
