The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced its 2015 class of inductees on Tuesday: Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Green Day, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Lou Reed, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble and Bill Withers.
Butterfield, Reed and Vaughan will be inducted posthumously. Reed was previously inducted in 1996 as a member of The Velvet Underground. Beatles drummer Ringo Starr will also receive the Hall of Fame's Award For Musical Excellence.
The 2015 nominees that did not make the cut are Nine Inch Nails, War, Sting, N.W.A., Kraftwerk, The Smiths, The Spinners, The Marvelettes and Chic.
The inductees were chosen by "a voting body of more than 700 artists, historians and members of the music industry," according to the Hall of Fame website. Ballots cast by fans via the website were also factored into the equation; Nine Inch Nails followed Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble in fan polling, but ultimately was left out of the Hall of Fame.
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, led by its namesake harmonica player, was one of the hottest bands in the late 1960s, earning slots at major festivals like Woodstock and Monterey Pop. Its members included guitarists Elvin Bishop, who went on to have solo success with the single "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," and Mike Bloomfield, whom Bob Dylan chose to be his first electric guitarist. Butterfield died in 1987.
Green Day is the newest act on the list of this year's inductees. Formed in 1987, the California punk band didn't find mainstream success until the 1994 release of its album "Dookie." The band has gone on to become one of the most commercially successful acts of all time, having sold more than 75 million copies of albums like "Dookie" and "American Idiot" while racking up five Grammy Awards, according to USA Today.
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts are known for their signature anthem "I Love Rock 'N' Roll," hits like "Bad Reputation" and cover versions of Tommy James & the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover" and Gary Glitter's "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)." Jett was born in Philadelphia and moved with her family to Los Angeles when she was 12, according to Allmusic.com. Before performing with the Blackhearts, Jett was a founding member of The Runaways, an all-female teenage band that included Lita Ford and Cherie Currie.
Lou Reed, the cantankerous and idiosyncratic singer, songwriter and guitarist, quit the seminal act The Velvet Underground in 1970 and went on to release monumentally influential albums including "Transformer" and "Berlin." He died in 2013.
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, the Austin, Texas, blues band, is often credited as reviving the blues in the 1980s. While Vaughan spent just seven years in the spotlight before his 1990 death in a plane crash, he made his mark by becoming one of the most influential guitarists in rock or blues history.
Bill Withers is the soulful singer-songwriter behind classic songs like "Just The Two Of Us," "Lean On Me," "Lovely Day" and "Ain't No Sunshine." A Navy veteran, Withers was already 33 years old when he had his first hit in 1971 with "Ain't No Sunshine."
The 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held April 18, 2015, in Cleveland.
