Pink isn’t going in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but Philly soul songwriter Linda Creed is
The songwriter, who teamed with Thom Bell, is an honoree. Oasis, Phil Collins, Wu-Tang Clan, Luther Vandross, Billy Idol, Sade, Queen Latifah, and Iron Maiden are also being inducted.
Pink is not getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Not this year anyway.
But surprise!: Linda Creed is.
Those are the Philadelphia music bullet points for the news out of the Rock Hall in Cleveland about the 2026 class of inductees.
Seventeen performers were nominated this year, Doylestown native Alecia Moore aka Pink among them. Seven got in: Phil Collins, Billy Idol, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, Oasis, Sade, Luther Vandross, and the Wu-Tang Clan.
Along with Pink, those nominated but denied entry include Shakira, Mariah Carey, Black Crowes, Jeff Buckley, Lauryn Hill, Melissa Etheridge, and New Edition.
New Edition lost despite leading the fan voting with over 1 million votes. Collins was second, Pink third. Fan voting doesn’t really count, though: The results count only as a single vote among over 1200 music industry insider electors.
That’s not the whole story.
Outside of the performers category, the Rock Hall also inducts music people in to other categories: Early Influence and Musical Excellence.
One of last year’s surprise honorees was Thom Bell, the Philly soul producer, arranger, and songwriter, known as one of the “Mighty Three,” who created hits for the Delfonics, Stylistics, Spinners, and many others.
In the early 1970s, Bell’s chief cowriter in constructing symphonic light-as-a-feather songs, for the Stylistics in particular, was Creed.
The lyricist, who was raised in Mount Airy, penned the words to “Betcha, By Golly Wow,” “Stop, Look, listen (To Your Heart),” “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” and “I’m Stone In Love With You,” for the group and the fluttery falsetto of its lead singer Russell Thompkins Jr.
Creed’s songwriting credits also include “Life Is A Song Worth Singing,” for Johnny Mathis and Teddy Pendergrass, “Old Friend,” for Phyllis Hyman, and “The Rubberband Man” and “Ghetto Child” for the Spinners. The biggest song for Creed, who died of cancer in 1986 at 37, was “The Greatest Love Of All,” an R&B hit for George Benson and a pop chart topper for Whitney Houston.
“We rode the ethers of life and music together,” Bell said of Creed, who wrote the lyrics to “You Make Me Feel Brand New” for him, in an interview with The Inquirer in 2020, two years before his own death. “Her husband and I were the last two people to throw dirt on her grave.”
Along with Creed, this year’s Musical Excellence honorees are producers Arif Mardin, Jimmy Miller, and Rick Rubin. Early Influence inductees include Cuban salsa singer Celia Cruz, Nigerian Afrobeat inventor Fela Kuti, and country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons.
Plus, two women who rap: MC Lyte and Queen Latifah. The latter will headline a “Salute to Service” concert in Philadelphia on July 2 as part of the Wawa Welcome America semiquincentennial celebration.
