George Harrison enters Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Ex-Beatle George Harrison was honoured posthumously for his solo career last night when he entered the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Also honoured was Prince, Detroit rocker Bob Seger, California singer-songwriter Jackson Browne, ZZ Top, Traffic and the Dells in the annual induction ceremony in New York.

Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, two fellow members of the Travelling Wilburys, were on hand to salute Harrison. The guitarist joins John Lennon and Paul McCartney as Beatles also honoured by the Rock Hall as solo artists.

Harrison’s biggest hit, “My Sweet Lord,” came in a burst of pent-up creativity following the Beatles’ break-up. He recorded infrequently in the decade before his death in November 2001 of cancer, but a well-received posthumous disc came out in 2002.

Prince reeled off a string of hits in the 1980s, including "When Doves Cry,” “Little Red Corvette,” “Kiss” and ”Raspberry Beret.” A restless perfectionist, the Minneapolis-based singer often played every instrument on his discs.

He declared war on the music industry in the 1990s, even renouncing his own name for a while.

The outrageous rappers OutKast and soulful singer Alicia Keys were to induct Prince, itself a tribute to his eclectic mix of styles.

Seger, who still lives in the Detroit area, burst from regional to national fame with the hits “Night Moves,” ”Old Time Rock & Roll” and “Like a Rock”.

“It feels great. We’re all real excited. It’s wonderful,” he said recently. “The best part about it is I don’t have to explain to people anymore why I’m not in there.”

Michigan’s governor declared today “Bob Seger Day” in the state.

Browne co-wrote “Take it Easy” for the Eagles, then was successful on his own with “Doctor My Eyes,” “The Pretender” and “Running on Empty.”

The “No Nukes” concert organiser has mixed the political with the personal throughout his career.

Hirsute blues-rockers ZZ Top were an early MTV staple with the boogie hits, “Legs” and “Sharp-Dressed Man,” helped by the presence of scantily-dressed women in their videos.

And they were a ready-made trivia question: the one member of the trio who didn’t wear a beard down to his chest was named (Frank) Beard.

Traffic featured teen prodigy organist Steve Winwood, who later went on to solo success. The pastoral, jazzy Traffic had hits with “Glad” and “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.”

The Dells, a vocal harmony quintet that hit with “Oh What a Night” in 1955, were the inspiration for the film “The Five Heartbeats.” With only one personnel change, a group formed in high school is still performing together more than 50 years later.

Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner was to receive a lifetime achievement award.

Chubby Checker, whose song “The Twist” was one of the most popular dance records of all time, staged a good natured protest outside the induction festivities at New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel.

The singer isn’t in the Hall of Fame but says that isn’t a problem. He is peeved over what he considers a lack of radio airplay for the classic song and his new material.

“I’m not doing it to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at all,” he told The Associated Press in an interview. “I don’t get the airplay that one in my position deserves. ’Twist and Shout’ gets more airplay than ’The Twist,’ and that’s not right.”

Checker, 62, has been recording for decades, and some of other hits include “The Hucklebuck” and “Pony Time.”

But his biggest hit was the 1960 song “The Twist,” which went to number one in that year and again in 1961, sparking a dance craze across the United States and the UK. The song was so popular he even had a hit with its sequel, “Let’s Twist Again,” in 1961. (He also had a hit with “Slow Twistin”’ and in 1994 released a song called “Texas Twist”).

While the writer of the “The Twist,” Hank Ballard, has been inducted into hall, Checker hasn’t.