The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: The Outrageous, Definitive, Untold History

Told with grit, reverence, and doses of gleeful mischief, The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a front-row seat to music history--and the madness behind chasing down the world's greatest collection of rock relics.

Craig Inciardi was a rising star at Sotheby's, wheeling and dealing in rock memorabilia, when he got the call to help launch the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum. The catch? There was no museum. Just a "guitar of no importance and three interesting sheets of paper."

With a green light and few guardrails, Inciardi hit the road and became the Indiana Jones of rock history--working out of Rolling Stone's offices, answering to Jann Wenner, and tracking down legends for their sacred stuff. His journey took him to Ozzy Osbourne's country estate (where Ozzy greeted him with a gun), Keith Moon's boyhood home, and Art Garfunkel's secret stash of letters from Paul Simon. Along the way, he landed the guitar Pete Townshend used to write "Tommy," Otis Redding's leather coat worn before his fatal plane crash, Patti Smith's duct-taped boots, Aretha
Franklin's handwritten notes, Debbie Harry's stagewear, and John Lennon's glasses that were worn on the day he died.

And that's only a fraction of the rock-relic stories on offer.

Meanwhile, Inciardi pulls back the curtain on the hall's chaotic birth: the cutthroat induction debates, the backstage meltdowns, and the legendary all-star jams with Jagger, Dylan, Springsteen, and more.

Author: Craig Inciardi
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 09/30/2025
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9798895150481


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 07/25/2025 pg. 1

About the Author
Craig Inciardi is the founding curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and began working for the museum in 1991. Inciardi was instrumental in launching the museum and built the institution's collection from the ground up. He has curated numerous award-winning exhibitions including "Rock Style," a collaboration with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1999. He also curated major exhibitions on The Rolling Stones, The Who's Tommy, John Lennon, The Clash, Rolling Stone Magazine, and "Louder Than Words," an exhibition about rock and roll and politics which was a collaboration with the Newseum in Washington, DC. He was also charged with building the collection to open the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Library and Archive.

In 2019, Inciardi co-curated "Play It Loud: The Instruments of Rock and Roll" with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has conducted numerous on-camera interviews with artists, including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Tom Morello, Taylor Swift, Bono, Ringo Starr, Paul Simon, and former president Jimmy Carter. He is the co-author of Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock and Roll which was published by Yale University Press. He is a contributor to the documentary Jimmy Carter: The Rock and Roll President, which was released in 2020. Previously, he worked at Sotheby's auction house in New York, where he developed specialized sales of rock and roll memorabilia and pop culture materials. He graduated from Fairfield University in 1986, where he studied Communications and English.