Green Day, Lou Reed join rock Hall of Fame

NEW YORK — The punk trio Green Day, poet of the New York underground Lou Reed and Lean on Me singer Bill Withers will lead a new class of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year.

The hall announced Tuesday that it will also welcome Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, who famously sang about loving rock 'n' roll, and make Ringo Starr the fourth ex-Beatle enshrined as an individual. Besides Reed, the class includes other posthumous inductees Paul Butterfield and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The 30th annual induction ceremony will be held at Cleveland's Public Hall on April 18.

Green Day made it in the group's first year of eligibility, after making the 1990s slackers anthem Dookie and hit a peak with the politically themed American Idiot a decade later. Armstrong also starred in a Broadway musical based on American Idiot.

Reed, who died in October 2013 after complications from a liver transplant, is already in the hall as a member of the Velvet Underground. He was at his best exploring the underside of his home city, in the hit Walk on the Wild Side and fierce crack-era album New York.

Withers brought a jazz and funk touch to 1970s era singer-songwriter material like Ain't No Sunshine, Use Me and Just the Two of Us. He hasn't released new music in nearly three decades.

Jett emerged from the all-female punk-era pioneers the Runaways to lead a band of men with punchy hits, none bigger than I Love Rock 'n' Roll.

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band married blues and rock during the 1960s, led by harmonica and the lead guitar of Mike Bloomfield.

Blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan was a 1980s prodigy for his work with band Double Trouble on songs like Pride and Joy and Texas Flood.

Beatles drummer Ringo Starr is being given a special award for musical excellence.

Inductees are chosen by a vote of more than 700 artists, historians and music industry representatives. An artist needed to have first released material no later than 1989.