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There are many ways to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For Raven Slaughter, a fixture of the Cleveland music scene going back to the 1970s, that means having his S-shaped guitar on full display at the prestigious Rock Hall.
Now in hospice care, Slaughter still makes the effort to visit his old friend, a Gibson Les Paul Junior, which he sawed up and transformed into a custom S-shaped guitar for what he deems a really good reason.
“I made an S out of it because it sucked, and they thought it meant Slaughter. Really, it just sucked,” Raven tells Fox 8 News Cleveland. “It just kept going out of tune.”
Slaughter made a name for himself across Northeast Ohio and the Midwest throughout the ’70s and ’80s, playing iconic venues such as the Agora, the Beachland Ballroom, and the Fantasy. While he’s not a nationwide household name, he served as a mentor to many artists navigating the Cleveland scene and built a decades-long career in music.
All these years later, the guitarist admits “it’s weird” to see his loyal companion displayed at the Rock Hall, “because I’d like to play it, but it’s in there for everybody to see, but that’s OK.”
Mostly, though, he’s just glad that music fans now have the opportunity to see a very unusual guitar and learn more about the scene that helped him flourish.
Having his instrument displayed at such a prestigious location is validating for Slaughter. It showed how music allowed him to “just [be] me. I could be myself, and everybody dug just me being me.”
And, speaking of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the 2026 Rock Hall inductees were announced just a couple of weeks ago, and there’s a long overdue nod to some British heavyweights.
