Hip-Hop Enters Rock Hall

The night's biggest ovation may have been for the woman who swore she'd never make it in: Patti Smith. The bohemian poet straddled the hippie and punk eras, with her album "Horses" setting a standard for literate rock. At the induction ceremony, she performed her biggest hit, "Because the Night," co-written with Bruce Springsteen, and the Rolling Stones' classic, "Gimme Shelter.

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Passed over in previous years, an emotional Smith remembered recalled an argument with her husband, MC5's Fred "Sonic" Smith, shortly before he died.

He told her she would get into the hall and that she would feel deserving. He asked her when she did make the hall to "please accept it like a lady and not to say any curse words.

" (She had made it into the hall yet. When Smith told her she hadn't, her mother said: "When you do, sing your mother's favorite song, the one I like to vacuum to."

So Smith did, dedicating to her mother one of her most fiery songs, 1977's "Rock 'n' Roll N---"

If the absence of her late loved ones made Smith's induction bittersweet, the absence of most of Van Halen's founding members was downright sour.

Eddie Van Halen, who went to rehab last week, was a no-show, as was his brother Alex. Former lead singer David Lee Roth boycotted in a dispute over which song he would sing.

The only two who were present were Sammy Hagar and bassist Michael Anthony.

Velvet Revolver performed two of the band's hits before Hagar and Anthony performed with the night's house band, led by Paul Shaffer.

Hagar said he wished his bandmates could be there, but "it's out of our control."

"It's hard for Mike and I to be up here to do this, but you couldn't have kept me away from this with a shotgun," Hagar said.

There was a happy reunion, though, for R.E.M.

, as they welcomed back drummer Bill Berry, who left the band in 1997 after suffering an aneurysm onstage two years earlier.

Out of Athens, Ga., R.

E.M. largely invented the college radio scene in the 1980s with songs like "Radio Free Europe.

" They "Everybody Hurts."

Stipe said his late grandmother once grabbed him by the arm and said what R.E.

M. means to her is "'remember every moment.' And this is a moment I shall never forget.

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With jewelry dangling from his hair, a mustachioed Keith Richards inducted the Ronettes, the New York City girl group who sang pop symphonies like "Be My Baby" and "Baby I Love You." He recalled hearing them the first time on a tour together in England.

"They could sing all their way right through a wall of sound," Richards said.

"They didn't need anything. They touched my heart right there and then and they touch it still."

Lead singer Ronnie Spector thanked a list of people from Cher to Phil Spector, the producer whose gigantic "wall of sound" is synonymous with the act.

The snub was underscored when she gave a special thank you "to our FIRST producer," then cleared her throat.

Ronnie Spector had an acrimonious split with the legendary music man decades ago. His trial for the murder of an actress at his suburban Los Angeles mansion is due to start next week.

After the Ronettes sang a trio of their hits, Shaffer came to the microphone to read a note from Phil Spector, who said, "I wish them all the happiness and good fortune the world has to offer."

Two of rock's most influential figures - and members of its hall - received tributes: Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton honored James Brown, while hall officials remembered one of the in December.

One of the evening's highlights came as Aretha Franklin, one of Ertgun's greatest artists at Atlantic, sang the first million-seller she made with Ertegun, "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)."