Philadelphia Music Walk of Fame: 2019 class announced, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and Pierre Robert

The renowned Philadelphia Orchestra, legendary R&B group the O’Jays, and “All You Zombies” rockers the Hooters are among this year’s inductees to the Philadelphia Music Walk of Fame, the Philadelphia Music Alliance announced during a press reception at the Independence Visitors Center on Wednesday.

The class of 2019′s other honorees include Philadelphia socialite and philanthropist Dorrance “Dodo” Hamilton, who died in 2017; disco queen Evelyn “Champagne” King; and Jody Gerson, the current CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group and the first woman to run a major music-publishing company. Longtime 93.3 WMMR-FM disc jockey Pierre Robert, a staple of Philadelphia’s rock-radio culture since 1981, is this year’s dual Radio Row Award recipient and Walk of Fame inductee.

“This year’s honorees class is filled with legends from especially diverse backgrounds, allowing us to once again display the variety of this city’s phenomenal music genres — from classical to rock to Philly soul — as well as honoring one of the music industry’s most respected and accomplished executives, and a beloved philanthropist whose contributions to music education in our city is without peer,” said PMA chairman Alan Rubens.

The honorees will be inducted at noon on Oct. 22 during a ceremony on the Avenue of the Arts. The celebration will continue with an evening gala at the Bellevue Hotel.

The Philadelphia Music Alliance’s posthumous induction of Hamilton will include honoring the Campbell Soup heiress and former University of the Arts trustee and board chair with its Humanitarian Award. Hamilton helped Philadelphia’s music culture thrive by giving more than $47 million to local arts organizations, and more than $50 million total to the University of the Arts, before she she died in 2017.

The O’Jays also will be honored not just as inductees but as recipients of this year’s Philadelphia Award. The Sound of Philadelphia mainstays and musical masterminds behind four decades of hits including “Love Train” and “Livin’ for the Weekend,” the O’Jays rose to musical prominence after being signed by Philadelphia International Records in 1972. The band, which has gone through several lineup changes since first forming in Canton, Ohio, in 1958, was the first black R&B touring act to headline arenas. It was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Founded in 1900, the Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the world’s preeminent symphony orchestras. Under the leadership of its eighth-ever music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the 97-musician symphony has returned to recording, broadcasts weekly on WRTI-FM and SiriusXM, and engages more than 50,000 students, families, and community members through its award-winning educational-outreach programming.

“At the orchestra, we’ve really tried hard to do more and to be more of our communities in Philadelphia,” said Ryan Fleur, the orchestra’s executive director. “We’ve been around a long time — we have a tradition, we have a legacy. Sometimes we can get caught up in our performances and not pay attention to what else is happening, so when the [Walk of Fame] call came, we saw it as a wonderful opportunity to both celebrate not just the music community, but the the diversity of the music community in Philadelphia.”

While the Hooters’ Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian both have plaques in the Walk of Fame, this year’s induction of the Hooters as a whole celebrates the band’s influence in Philadelphia. “This is quite an honor for the band — a little overwhelming,” said Hyman. “We’re celebrating our 40th anniversary next year and I thought that’s some longevity, but then there’s the Philadelphia Orchestra. … There was always some pressure in the business — especially the pop music scene — to move to Los Angeles, New York City, or Nashville, but I don’t think we could have ever done what we did here in Philly.”

The Music Walk of Fame was established in 1987 by the Philadelphia Music Alliance, a community-driven nonprofit founded in 1986 that works to “encourage the creation, celebration, and historical preservation of the city’s vibrant music culture.” The inaugural class contained 14 honorees, including Bessie Smith, Dick Clark, Marian Anderson, Bobby Rydell, and Dizzy Gillespie. In the years since, some 140 musicians and music professionals with ties to Philadelphia have been honored through a series of bronze commemorative plaques.

Among them are Jill Scott, Hall & Oates, Joan Jett, and Boys II Men. The Walk of Fame begins on the southwest corner of Broad and Walnut Streets.