Avant-garde composer and performer Laurie Anderson, R&B icon Gladys Knight, pioneering rap group NWA, disco queen Donna Summer and country legend Tammy Wynette are among this year’s recipients of the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award, the academy announced today .
Also included on the list: the gospel singing group The Clark Sisters and, in the non-performing categories, Peter Asher, the longtime and prolific producer of artists such as Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor; hip-hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc; and entertainment attorney Joel Katz. These three receive Trustee awards.
Technical Grammy Award winners include Tom Kobayashi and Tom Scott, while “Refugee,” written by K’naan, Steve McEwan and Gerald Eaton (aka Jarvis Church), takes home the award for Best Song for Social Change.
“The Academy is honored to recognize this year’s Special Merit Award recipients—a remarkable group of creatives and professionals whose influence touches generations around the world,” said Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy. “Their contributions to music span genres, backgrounds and crafts, reflecting the rich diversity that drives our creative community. We look forward to honoring these music industry pioneers next month as part of our week-long celebration leading up to Music’s Biggest Night.”
The awards will be presented on Saturday, February 3, at the Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards ceremony at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles. Summer, Wynette and Kobayashi are awarded posthumously.
The 2024 Grammys will take place on Sunday, February 4 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
The Recording Academy described each of the special achievement awards in today’s announcement:
- Laurie Anderson is a writer, director, composer, visual artist, musician and singer who has created ground-breaking works in art, theatre, experimental music and technology. As an artist and musician, she has collaborated with many people, including Brian Eno, Jean-Michel Jarre, William S. Burroughs, Peter Gabriel, Robert Wilson, Christian McBride and Philip Glass. In 2002, Anderson was named NASA’s first artist-in-residence, culminating in her solo tour performance of “The End of the Moon” in 2004. She has been nominated for six Grammy Awards throughout her recording career and has ‘ received a Grammy for the release “Landfall” in collaboration with the Kronos Quartet at the 61st Annual Grammys;
- The Clark Sisters – an American gospel singing group that originally consisted of five sisters – Jacky, Denise, Elbernita, Dorinda and Karen – have been taking the world by storm since the early 1980s. The Clark Sisters are credited with helping bring gospel music into the mainstream and are considered pioneers of contemporary gospel. Her biggest crossover hits include: “Is My Living in Vain?”, “Hallelujah”, “He Gave Me Nothing to Lose”, “Endow Me”, her hit “Jesus Is a Love Song”, “Pure Gold” and “Miracle ” .” ‘ and their biggest gold-selling mainstream crossover, ‘You Brought The Sunshine’. The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Elbernita, Dorinda and Karen) have won three Grammys (two went to the group and one to Karen as a songwriter for “Blessed and Very Favoured”), and with 16 albums to their name and millions in sales, they are the best selling female gospel group in history.
- Gladys Knight is a seven-time Grammy winner who has enjoyed No. 1 hits in pop, gospel, R&B and adult contemporary and has triumphed in film, television and live performance. Knight has recorded over 38 albums over the years, including four solo albums. She appeared on the 14th season of ABC’s Dancing With The Stars in 2012 and in 2019 participated in the first season of The Masked Singer. Knight has sung the national anthem at several major sporting events, including Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta in 2019 and the 2021 NBA All-Star Game. She was a recipient of the 2021 National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts and received a 2022 Kennedy Center Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement;
- NWA was a rap group from the Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles that is credited by many with inventing gangsta rap. The group, consisting of Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Yella and MC-Ren developed a new sound that brought many of Public Enemy’s harsh, extreme sonic innovations while adopting a self-consciously violent sound. and dangerous lyrical attitude. In 1988, NWA released their album Straight Outta Compton, a brutally intense record that became an underground hit without any support from radio or MTV. This negative attention worked to their advantage as it gave the album multi-platinum status. Although the group was short-lived, gangsta rap had established itself as the most popular form of hip-hop by the mid-1990s;
- Donna Summer became an international superstar with her groundbreaking fusion of R&B, soul, pop, funk, rock, disco and avant-garde electronica and catapulted underground dance music from the clubs of Europe into the world. Summer holds the record for three consecutive double albums to reach No. 1 on the Billboard charts (the only solo artist ever to do so) and is the first female artist to have four No. 1 singles on Billboard’s Hot 100 within twelve months Graphic has. A five-time Grammy winner and 18-time Grammy nominee, Summer was the first artist to win the Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (1979, “Hot Stuff”) and also the first ever recipient of the new Grammy -category. for Best Dance Recording (1997, “Carry On”). Summer was the first artist to win Grammy Awards in four different genres: dance, gospel, rock and R&B;
- Tammy Wynette^ first entered the music scene in 1966 with Apartment #9 after moving to Nashville and working with producer Billy Sherrill. Together, the duo wrote songs that reflected the desires and things that Wynette found important in her life. In 1968, Wynette released “Stand By Your Man,” which sold more than five million copies and became the best-selling single ever recorded by a female artist. In 1970 she had five no. 1 country hits, was named Female Vocalist of the Year three times by the Country Music Association, and won two Grammys. Wynette was the first country singer to sell over a million albums and sold over 30 million records, earning her the title of “First Lady of Country Music”;
- Peter Asher’s career began in 1964 as one half of Peter & Gordon, whose “A World Without Love” topped the charts worldwide. Nine more Top 20 hits followed before Asher became A&R boss for the Beatles’ Apple Records in 1968, which James Taylor discovered, produced and managed; He later added Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond, 10,000 Maniacs, Cher, Diana Ross, Kenny Loggins, Bonnie Raitt, Robin Williams, Stevie Nicks, Lyle Lovett, Morrissey, Steve Martin & Edie Brickell, Ed Sheeran and more to his roster. Asher won the Grammy for Producer of the Year in 1977 and 1989. He hosts the popular radio show “From Me To You” on Sirius XM and is in demand not only in the studio, but also as a recording artist, speaker and author;
- DJ Kool Herc is always considered the founder of hip hop. His mastery of the turntable is known worldwide, as is his positive contribution to the development of hip-hop culture. Herc’s popularity grew by playing long, consecutive sets of different rhythm breaks. Unlike all his DJ colleagues, Herc is not a fast-paced rapper who spins your head with banter, but rather a musical innovator of the turntables. He first introduced the use of two turntables to make the beats last longer, creating the illusion of a single long break for the B-boys to show off their skills. Herc has received many recognitions throughout his life, including his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2023 and recognition by the New York Landmarks Conservancy as a 2023 Living Landmark;
- Joel Katz has played a critical role in shaping the entertainment industry through his work facilitating entertainment acquisitions and mergers and advising multinational and multimedia entertainment companies. Katz was ranked by Billboard Magazine as the No. 1 entertainment attorney on its “Power 100” list of the most influential executives in the music industry and has been called “the deal maker who thinks outside the box.” At Kennesaw State University, Katz funded and launched a commercial music program – one of the largest music education programs in America with over 500 students. He is the author and co-author of numerous articles and commentaries on topics related to entertainment law. In honor of his work, the University of Tennessee College of Law dedicated its library, the Joel A. Katz Law Library, to his name.
- Tom Kobayashi and Tom Scott met at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound in 1985, when the duo joined the company and completed construction of Skywalker’s post-production facilities in Northern and Southern California. Together, Kobayashi and Scott founded the Entertainment Digital Network, also known as “EDnet”, which used fiber optic networks to transmit high-quality video and audio data over long distances. The revolutionary technology at the time enabled the industry to connect talent, managers and production facilities at huge cost savings. For 25 years, this company has connected hundreds of recording studios around the world, at a time when the Internet was not yet capable of processing high-quality audio content. EDnet became part of Onstream Media and over the decades has enabled tens of thousands of remote collaboration sessions for the music, advertising, television and film industries.
- In June 2023, singer-songwriter K’naan released the inspirational single and accompanying video “Refugee”, co-written by Grammy-winning songwriter Steve McEwan and Grammy-nominated producer Gerald Eaton (aka Jarvis Church). . . “Refugee” stands out as a unique musical effort that skillfully blends personal and political stories and serves as a tribute to refugees around the world. For the single, K’naan was inspired by his personal experiences and wanted to redefine the traditional perception of the term “refugee” into a symbol of resilience and strength. The song was written in hopes of encouraging people to embrace the word “refugee” with pride and to give those made homeless by conflict a song that feels like home.
Source: Deadline
Ashley Root is an author and celebrity journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a keen eye for all things celebrity, Ashley is always up-to-date on the latest gossip and trends in the world of entertainment.
