“Great Performances” will present “Grammy Salute To Music Legends “on Friday, October 13th on PBS. The second annual all-star concert primetime special will honor the 2017 Special Merit Awards recipients. The celebration and tribute concert will feature rare performances by honorees and renditions by those they’ve inspired.
In collaboration with the Recording Academy™,The celebration, led by Paul Shaffer as musical director, was recorded in July at New York’s Beacon Theatre. The awards are usually held during Grammy Week, this is the second time the Recording Academy has celebrated the Special Merit Awards with a stand-alone event and musical tribute.
This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award honorees are Charley Pride, Shirley Caesar, Ahmad Jamal, Jimmie Rodgers, Nina Simone, Sly Stone, and the Velvet Underground.
Additional Special Merit Awards honorees celebrated include Trustees Awards recipients producer, arranger, and songwriter Thom Bell; record executive Mo Ostin; and recording executive, A&R man, and music publisher Ralph S. Peer; and audio inventor Alan Dower Blumlein, who is the Technical GRAMMY Award recipient. Also honored is Keith Hancock, this year’s recipient of the Recording Academy and GRAMMY Museum®’s Music Educator Award™.
Along with never-before-seen video packages celebrating each of the honorees’ contributions to the music industry and our cultural heritage and heartfelt testimonials from the presenters, the event features performances by Lifetime Achievement Award honorees John Cale and Maureen “Moe” Tucker of the Velvet Underground, Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Shirley Caesar, jazz pianist Stanley Cowell, Andra Day, Kirk Franklin, Le’Andria Johnson, Neal McCoy, Randy Newman,Living Colour founder and songwriter Vernon Reid, Catherine Russell, Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Charley Pride, Valerie Simpson, Russell Thompkins Jr. of the Stylistics, Dionne Warwick, Charlie Wilson, and Dwight Yoakam. There is also a special appearance by GRAMMY winner Whoopi Goldberg, who accepts for the late Nina Simone.
