Musicians Chaka Khan, Cher, Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, Fela Kuti and Whitney Houston received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy at the Grammys Special Merit Awards on February 1, as per media reports.
“Music has been my prayer, my healing, my joy, my truth,” Khan said as she accepted the award, according to a report by Associated Press. “Through it, I saved my life.”
Khan was the only Lifetime Achievement recipient who attended the ceremony at the small Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles ahead of the main Grammys ceremony on Sunday.
Prior to receiving the honour, a short documentary on her career highlighting her hits as part of the funk band Rufus and as a solo artiste, was played. The tracks featured included 1974's Stevie Wonder-written Tell Me Something Good, 1983’s Ain't Nobody, 1978’s I'm Every Woman and 1984’s Prince-penned I Feel For You.
Sporting a shimmery sea-green gown, Khan expressed her gratitude to her collaborators over the years while confessing that not all of them were entirely hinged.
“Over 50 years I am blessed to walk alongside extraordinary artists, musicians, writers, producers and creatives,” she said, pausing before adding, “and cuckoos.”
Family members of the late Nigerian Afrobeat legend Kuti and music icon Houston accepted the Lifetime Achievement Awards on their behalf. While Kuti passed away in 1997, Houston died in 2012.
“Her voice – that voice! – remains eternal,” Pat Houston, Whitney's sister-in-law, close friend and longtime manager, said. “Her legacy will live forever.”
Kuti, who was introduced as a “producer, arranger, political radical, outlaw and the father of Afrobeat”, is the first African musician to get the award. Three of his children accepted the award.
“Thank you for bringing our father here,” Femi Kuti said. “It's so important for us, it's so important for Africa, it's so important for world peace and the struggle.”
There was a wave of disappointment from the audience when Academy president Harvey Mason Jr said Cher wasn’t present.
Instead, Cher spoke in a brief video.
“The only thing I ever wanted to be was a singer. When I was 4 years old I used to run around the house naked, singing into a hair brush,” she said. “Things haven't changed all that much.”
Carlos Santana, too, appeared on video, after his son, Salvador, accepted his award.
“The world is so infected with fear that we need the music and message of Santana to bring hope, courage and joy to heal the world,” Santana said.
Elton John's longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin paid a tribute to Paul Simon, calling him “the greatest American songwriter alive.”
Taupin attended the ceremony as one of the recipients of the Grammys Trustees Award, which honours career contributions outside of performing.
Despite writing the vast majority of John’s greatest hits alongside the singer, Taupin has not won any Grammys. However, he has earned a nomination for the ceremony this time.
“I've been waiting 57 years for one of these,” he said, taking a look at his honorary trophy.
At the event, Taupin read out a list of the songwriting principles he’s always followed. These included “avoid cliches”, “never write songs in cubicles” and “don't say you're going to die if she leaves you - because you're not”.
Eddie Palmieri, a pianist, composer and bandleader who contributed immensely to innovate the fields of Latin jazz and rumba, also received a Trustees Award.
Palmieri died last year at the age of 88. He became the first Latino to win a Grammy Award in 1975.
Another trustee honouree was Sylvia Rhone, the first Black woman to lead a major record label.
John Chowning won the Technical Grammy Award. Working as a Stanford professor in the 1960s, he perfected the synthesizer sounds that dominated the 1980s.
Jennifer Jimenez, a band director from South Miami Senior High School, won the Grammys Music Educator Award, and the song Ice Cream Man by Raye was honoured with the Harry Belafonte Song for Social Change Award.