The Recording Academy has announced the recipients of its 2026 Special Merit Awards. Carlos Santana, Chaka Khan, Cher, Fela Kuti, Paul Simon and Whitney Houston are the lifetime achievement recipients; Bernie Taupin, Eddie Palmieri and Sylvia Rhone are the Trustees Award honorees; and John Chowning is the Technical Grammy Award honoree.
The ceremony will be held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday Jan. 31, the afternoon before the 68th annual Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Arena in downtown L.A.
“It’s a true honor to recognize this year’s Special Merit Award recipients — an extraordinary group whose influence spans generations, genres and the very foundation of modern music,” Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, said in a statement. “Each of these honorees has made a profound and lasting impact, and we look forward to celebrating their remarkable achievements.”
Palmieri, a Latin music legend, will be honored less than six months after he died at age 88. Two other artists are being honored posthumously – Afrobeats pioneer Kuti, who died in 1997, and Houston, who died in 2012.
Simon is being honored as a solo artist. Simon & Garfunkel received a lifetime achievement award as a duo in 2003. Simon joins the short list of people who have been honored both solo and in groups or duos. Others include Diana Ross (the Supremes) and Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison (The Beatles).
Houston receives the honor seven years after her cousin Dionne Warwick was honored.
Taupin is this year’s only Special Merit Award recipient who is also a 2026 Grammy nominee. The night after he picks up this honor, he’ll win or lose for best song written for visual media for “Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late. Incredibly, Taupin has yet to win a competitive Grammy.
Lifetime Achievement Awards are presented to performers who have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording. Trustees Awards are presented to individuals who have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording. Both are voted on by the academy’s national trustees.
Technical Grammy Awards are presented to individuals, companies, organizations or institutions who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field. They are voted on by the Producers & Engineers Wing Advisory Council and chapter committees and ratified by the academy’s national trustees.
Here’s a closer look at this year’s honorees:
Lifetime Achievement Award: Cher
Image Credit: An Le
Cher will receive her lifetime achievement award 60 years after receiving her first Grammy nomination – best new artist as one-half of Sonny & Cher. Cher is an Oscar, Grammy, Primetime Emmy, and Golden Globe winner whose influence has shaped pop culture and fashion worldwide. Rising to fame with the Billboard Hot 100-topping hit “I Got You Babe,” she went on to land such solo hits as “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves,” “Half-Breed,” “Dark Lady” and “If I Could Turn Back Time,” before taking on dance-pop with the Grammy-winning “Believe” (which was nominated for record of the year). On TV, she scored big with The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and Cher. As an actress, Cher earned acclaim in films such as Silkwood, Mask and Moonstruck, the latter bringing her an Oscar for best actress. Her world tours and Las Vegas residency have drawn millions of fans. Cher may be the youngest and hippest 79-year-old on planet Earth.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Whitney Houston
Houston, who died in 2012 at age 48, earned worldwide renown as “The Voice.” Born into a dynasty of legendary singers, she rose from performing in New York clubs to signing with Clive Davis’ Arista Records in 1983. Two years later, she released her self-titled debut album, which became the best-selling debut album by a solo artist. Houston made history by stringing together seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits. Her acting debut in The Bodyguard (1992) led to one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time and to her career-defining recording of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” The Bodyguard soundtrack won album of the year at the 1994 Grammys, while that megahit single took record of the year. A six-time Grammy winner, Houston was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Carlos Santana
Image Credit: Maryanne Bilham
For nearly six decades, Carlos Santana, 78, has been a pioneering force in music, fusing Afro-Latin, blues, rock, and jazz into a sound that transcends genre, culture and generation. He and his band made Grammy history in 2000, receiving eight Grammys in a single night, tying Michael Jackson for the single-year Grammy record. Their haul included album of the year for Supernatural and record of the year for “Smooth,” a propulsive smash featuring Rob Thomas. A 10-time Grammy and three-time Latin Grammy winner, Santana is a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a Kennedy Center Honoree, and the recipient of Billboard’s Century Award. His Las Vegas residency at House of Blues is now in its 14th year.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Chaka Khan
Khan is a 10-time Grammy winner, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and a creative innovator whose influence reaches across genres – pop, R&B, jazz, rock, country, gospel, dance, classical, indie, and beyond. Her biggest solo hit, a cover of Prince’s “I Feel for You,” featured a rap by Grandmaster Melle Mel and a harmonica solo by Stevie Wonder, bridging generations of R&B artist and sensibilities. Khan, 72, is a trailblazer, storyteller and the voice of power and freedom for many generations. She remains a living force in music – an artist whose work and life continue to inspire, elevate and redefine what is possible.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Paul Simon
Simon, 84, has shaped the sound of contemporary music for 60 years. Widely regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, he has received 16 Grammy Awards. He has won album of the year with three albums, record of the year with three singles, and song of the year once, for “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” one of the most universally admired songs of our time. He is a two-time inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. His accolades also include the Kennedy Center Honors, the inaugural Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the Polar Music Prize, and the Smithsonian’s Great Americans Medal. In 2023, Simon released Seven Psalms, receiving his 36th Grammy nomination (best folk album) and inspiring the documentary In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Fela Kuti
Fela Kuti, who died in 1997 at age 58, was a Nigerian musician, producer, arranger, political radical, outlaw, and the father of Afrobeats. In the 1960s, he created the genre by combining funk, jazz, salsa, calypso, and a blend of traditional Nigerian rhythms. A titanic sociopolitical voice, Afrobeat’s revolutionary politics brought Fela into violent conflict with successive Nigerian military regimes. Fela’s influence and music catalog have been widely celebrated and explored, including the podcast series Fela Kuti: Fear No Man and the Broadway musical Fela!, which received 11 Tony nominations in 2010, winning three awards. Fela’s influence spans generations, inspiring such wide-ranging artists as Beyoncé, Paul McCartney and Thom Yorke, and shaping modern Nigerian Afrobeats. An annual celebration in his honor, Felabration, takes place in Lagos and around the world each October.
Trustees Award: Bernie Taupin
As noted above, Taupin is this year’s only Special Merit Award recipient who is also a 2026 Grammy nominee. He’s nominated for best song written for visual media for “Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late. Incredibly, Taupin, 75, has yet to win a competitive Grammy. Best known for his legendary partnership with Elton John, Taupin helped create one of the best-selling singles of all time, “Candle in the Wind 1997.” His achievements have earned him the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, a dozen Ivor Novello Awards, an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and a Commander of the British Empire honor. A best-selling memoirist, Taupin continues to write across genres, most recently contributing to the Grammy-nominated album Who Believes in Angels? by John and Brandi Carlile. Taupin’s Trustees Award is noteworthy because John has yet to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy (though he did receive the less defined Grammy Legend Award in 2000).
Trustees Award: Eddie Palmieri
Palmieri, who died on Aug. 6 at age 88, was a visionary pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader who took Afro-Caribbean music to new horizons for more than seven decades. Born in 1936 in Spanish Harlem to Puerto Rican parents, he began playing piano in childhood and launched his professional career in the 1950s. In 1961, he founded La Perfecta, replacing trumpets with trombones to forge a bold new sound that helped define modern salsa. His 1965 recording Azúcar Pa’ Ti exemplified his groundbreaking works and was inducted into the Library of Congress in 2009. In 1975, Palmieri became the inaugural winner of best Latin recording for Sun of Latin Music. He eventually received eight Grammy Awards and two Latin Grammys and was honored with the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the NEA Jazz Master distinction and induction into Lincoln Center’s Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame.
Trustees Award: Sylvia Rhone
Rhone, 73, is a pioneering music executive whose five-decade career reshaped the recording industry and forged historic pathways for women and people of color. Rising from Harlem, she became the first woman to serve as CEO of a major record label owned by a Fortune 500 company and went on to hold top executive roles across all three major music groups. She served in top posts at Atlantic, Elektra, Motown, and Epic, where she was named chairwoman and CEO in 2019. Rhone expanded the labels’ global reach, overseeing career-defining releases across genres — from Travis Scott, Future, En Vogue, Metallica, Björk, and Tracy Chapman to Zara Larsson and Tyla — while playing a vital role in shaping the rise of hip-hop and championing female trailblazers including MC Lyte and Missy Elliott to Nicki Minaj. Her leadership has earned her numerous honors, including the Recording Academy’s Global Impact Award, Billboard’s Executive of the Year and the City of Hope Spirit of Life Award.
Technical Grammy Award: John Chowning
Chowning, 91, is a composer and computer-music innovator whose discovery of frequency modulation (FM) synthesis in 1967 revolutionized electronic sound. After studying with Nadia Boulanger and earning his doctorate at Stanford, he launched the university’s early computer-music program and developed the first digital algorithm for surround-sound localization. Stanford’s licensing of his FM patent to Yamaha led to the most successful synthesis engine in the history of electronic instruments. A co-founder of Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics in 1974, Chowning helped establish one of the world’s leading hubs for computer-music research. Even after retiring in 1996, he continued a teenage interest in exploring reverberant caves. His honors include election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the French Ordre des Arts et Lettres and the Giga-Hertz Award.
