Every year, the Recording Academy hands out a handful of Lifetime Achievement Grammys. Some of the recipients are alive to get the award, and some are not. The Academy has unveiled the list of next year’s honorees, and it includes legendary figures like Fela Kuti, Paul Simon, Cher, Chaka Khan, and Whitney Houston.
Two of those Lifetime Achievement recipients are obviously no longer with us. Afrobeat giant Fela Kuti died in 1997, and we lost Whitney Houston in 2012. But Paul Simon, Chaka Khan, and Cher are all still around. At least some of them were heavily recognized by the Grammys in their day, but now they’ll all get one more trophy to put on the shelf.
The Academy is also giving its Special Merit Award to a few more people: the late pianist Eddie Palmieri, the lyricist Bernie Taupin, and the record exec Sylvia Rhone. A technical award will also go to John Chowning, the 91-year-old composer and computer engineer who discovered FM synthesis in 1967.
The ceremony for the Lifetime Achievement Grammys is happening 1/31 at LA’s Wilshire Ebell Theatre, on the afternoon just before the actual Grammys go down at Crypto.com Arena.
