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Lifetime Achievement Award: Kraftwerk

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A tribute to Germany's groundbreaking electronic/pop band
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am
GRAMMY.com

(In addition to the GRAMMY Awards, The Recording Academy presents Special Merit Awards recognizing contributions of significance to the recording field, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award and Technical GRAMMY Award. In the days leading up to the 56th GRAMMY Awards, GRAMMY.com will present the tributes to the 2014 Special Merit Awards recipients.)

For those listening to radio in the United States in 1975, it must have come as quite a shock. The country was still emerging from the era of granola and natural fibers, and music was still measured by its soul and authenticity. And along came this music that sounded as mechanized as a Ford assembly plant. It was vaguely rhythmic like a busy signal. It had a melody that never stepped out of order. For mainstream audiences, Teutonic pop was born that year in the form of Kraftwerk's "Autobahn," and music would never be the same.

Kraftwerk began devising their "robot pop" in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1970. Kraftwerk founders Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider met as classical music students at the Düsseldorf Conservatory, originally forming the group Organisation and releasing the album Tone Float in the UK in 1969. They disbanded the group and reformed as Kraftwerk (German for "power station"), inspired to craft music more influenced by psychedelic art rock than machinery. By 1973's Ralf And Florian, Kraftwerk were truly staring down the ghost in the machine. With their follow-up, 1974's Autobahn, Kraftwerk hit on a trancelike, pulsing electronic rhythm that would set the stage for the nearly countless acts that followed, from rock (the Cars, Eurythmics) to new wave (Devo, Thomas Dolby, Joy Division), pop (Giorgio Moroder), electronic/dance (Moby), and even industrial (Throbbing Gristle).

Though he was being influenced by a number of outside forces at the time, David Bowie's late '70s period in Berlin found him adopting Kraftwerk's electronic overtones and droning rhythms for his albums Low and Heroes, highly influential works in their own right, and reportedly making a direct nod to Schneider with the song "V-2 Schneider," featured on Heroes.

In a January 2013 article in The Telegraph, music critic Neil McCormick posed the question: "Kraftwerk: the most influential group in pop music history?" McCormick referenced the literally hundreds of Kraftwerk samples used by artists ranging from Afrika Bambaataa to Madonna, Jay Z and Coldplay. But in an interview for the piece, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark's Andy McCluskey pointed out that Kraftwerk endured the peril of true genius: a lack of appreciation in their own time.

"When [Kraftwerk] started there was a lot of fear of technology," said McCluskey. "People said, 'Look at these robot guys making music on computers; this is wrong.' Well, it turned out that they were absolutely right, not just about music, but in their whole vision of the future man/machine synthesis. And it's not been scary, we have all embraced it and got on with our lives."

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Lifetime Achievement Award: The Isley Brothers

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R&B singer/songwriter Kem pays tribute to an R&B/soul institution
Kem
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am
GRAMMY.com

(In addition to the GRAMMY Awards, The Recording Academy presents Special Merit Awards recognizing contributions of significance to the recording field, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award and Technical GRAMMY Award. In the days leading up to the 56th GRAMMY Awards, GRAMMY.com will present the tributes to the 2014 Special Merit Awards recipients.)

The Isley Brothers have been making music for almost six decades. Nearly 60 years in music is tribute enough, but there are artists with long careers whose music never resonates with fans the way theirs has.

When I think about the Isleys' legacy, and what it has meant to me as an artist, I'm reminded of a hot, Kool-Aid-deprived day on Detroit's northwest side, just off of 8 Mile Road. I was holed up in a back bedroom at a friend's house, my face pressed against the speaker of a cassette player, my finger wearing out the rewind button. I played "Don't Say Goodnight (It's Time For Love)," one of their chart-topping singles from 1980, over and over. I was 9 years old, and regardless of it being Saturday, Ronald Isley was taking me to school. That was one of my first lessons on the importance of melody, and I was being taught by a master.

Fast-forward to 2013. I'm sitting at the board in a Detroit studio with none other than Ron Isley. Recording a song with him is the fulfillment of a dream. And here he is, in the vocal booth, hitting all the licks. The memory nearly brings tears to my eyes. That session was a moment for me, the closing of a circle through which a student was rewarded with an opportunity to honor a master.

You forget how many hits the Isley Brothers have had until you find yourself in the audience at a sold-out show: "Shout." "Voyage To Atlantis." "Harvest For The World." "Summer Breeze." "For The Love Of You." The Isley sound is rooted in gospel, and can be traced to the early 1950s in Cincinnati. But their good news has spread through doo-wop, disco, soul, R&B, and various fusions of sound. An Isley record is to music what The Godfather is to film. You've seen it a million times, you know every word by heart and, even if you don't catch it from the beginning, you're captivated until the end.

The last two active members of the the Isley Brothers are Ron and Ernie, but their career has truly been a family affair, with many an Isley helping to build the group's legacy, including Rudolph, and late brothers Vernon, O'Kelly and Marvin. They were also aided by the early encouragement of their father, a professional singer himself, and their mother, a church pianist who accompanied her sons' early performances. Oh yes, and a young Jimmy James played in their band in the '60s (you know him better today as Jimi Hendrix).

When in their presence, I get the sense that for them it has been, and will always be, about the music. In fact, Ron once told me, "We didn't really know it was going to turn into all this. We were just making music the best way we knew how."

How fitting, that at the core of the legacy, and the larger-than-life character Mr. Biggs, there's just a guy who likes to sing, and another who loves to play guitar. Should we be amazed that this perspective made the Isley Brothers' music the unofficial soundtrack to conception? That they've done it masterfully longer than most popular artists have been alive? That they really are your favorite artist's favorite artist? Their resilience, craftsmanship and ability to survive generations is not the result of commercial machination, but of the love of the music.

(A two-time GRAMMY-nominated singer/songwriter, Kem was featured on Ron Isley's 2013 single "My Favorite Thing," which is featured on Isley's album This Song Is For You.)

 

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Lifetime Achievement Award: Maud Powell

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Rachel Barton Pine pays tribute to an iconic violinist
Rachel Barton Pine
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am
GRAMMY.com

(In addition to the GRAMMY Awards, The Recording Academy presents Special Merit Awards recognizing contributions of significance to the recording field, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award and Technical GRAMMY Award. In the days leading up to the 56th GRAMMY Awards, GRAMMY.com will present the tributes to the 2014 Special Merit Awards recipients.)

Every industry needs its pioneers and the recording industry found one in legendary American violinist Maud Powell. She stood for the highest achievement in the art of violin playing and radiated an unbounded spirit of adventure. 

In 1904 Powell stepped into a recording studio to play into a recording horn and helped launch the science and art of recording the violin. She became the first solo instrumentalist to record for the Victor Talking Machine Company's Celebrity Artist series (Red Seal label), and for the first time, violin recordings entered into the Victor Red Seal catalog.  

Recognized as America's greatest violinist and ranked among the preeminent musicians in the world, Powell was known for breaking barriers. Her magnetic personality, brilliant artistry, scintillating technique, and versatility were unequaled and she used them to introduce classical music to countless new audiences at a time when few performers dared to face the uncertain concert conditions and hardships of travel in North America. She championed music composed by women and by Americans alongside the music of Europeans. She fathomed the depths of the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius violin concertos, giving them their American premieres when other violinists balked at their difficulties. She was among the first white instrumentalists to integrate the works of composers of African descent into recitals and recordings.

Powell recognized recording technology's potential to aid in her mission to bring the best in classical music to people everywhere. She recorded prolifically from 1904 until her untimely death at 52 in 1920, making more than 100 acoustic recordings. Powell mined the phonograph's potential to elevate the public's musical taste as she recorded only music that met the highest artistic standards. Through her recordings of short classical works and condensed versions of longer works, her artistry helped to revolutionize music appreciation. 

Powell's musical heritage is preserved by Naxos in four meticulously remastered CDs of 87 of her recordings. Even now, her playing as captured by the recording horn sets the standard by which today's classical recording artists are measured. 

Countless individual lives have been inspired and enriched by Maud Powell. Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler and Yehudi Menuhin considered her to be one of their musical heroes. Leading concert artists today include her repertoire in their programs. Students are inspired by her high ideals and mission to enrich the lives of everyone through music.

Maud Powell is the violinist I most admire. Dedicated to her art, brave in her repertoire choices, nurturing of young artists, tireless in utilizing music to break down social barriers and elevate society, her example inspires me every day.

(American violinist Rachel Barton Pine is internationally renowned for her interpretations of great classical works that combine her gift for emotional communication and her scholarly fascination with historical research. She is the music editor and advisor for Maud Powell Favorites, a collection of Powell's transcriptions and music dedicated to Powell, and in 2007 she released a best-selling recording of these treasures: American Virtuosa: Tribute To Maud Powell.) 

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Lifetime Achievement Award: Clifton Chenier

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Arhoolie Records President Chris Strachwitz pays tribute to the King of Zydeco
Chris Strachwitz
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am
GRAMMY.com

(In addition to the GRAMMY Awards, The Recording Academy presents Special Merit Awards recognizing contributions of significance to the recording field, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award and Technical GRAMMY Award. In the days leading up to the 56th GRAMMY Awards, GRAMMY.com will present the tributes to the 2014 Special Merit Awards recipients.)

In the cotton-and rice-growing prairie country of Southwest Louisiana in 1954, a black talent scout, John Fulbright, heard a remarkable Creole accordionist and singer who billed himself as "the King of the South," and his name was Clifton Chenier. Together, they went to a Lake Charles radio station where Clifton cut his first rocking accordion instrumental, "Louisiana Stomp," for the tiny Elko label. Although that first record went nowhere, it was soon leased to the bigger Imperial label, which in turn drew the attention of the even bigger Specialty firm. A year later, Clifton's Specialty release "Ay-Tete Fee" made the R&B charts, sending Clifton on a brief nationwide tour of the chitlin' concert circuit. But greater fame would have to wait. After the tour, Clifton returned to the segregated black beer joints of Southwest Louisiana and East Texas where French-speaking Creoles kept on dancing to his music.

In 1964 I was in Houston, visiting my favorite blues singer, Lightnin' Hopkins, who one night asked if I wanted to go and hear his "cousin Cliff." Keen to go anywhere Lightnin' wanted to go, I accompanied him to a tiny beer joint in what he called "Frenchtown," and there was this lanky black man with a huge piano accordion on his chest singing the most low-down blues in a strange patois for a small dancing audience. This was Clifton Chenier and I was totally enthralled by his totally unique Creole music.

Records were meal tickets in those days. As soon as Clifton heard from Lightnin' that I was a "record man," he expressed his desire to record — tomorrow! I did manage to arrange a session at the old Gold Star studio, and "Ay Ai Ai," a catchy Creole song but with English lyrics, enjoyed local radio and jukebox play. When it came time to make an album, I wanted to capture the sound of that Creole or "French music" I had heard at that beer joint. But Clifton wanted to make it rock and roll. After some debate, we settled on a compromise: half rock and roll and half "French." But it was the "French" two-step "Zydeco Sont Pas Sale," with "Louisiana Blues" on the flip side, that became a regional hit, and sent Clifton well on his way to becoming known as "the King of Zydeco."

Soon he and his Red Hot Louisiana Band were playing for wider audiences. The Rolling Stones went to hear them at a church dance in Los Angeles, they played the Fillmore in San Francisco and soon the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Tours of Europe followed as well as an appearance at Carnegie Hall in New York and in 1983 Clifton became a GRAMMY winner and an NEA National Heritage Fellow in 1984. By blending the older local rural Creole music with rhythm & blues, a touch of rock and roll and his unique personality, Clifton Chenier invented what today is known the world over as zydeco music.

(Chris Strachwitz is the president of Arhoolie Records, a label he founded in 1960 that specializes in blues, Cajun, zydeco, and other forms of roots music. Strachwitz first recorded Clifton Chenier in 1964. Chenier's Bogalusa Boogie, released on Arhoolie in 1976, was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame in 2011. A Blues Hall of Fame inductee, Strachwitz is currently nominated for Best Folk Album as the producer for They All Played For Us: Arhoolie Records 50th Anniversary Collection.)

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Lifetime Achievement Award: Kris Kristofferson

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Rodney Crowell pays tribute to a country music icon
Rodney Crowell
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am
GRAMMY.com

(In addition to the GRAMMY Awards, The Recording Academy presents Special Merit Awards recognizing contributions of significance to the recording field, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award and Technical GRAMMY Award. In the days leading up to the 56th GRAMMY Awards, GRAMMY.com will present the tributes to the 2014 Special Merit Awards recipients.)

When in 1971 the news reached my small corner of the world that there was this helicopter-piloting, William Blake-quoting Rhodes scholar by the name of Kris Kristofferson, whose songs were transforming the country and popular music airwaves, I was marooned six nights a week in an East Texas Holiday Inn lounge, fielding requests for "Scotch And Soda" and "99 Bottles Of Beer" from a handful of traveling salesmen and gin swills whose nightcap needs did not include meaningful music. Fortunately, recent recordings of "Help Me Make It Through The Night," "Me And Bobby McGee," "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down," "For The Good Times," and "Why Me Lord" had begun seeping into the disinterested listeners' nonmusical psyche, and, practically overnight, introducing even the most obscure Kristofferson tune seemed to trigger in the Old Mill Club clientele something resembling audience refinement.

Despite the cold fact that the typical "Mill" crowd consisted of, maybe, six inebriated tractor suppliers, a table full of box tape wholesalers and a couple of recently divorced medical assistants, experiencing this subtle shift in the public's taste bolstered in me the notion that I too could someday carve out for myself a career as an artist.

Forty-three years later, having gotten to know the man and his wife, Lisa, I feel modestly qualified to scribble down these few words framing his extraordinary musical legacy: By creating a narrative style that introduced intelligence, humor, emotional eloquence, spiritual longing, male vulnerability, and a devilish sensuality — indeed, a form of eroticism — to country music, Kris Kristofferson, without compromising the content and quality of his work, did as much to expand the mainstream accessibility of an all-too-often misunderstood art form as Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Roger Miller, Willie Nelson, Ray Charles (I'm thinking of Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music) and, more recently, Garth Brooks. And, lest we forget, the man is one hell of an accomplished actor. 

(A GRAMMY-winning singer/songwriter and 56th GRAMMY nominee for Best Americana Album for Old Yellow Moon with Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell was featured on the 2006 album The Pilgrim: A Celebration Of Kris Kristofferson with a cover of "Come Sundown," which is featured on Kristofferson's 1970 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame-inducted debut album. Six years later, Kristofferson was featured on Crowell's 2012 album Kin: Songs By Mary Karr & Rodney Crowell.)