This year, the Special Merit Awards ceremony was not for the faint of heart.
The 2024 GRAMMY Week event, held Saturday at a capacity Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, presented Lifetime Achievement Awards, Trustees Awards, the Technical GRAMMY, and the Music Educator Award to a dazzling gallery of musical innovators whose work has generated deep emotional connections across decades. In a world currently ensnared in a pattern of global conflict, the presentation of the award for Best Song for Social Change for the first time at the Special Merit Award ceremony this year added an extra layer of poignancy.
The presentation was touching from the very beginning, with a video montage of previous winners set to the historic recording of Aretha Franklin singing the Puccini aria "Nessuna Dorma." Glimpses of many legendary faces and performances on the screen underscored the Academy’s empathy for impactful music history: from Marvin Gaye to Janis Joplin; Billie Holiday to The Carter Family; The Beatles and Tina Turner to Dolly Parton and The Supremes.
The 2024 Music Educator Award was then given to Annie Ray, a music teacher and orchestra leader from Annandale, Virginia selected for her relentless positivity and inclusive energy. "Orchestra is much more than a class — it’s a family," said one of her students during a brief video chronicling her work. Ray, whose classrooms include students from 66 different countries — put together, they speak 59 languages — was visibly touched as she received the award. "I am thankful to share with the world what my students have taught me," she said.
The year’s Technical GRAMMY belonged to Tom Scott and the late Tom Kobayashi, who met at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound in 1985 and together launched the Entertainment Digital Network (EDnet), which allows the sharing of high-quality video and audio. An estimated 250,000 musical collaborations have been facilitated by their innovations, including many GRAMMY performances.
Next up were the three Trustee Awards: British pop legend Peter Asher, member of Peter & Gordon, prolific A&R executive, producer, manager, and a self-professed "admirer and member of the Recording Academy for almost 60 years"; legendary entertainment attorney and former Recording Academy Chairman Joel Katz, known as "the dealmaker who thinks outside of the box"; and Jamaican American DJ Kool Herc, renowned as one of the founders of East Coast hip-hop in ‘70s. He received the award joined by his sister Cindy who promoted his initial series of parties in the Bronx, noted for his groundbreaking use of two turntables and the extension of funky breaks in songs.
It was time to honor the Lifetime Achievement recipients, and a sprightly Laurie Anderson stepped onstage and gave a witty assessment of her reputation as an uncompromising song alchemist. "They say my music is experimental, which sounds like doing something in the lab that might explode," she said. From her wonderfully robotic, left-field 1982 hit "O Superman" to her poetic concept album Homeland in 2010, Anderson has created her share of aesthetically explosive works of the art-pop and avant-garde variety.
"I love music so much, and I married a musician," she said acknowledging her husband, the late Lou Reed. "Wouldn’t it be great if there was a piano on every corner?"
The best-selling female gospel group in history, Detroit-based The Clark Sisters are known for their soaring vocal harmonies and powerhouse hits like "You Brought The Sunshine."
"We thank our Lord and Savior for allowing us to do what we do: singing," they said, adding words of gratitude for their mother — "the lady who paved the way" — the late choral director Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.
The importance of a rich spiritual life was also emphasized by Motown legend and Soul empress Gladys Knight. The singer known for classic hits such as "Midnight Train to Georgia" and a raucous rendition of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" beamed onstage as she recalled her beginnings in music, before she became an international star with The Pips. "We had to go to church every Sunday, and it did make a difference," she said. "Everybody was singing around me when I grew up. And my mom would never allow me to do it easy. It had to come from the heart."
It was time to witness the strength of street knowledge. Delving into the very core of hip-hop identity, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to N.W.A, the revolutionary Los Angeles collective that transformed the landscape of popular music with its 1988 debut Straight Outta Compton. The group was joined by the mother and son of late rapper Eazy-E, who passed away in 1995 at age 30. The surviving members of the group – excepting Dr. Dre, who was celebrating his daughter’s birthday and sent a text greeting – looked vindicated. "We always knew that a GRAMMY was not in the cards for us, but we still wanted to express ourselves," said Ice Cube. "When you do your thing, the world will come to you."
Donna Summer, the ethereal and visionary singer who took disco music into progressive territory during the ‘70s, passed away in 2012. The "I Feel Love" star received a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday — and her husband Bruce Sudano and their three daughters were there to collect it. "Her voice and music are omnipresent in the [cultural] zeitgeist," said Sudano. "Donna continues to inspire people worldwide. She always referred to herself as an ordinary girl."
Last but not least, GRAMMY winning country star Tammy Wynette, who died in 1998, was also honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award — accepted by her daughters, Georgette Jones and Jackie Daly.
"Mom would feel very humbled to be in such a talented group of people," Jones said. "She always thought that the GRAMMYs were the biggest accomplishment in music. And she never fully understood her own impact."
When rapper and singer K’naan was a child in Mogadishu, his mother managed to get the family out of Somalia on the last commercial flight before the civil war erupted. Together with songwriters Gerald Eaton and Steve McEwan, K’naan was honored with the Best Song for Social Change award for "Refugee," a track about the plight of political refugees around the world.
"In the Somali language, the word 'home' derives from the word 'mother,'" explained K’naan as he received the award to a standing ovation. "I dedicate this GRAMMY to my home — my mother."
2024 GRAMMY Nominations: See The Full Winners & Nominees List
