The Who (2008)
Inducted members: Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey
Founding members who weren’t inducted: Keith Moon (died: 1978); John Entwistle (died: 2002)
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 1990
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award: 2001
All the Groups That Have Received Kennedy Center Honors: The Who, Led Zeppelin, U2 and More
Written by djfrosty on July 18, 2024
This morning’s announcement that the Grateful Dead will receive the Kennedy Center Honors in December is the latest sign that that the Kennedy Center has finally gotten the memo – In music, sometimes people do their best and most lasting work in groups.
The Kennedy Center Honors was set up in 1978 to honor individuals. It wasn’t until 2008 that the Center recognized its first musical group: The Who. Before that, they had singled out the most famous member of a group or duo for honors – Paul Simon (2002), Tina Turner (2005), Smokey Robinson (2006), Diana Ross (2007) and Brian Wilson (2007).
Even after 2008, the Kennedy Center often opted to single out a member of a group rather than honor the entire group. The Beatles should certainly have been honored by the Kennedy Center, but the Center selected Paul McCartney for a solo honor in 2002. (McCartney was unable to attend that year due to a family commitment and was finally honored in 2010.)
Other group members who were honored as individuals instead of as part of the groups with which they first achieved fame are Carlos Santana (2013), Sting (2014), Mavis Staples (2016), Gloria Estefan (2017), Lionel Richie (2017), Cher (2018), Gladys Knight (2022) and Barry Gibb (2023). In some cases, it made more sense to honor the individuals. In other cases, it made less sense. Even Barry Gibb would doubtless say that his best and most lasting work was done in the Bee Gees alongside his brothers Robin and Maurice.
Both of Gibb’s brothers had died by 2023, and the Kennedy Center generally doesn’t honor people posthumously — though it made an exception for Glenn Frey, who had died by the time the Eagles were honored in December 2016. (He was alive when the group was selected in 2015. Miranda Lambert performed the Eagles classic “Desperado” on the 2015 show as a mini-tribute.)
The rule about not honoring group members posthumously needs review. To honor Earth, Wind & Fire, as the Kennedy Center did in 2016, without honoring its mastermind Maurice White is hard to fathom. Likewise, to honor Grateful Dead without recognizing its principal songwriter and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia just seems off.
This year’s other honorees are Bonnie Raitt; jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer Arturo Sandoval; filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola; and the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem, which is the first venue to be honored.
Here’s a complete list of the groups that have been received Kennedy Center Honors, together with the dates they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and that they received lifetime achievement awards from the Recording Academy.
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Image Credit: Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images -
Led Zeppelin (2012)
Image Credit: John Paul Filo/CBS via Getty Images Inducted members: John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant
Founding members who weren’t inducted: John Bonham (died: 1980)
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 1995
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award: 2005
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Eagles (2016)
Image Credit: Aude Guerrucci-Pool/Getty Images Inducted members: Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Timothy B. Schmit and Joe Walsh
Founding members who weren’t inducted: Randy Meisner (died: 2023); Bernie Leadon
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 1998
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award: N/A
Note: Eagles was the first American group to receive a Kennedy Center Honor. It is hard to imagine that the band has not yet received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy. Its 1977 smash “Hotel California” was the first rock track to win record of the year, while the group also won vocal performance Grammys in pop (“Lyin’ Eyes”), rock (“Heartache Tonight”) and country (“How Long”) – a neat trick.
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Earth, Wind & Fire (2019)
Image Credit: Paul Morigi/Getty Images Inducted members: Philip Bailey, Verdine White, and Ralph Johnson
Founding members who weren’t inducted: Wade Flemons (died: 1993); Maurice White (died: 2016); Michael Beal, Leslie Drayton, Yackov Ben Israel (a.k.a. Phillard Williams), Sherry Scott, Alexander Thomas, Chester Washington, Don Whitehead
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 2000
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award: 2016
Note: EWF is the only R&B group to receive a Kennedy Center Honor.
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U2 (2022)
Image Credit: Gail Schulman/CBS via Getty Images Inducted members: Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 2005
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award: N/A
Notes: U2 was the first group to receive a Kennedy Center Honor where all of the founding members were honored. As with the Eagles, it is surprising that U2 has not yet received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy. The group has won more Grammys (22) than any other group or duo in history, including two each for record, album and song of the year.
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Grateful Dead (2024)
Inducted members: Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir
Founding members who weren’t inducted: Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (died: 1973); Jerry Garcia (died: 1995)
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 1994
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award: 2007