Kennedy Center Honors Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Kennedy Center Honors 2025

George Strait, KISS, Michael Crawford, Gloria Gaynor, Sly Stallone.

The Kennedy Center Honors 2025 took place on Sunday, December 7. As people who follow the blog may know, I almost always watch the program when it’s broadcast on CBS; this year it’s scheduled for Tuesday, December 23. This year, though, is… different.

In an article in The Atlantic [behind a paywall], Alexandra Petri wrote: “For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with the Kennedy Center Honors, a strange, D.C.-based entertainment-awards show where four celebrities you’ve heard of (and one you should have) wear medals, sit in a special box at the Kennedy Center with the president, and receive some form of artistic tribute. Unlike other awards shows, which honor celebrities of the present, these celebrate a lifetime of achievements.” What she said.

The five

I don’t have a strong problem with the awardees. Sylvester Stallone, I’ve seen in five Rocky-related films, though no Rambo flicks, and he’s still a working actor.

I have a George Strait greatest-hits album – here’s the first cut – titled Ten Strait Hits, whose simplicity appeals to me. He is “the only act in history to have a Top 10 hit every year for over three decades. Offstage, Strait’s philanthropy has raised tens of millions of dollars for military and children’s causes, including the Jenifer Strait Foundation to preserve the memory of their daughter, and presenting 127 mortgage-free homes to wounded veterans through the Military Warriors Support Foundation.”

I know the least about Gloria Gaynor, whose “legendary career spans over 50 years, never losing momentum. The 2x Grammy winner has achieved global stardom with hit songs in the charts in all five decades. She has also shared her talent through roles in film, television, and on the Broadway stage.” Well, except for that song, which is an anthem.

Michael Crawford, I know for one thing, which he has apparently done very well. “Best known for originating the role of the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, Crawford’s legendary performance captivated audiences in London’s West End, on Broadway, and in Los Angeles.” He is “one of the most celebrated performers of his generation, with an illustrious career spanning theatre, television, film, and music.”

Makeup

The only KISS music I own is on a couple of compilation albums. But I used to own a couple of Marvel comics featuring the group. “Kiss, one of the most successful Gold Record Award–winning groups in American history, has sold over 100 million albums worldwide. Rising from New York’s rock scene to the pinnacle of rock royalty, they’ve earned countless awards, including induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame [in 2014].”

The KCH only inducts folks who were living as of the selection date. Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, and the late lead guitarist, Ace Frehley, who died in October, were awarded. This is similar to the Grateful Dead last year, when Mickey Hart, Billy Kreutzmann, Bobby Weir, and the late Phil Lesh (d. Oct 2024) were selected.

By the way, the KCH bios pages were far more robust in previous years.

Previously, the host was someone such as Walter Cronkite, Caroline Kennedy, Stephen Colbert, Glenn Close, and Queen Latifah. This year, it’s FOTUS.

This is (mostly) not a political rant. It’s not that he’s taken over the Kennedy Center, though that’s problematic. It’s that I can’t stand the sound of the man’s voice. His self-serving prattle – at the medal ceremony, he mispronounced “Stallone” twice – bugs me. Maybe I’ll record the show and fast-forward through him. Or mute him. Or something.

Oh, and how will he deal with it when CBS edits the broadcast, which they always do, and some of his yammer is cut out? Will he sue CBS? Again? (See 60 Minutes.)

I do like to see the look of wonder and surprise when the honorees are feted by their colleagues. Sigh!

47th Kennedy Center Honors

Francis Ford Coppola; Grateful Dead; Bonnie Raitt; Arturo Sandoval; Apollo Theater

Francis Ford Coppola

One of the more random items I have ever blogged about is a song called Mill Valley. It led to a video by an “obscure young director named Francis Ford Coppola, who, two years later, would direct the film that would win the Oscar for Best Movie, The Godfather.”

In 2008, I did a quiz for The Director Who Films Your Life Test, and it turned out to be Coppola. This is interesting in that I’ve only seen a handful of his films: the original Godfather in 1972 (I even remember with whom I saw it and where, in Syracuse, NY); The Conversation (1974), which I saw on television in 2006; The Outsiders (1983); and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986).

This 2020 interview was quite enlightening.

Grateful Dead

I never saw the Grateful Dead perform, although I saw a Dead-adjacent concert in 1975, which included Bill Kreutzmann and Bobby Weir.

Grateful Dead albums I enjoy include American Beauty and Working Man’s Dead. I should note that these albums are available in full on their YouTube channel; that’s no way to operate capitalism. Then there’s at least one I hate, which is on a list of the worst albums ever: Dylan and the Dead.

I’m also fond of Deadicated – A Tribute to the Grateful Dead from 1991. Mickey Hart put out Music To Be Born By, which I listen to occasionally.

Note that the KCH only selects the members of a group who are still alive at the time of the selection, so no Jerry Garcia, Pigpen, et al. Phil Lesh died in October, but he had been chosen before that.

I’ve mentioned the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee several times in this blog, most notably when she turned 70. My friend Mary sent me an article from the Washington Post, which is behind a paywall. I’ll give you just a flavor of it.

“In the late 1960s during her sophomore year, Bonnie Raitt took a leave from Radcliffe. Her intention was to hang with blues legends Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, who were managed by her then-boyfriend Dick Waterman, inhaling the sort of storied education that wasn’t offered at Harvard… [She] has helmed a rock, folk and blues odyssey that is as improbable as it is lengthy, 21 albums and 54 years of touring punctuated by triumphs that erupted decades apart in an industry that tends to Vitamix its young.”

I continue to buy her albums. Wikipedia: Just Like That… is the title track of her eighteenth studio album, Just Like That…, which was released on April 22, 2022, by Redwing Records. The song was written and produced by Raitt and lyrically details the story of a woman who is visited by the recipient of her son’s heart, which he received in a life-saving organ donation operation. The song won Best American Roots Song and Song of the Year at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, with the latter award regarded as an upset over several higher-charting songs,” much to her obvious shock.

However, I never made the connection between John Raitt, the singer on many movie musicals, with whom I was somewhat familiar, and his daughter Bonnie until several years after she entered the music scene.

Arturo Sandoval

The Cuban-American jazz trumpeter was one of those performers who I’ve seen several times on television programs but don’t own any of his music. He has won several Grammys, recently for Dear Diz (Every Day I Think Of You). It is dedicated to the late Dizzy Gillespie who helped Sandoval defect from his native country while on tour with the United Nations Orchestra in 1977.

“Sandoval became an American naturalized citizen in 1998. His life was the subject of the film For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000) starring Andy García.”

The Apollo

The theater was/is the mecca of music for nine decades, from Bessie Smith’s four-week run in the 1930s to Miles, Coltrane, and Monk in the 1950s, the legendary James Brown performance, and the Motortown review in the 1960s, Aretha in the 1970s, and much more.

Yet I had never been there. So when I got an invitation to see Lonnie Bunch there – I am a charter member of the National Museum of African American History and Culture – I was THERE.

The presentation was on Sunday, December 8, 2024. Celebrate the 47th Honors, hosted by Queen Latifah. CBS Broadcast: Sun. Dec. 22, 2024 at 8:30/7:30c.

The Kennedy Center Honors 2023

Billy Crystal; Renée Fleming; Barry Gibb; Queen Latifah; Dionne Warwick.

The Kennedy Center Honors 2023 was presented on Sunday, December 3. It will air on CBS-TV and stream on Paramount+ on Wednesday, December 27, at 9 pm ET/PT. Honorees for lifetime artistic achievements: actor and comedian Billy Crystal; acclaimed soprano Renée Fleming; British singer-songwriter-producer and member of the Bee Gees, Barry Gibb; rapper, singer, and actress Queen Latifah; and singer Dionne Warwick.

I first became aware of Billy Crystal when he portrayed Jodie Dallas on the sitcom Soap. Surprisingly, he appeared on Saturday Night Live in the 1984-1985 season, a show that generally which usually embraced less well-known performers.

Afterward, he appeared in several movies I saw: The Princess Bride (1987), When Harry Met Sally… (1989), City Slickers (1991), Mr. Saturday Night (1992), Analyze This (1997), and voicing a couple of the Monsters, Inc. movies.

Crystal has hosted the Academy Awards nine times and the Grammy Awards thrice, earning five Emmys for his work as host, writer, and producer on both shows. Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, and Crystal co-hosted “Comic Relief’s televised fundraising events on HBO, raising $75 million to help supply medical aid to the homeless…

“In 2022, Crystal returned to Broadway with Mr. Saturday Night, a musical adaptation of the 1992…film… The show received… five Tony® nominations, including Best Musical; Best Leading Actor in a Musical for Crystal; and Best Book of a Musical, which was written by Crystal, Lowell Ganz, and Babaloo Mandel; and one Grammy® nomination for Best Musical Theatre Album which featured eight songs sung by Crystal.”

He is also an avid New York Yankees fan and has been a talking head for documentaries about Roger Maris (61*), Yogi Berra, and others.

Soprano

I’ve seen Renée Fleming so often that I struggle to summarize it. I went to her Wikipedia page.

Fleming was featured in the PBS Great Performances New Year’s Eve telecast on Dec. 31, 2020. I saw that. At the 2018 Kennedy Center Honors awards ceremony broadcast on CBS, Fleming sang a jazz aria composed by honoree Wayne Shorter – check. On July 4, 2018, Fleming sang in the PBS telecast A Capitol Fourth from the West Lawn of the US Capitol, performing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and, during the fireworks display, “America the Beautiful” – yes.

She sang “You’ll Never Know” on the soundtrack of the film The Shape of Water. In the 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Fleming’s Decca recording of “The Last Rose of Summer” is heard in the opening scene and in the middle of the movie. I saw both of those movies.

And those are just the ones since 2016. She is a ubiquitous presence in my viewing of the arts.

BeeGees

I was enough of a fan of the brothers Gibb – Barry Gibb and his younger twin brothers Robin and Maurice – to know they were born in England but moved to Australia. They had some regional hits Down Under, such as Spicks and Specks, before they made it big with New York Mining Disaster 1941 (#14 in 1967), I’ve Got To Get A Message To You (#8 in 1968), Lonely Days (#3 in 1971), How Can You Mend A Broken Heart (#1 for four weeks in 1971), and several others before hitting a fallow patch.

They discovered a new sound in 1975 with Jive Talkin’ (#1 for two weeks), my admitted favorite BeeGees song, before the group exploded with the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever, with the brothers writing not only their songs but others such as Yvonne Elliman’s If I Can’t Have You.

“Gibb was also unafraid to give away songs most performers wouldn’t dare part with, be it Frankie Valli’s “Grease” or younger brother Andy’s “I Just Want To Be Your Everything.” Both were solo compositions, and both became U.S. number ones. The hits continued in the ‘80s and ‘90s, as well as entire albums of platinum-coated, Gibb-crafted songs for the likes of Barbra Streisand (‘Woman In Love’), Dionne Warwick (‘Heartbreaker’), Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton (‘Islands In The Stream’), and Diana Ross(‘Chain Reaction’).”

I highly recommend the 2021 documentary The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. It touches on the brothers’ success, including little brother Andy, and how painful it is for Barry that all three of his younger brothers have passed away.

The former Dana Owens

I’ll admit that I have no Queen Latifah albums, though I recognize her musical importance. I had heard Ladies First (feat. Monie Love). She won a Grammy for U.N.I.T.Y.

But I did see her in the movies Jungle Fever, and especially Chicago, where she played the prison matron Mama Morton and sang When You’re Good To Mama.

I’ve occasionally caught her on the TV action series The Equalizer, mainly because it was on after 60 Minutes.

The Bacharach/David interpreter

Dionne Warwick was the pre-eminent interpreter of the songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

Though some grumbled that she wasn’t singing the songs that black people were “supposed” to sing, she had some success on the RB charts in the 1960s. These are just a few.

Don’t Make Me Over, #5 RB, #21 pop in 1963

Anyone Who Had A Heart, #2 AC (adult contemporary), #6 RB, #8 pop in 1964

Walk On By, #1 RB for three weeks, #6 pop, #7 AC in 1964

Message To Michael, #5 RB, #8 pop, #12 AC in 1966

One of my favorite songs of hers was the pairing with the Spinners, Then Came You, #1 pop, #2 RB, #3 AC in 1974

Her biggest song was That’s What Friends Are For with Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder, #1 for two weeks AC, #1 for three weeks RB, and #1 for four weeks pop in 1986.

I only realized this year that she and the late Gladys Crowder were born on the same day.

2022 Kennedy Center Honors

George Clooney, Amy Grant, Amy Grant, Tania León, U2

As is my tradition, I note the honorees for the 2022 Kennedy Center Honors. Once again, I am very familiar with four of the five selected in this 45th class and the fifth, not at all.

I vaguely remember George Clooney from shows like Roseanne and Sisters, though I seldom saw The Facts of Life.

Nor did I see him on another show. Nevertheless, he won me $1,200 on JEOPARDY in 1998. A VIDEO DAILY DOUBLE: “Hi, I’m Jason Alexander. This actor co-starred with me on a sitcom called E/R before starring in the medical series ER.” Something I must have read in People magazine or Entertainment Weekly got stuck in my head when Clooney first started playing Dr. Doug Ross.

Subsequently, I saw or heard him in several movies, such as Up In The Air, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Descendants, Gravity, and Tomorrowland. He directed and appeared in Good Night and Good Luck and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

He was the executive producer of Far From Heaven and producer of Argo and August: Osage County.

When I saw Alison Krauss and Union Station in Albany in 2003, Dan Tyminski noted how his wife enjoyed hearing his voice come out of George Clooney’s mouth when the actor “sang” Man Of Constant Sorrow in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? I have had the soundtrack for two decades, though I saw the film during the COVID lockdown.

“George Clooney is co-founder and co-President, along with his wife Amal, of the Clooney Foundation for Justice.”

Contemporary Christian and pop singer-songwriter

I may have only one Amy Grant album, a vinyl recording of The Animals’ Christmas with Art Garfunkel. It was written by Jimmy Webb.

She was the first self-identified singer of Contemporary Christian Music to go to #1 on the pop charts. There were “Christians” who were HORRIFIED that Amy was doing pop music, such as Baby, Baby. Oh, please.

Amy married musician Vince Gill in 2000. She’s been active in philanthropy for her entire career.

A legendary singer of soul, Gospel, R and B, and pop

I must have learned that Gladys Knight won Ted Mack’s The Original Amateur Hour TV show from reading Ebony or Jet when I was growing up. She was eight in 1952.

Gladys Knight and the Pips had minor hits on minor labels, most notably Every Beat Of My Heart in 1961 (#6 pop, #1 RB). She left the group in 1962 to start a family but rejoined in 1964.

The group signed with Motown in 1966. It always felt that the label didn’t know what to do with the act. Berry Gordy wouldn’t let the Miracles release I Heard It Through The Grapevine, but was OK with the Pips doing so. It became a big hit for the Pips (#2 pop for three weeks, #1 RB for six weeks); it is my favorite version of the song.

Gladys Knight and the Pips did have other hits on Motown, notably If I Were Your Woman (#9 pop, #1 RB) and Neither One Of Us (#2 pop for two weeks, #4 RB). But they also were recording the same songs that The Temptations were also getting.

Their move to Buddah generated their first #1 pop hit (for two weeks), Midnight Train To Georgia. More Top 5 hits followed. She had an active solo career and acted as well.

Cuban-born American composer, conductor, and educator

Alas, Tania León is the honoree I do not know beyond what’s in the KCH bio.

Iconic Irish rock band

In 1988, I told a friend of mine that The Joshua Tree by the band U2 was one of my desert albums. My friend said one couldn’t put a one-year-old album on such a list. Maybe not, but I still like it quite a lot.

Lead singer Bono and his wife of 40 years Ali Hewson, were recently interviewed by Norah O’Donnell for CBS News’ Person To Person with U2’s Bono. He talked about his new book “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.” He shares how the band – he, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. – stayed together for decades and much more.

Here are some songs: Beautiful Day, One, When Love Comes To Town with B.B. King, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (Rattle and Hum version), Where the Streets Have No Name, and Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Watch the show!

The Kennedy Center Honors took place Sunday, December 4th, at 6:30 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Opera House. It will be televised Wednesday, December 28th, on CBS. We watch it every year.

Producer Norman Lear turns 100

People For The American Way

Plugging his 2017 documentary film, “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast,” Carl Reiner had his old friends Norman Lear and Dick Van Dyke come over to be interviewed by CBS Sunday Morning’s Tracy Smith. “They constitute a team of GOLDEN BOYS — older, yes, but no less amusing.”

“The culture has age all wrong,” Lear said. “The culture sells age as utterly going down. Well, it’s the expression, ‘Going downhill.’ And he woke up this morning to come here feeling great. I woke up this morning, I couldn’t wait to get here to see these guys! It’s not ‘downhill!'”

Reiner died in June 2020, but Lear and Van Dyke are still going strong.

TV legend

I watched much of the output of producer Norman Lear. Here’s a paragraph from his IMDB page. “Born in 1922 in New Haven, Connecticut, Lear flew 52 combat missions over Europe in World War II before beginning his television career. His classic shows of the 1970s and ’80s – All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, among others – collectively reached as many as 120 million viewers per week and are said to have transformed the American cultural landscape, bringing the social and political issues of the day into American living rooms for the first time.”

Yes, I saw all of those, both iterations of One Day At A Time, and more obscure shows such as Hot L Baltimore (1975). Possibly my favorite of his lesser-known programs is The Powers That Be: “The exploits of a clueless American senator and the eccentric, morally corrupt people who are closest to him.” It was the launching pad for several well-known performers.

Even before All In The Family, I saw the movie The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968), produced by Lear.

He has a trove of awards, including five Emmys. But also the National Medal of Arts (1999), the GLAAD Media Award (2014), a Peabody Lifetime Achievement Award (2017), and the Kennedy Center Honors (2017).

PAW

“With the rise of the radical religious right, Lear put his career on hold in 1980 to found People For the American Way, the nonprofit organization that remains a relevant and effective force defending all aspects of the First Amendment.”

Indeed, it’s from his organization that I get messages from Norman on a regular basis.

From December 2021: “Progress can feel painfully slow on issues we care about. And sometimes we even see hard-won progress being rolled back. On my 99th birthday, the Washington Post ran an op-ed that I wrote expressing my bewilderment that some politicians are still trying to make it harder for people to vote.

“I’m hoping that by my 100th birthday we will have renewed a strong federal commitment to voting rights. “

From Memorial Day weekend 2022: “When I joined with Rep. Barbara Jordan and others to create People For the American Way, we felt it was important to give people a way to join with others in asserting that this country belongs to all of us. No one is more American on account of their religion or skin color – or where they were born or who they love.

“Some days the bad news feels overwhelming. The violence and contempt and dishonesty can be so dispiriting. Those are the days we need each other the most. Those are the days I remind myself to be grateful that there are so many of us who have made a commitment to making a difference.”

Then a pitch to donate to People For The American Way. Happy birthday, Norman Lear.