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The Recording Academy® will honor its 2017 Special Merit Awards recipients with an awards ceremony and live tribute concert on Tuesday, July 11, 2017, at The Beacon Theatre in New York City. This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award honorees are Shirley Caesar, Ahmad Jamal, Charley Pride, Jimmie Rodgers, Nina Simone, Sly Stone, and the Velvet Underground.

Led by GRAMMY®-winning industry icon Paul Shaffer as musical director, the tribute concert will feature rare performances by honorees and never-seen renditions by those they’ve inspired. Currently scheduled to appear are past GRAMMY® nominee Andra Day, who will be honoring Simone; 12-time GRAMMY winner Kirk Franklin, who will pay tribute to Caesar; six-time GRAMMY winner Randy Newman, who will honor Ostin; and two-time GRAMMY winner Dwight Yoakam, who will salute Rodgers. Additional performers will be announced shortly. Tickets for the event will be on sale via Ticketmaster beginning Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. EDT.

Additional Special Merit Awards honorees to be celebrated include Thom Bell, Mo Ostin, and Ralph Peer, who are this year’s Trustees Award honorees, and Alan Dower Blumlein, who is the Technical GRAMMY® Award recipient. Also being honored is Keith Hancock, this year’s recipient of the Music Educator Award™.

Now in its second year, the “GRAMMY Salute to Music Legends™” event will be produced in partnership with THIRTEEN as part of the “Great Performances” series on PBS, set to air later this year. Previously held during GRAMMY Week, this is the second year the Recording Academy has celebrated the Special Merit Awards with a stand-alone event and musical tribute. In addition to the tribute concert, special celebrity guests will present recipients their award statues and guests will enjoy never-before-seen video packages celebrating each of the honorees’ contributions to the music industry and our cultural heritage.

Read more at GRAMMY.org.

Related News:

• Sly Stone To Be Honored With GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award – December 19, 2016

Don’t miss this limited vinyl edition of Fresh, available exclusively at Experience Vinyl.

George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic — the grandmaster of funk — curates this month’s box, sending you his all-time favorite album, Fresh, by Sly & The Family Stone on limited edition translucent red vinyl.

“Sly was the whole package,” Clinton says. “The whole rock n’ roll, pop star package.”

Stand and wish a Happy Birthday to funk legend Sly Stone!

Photo By Urve Kuusick

The Recording Academy announced its 2017 Special Merit Awards recipients. The Lifetime Achievement Award honorees are Shirley Caesar, Ahmad Jamal, Charley Pride, Jimmie Rodgers, Nina Simone, Sly Stone, and the Velvet Underground. Thom Bell, Mo Ostin and Ralph Peer are Trustees Award honorees; Alan Dower Blumlein is the Technical GRAMMY Award recipient.

The Lifetime Achievement Award celebrates performers who have made outstanding contributions of artistic significance to the field of recording.

Additionally, The Recording Academy and Hal Leonard Books will release in early January A GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends, a hardcover book that collects two decades of artist-written tributes to The Academy’s annual Special Merit Awards honorees. The tributes were originally commissioned for the annual GRAMMY Awards program book and never published widely until now.

Read more at GRAMMY.org.

25 Recordings Added To The GRAMMY Hall Of Fame® Residing at the GRAMMY Museum® At L.A. LIVE

Sly & The Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” has been selected by The Recording Academy® as one of 25 recordings to be inducted into the 2017 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame®.

This year’s collection acknowledges a diverse range of both singles and album recordings at least 25 years old that exhibit qualitative or historical significance. Each year recordings are reviewed by a special member committee comprised of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of the recording arts, with final approval by The Recording Academy’s National Board of Trustees. With 25 new titles, the Hall, now in its 44th year, currently totals 1,038 recordings.

2017 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame Inductees

(Songwriters of singles in parentheses)

“ABC”
The Jackson 5
(Berry Gordy, Alphonzo Mizell, Freddie Perren, Deke Richards, songwriters)
Motown (1970)
Single

“CHANGES”
David Bowie
(David Bowie, songwriter)
RCA Victor (1972)
Single

“THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS”
Arlo Guthrie
(Steve Goodman, songwriter)
Reprise (1972)
Single

“(HEP-HEP!) THE JUMPIN’ JIVE”
Cab Calloway And His Orchestra
(Cab Calloway, Frank Froeba, Jack Palmer, songwriters)
Vocalion (1939)
Single

“I CAN’T MAKE YOU LOVE ME”
Bonnie Raitt
(Mike Reid, Allen Shamblin, songwriters)
Capitol (1991)
Single

“I GET AROUND”
The Beach Boys
(Mike Love, Brian Wilson, songwriters)
Capitol (1964)
Single

“I GOT YOU BABE”
Sonny & Cher
(Sonny Bono, songwriter)
Atco (1965)
Single

“JAILHOUSE ROCK”
Elvis Presley
(Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, songwriters)
RCA Victor (1957)
Single

LADY SINGS THE BLUES
Billie Holiday
Clef (1956)
Album

“LOSING MY RELIGION”
R.E.M.
(Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe, songwriters)
Warner Bros. (1991)
Single

“MAGGIE MAY”
Rod Stewart
(Martin Quittenton, Rod Stewart, songwriters)
Mercury (1971)
Single

“MISSION—IMPOSSIBLE”
Lalo Schifrin
(Lalo Schifrin, songwriter)
Dot (1967)
Single

OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE
Merle Haggard
Capitol (1969)
Album

SIGN “O” THE TIMES
Prince
Paisley Park/Warner Bros. (1987)
Album

“SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT”
Nirvana
(Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic , songwriters)
DGC (1991)
Single

“SMOKE ON THE WATER”
Deep Purple
(Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, songwriters)
Warner Bros. (1973)
Single

“STACK O’LEE BLUES”
Mississippi John Hurt
(Traditional)
Okeh (1928)
Single

“STATESBORO BLUES”
Blind Willie McTell
(Willie McTell, songwriter)
Victor (1928)
Single

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON
N.W.A
Ruthless/Priority (1988)
Album

“THANK YOU (FALETTINME BE MICE ELF AGIN)”
Sly & The Family Stone
(Sly Stone, songwriter)
Epic (1969)
Single

“WAKE UP LITTLE SUSIE”
The Everly Brothers
(Boudleaux Bryant, Felice Bryant, songwriters)
Cadence (1957)
Single

“THE WANDERER”
Dion
(Ernie Maresca, songwriter)
Laurie (1961)
Single

“WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN”
Louis Armstrong And His Orchestra
(Traditional)
Decca (1939)
Single

“YOU ALWAYS HURT THE ONE YOU LOVE”
Mills Brothers
(Doris Fisher, Allan Roberts, songwriters)
Decca (1944)
Single

“YOU DON’T OWN ME”
Lesley Gore
(John Madara, David White, songwriters)
Mercury (1963)
Single

Sly & The Family Stone led the pack of Black artists in the 60s shaping their own musical sound and destiny. Tune in to Soundbreaking on PBS tonight at 10/9c for this incredible story and more. Check your local listings here.

Pitchfork has shared its list of what it considers the 200 Best Songs of the 1970s, with Sly & The Family Stone’s “Family Affair,” from the album There’s A Riot Goin’ On, at #55. Pitchfork writes:

Sly composed most of Riot on his own, including “Family Affair,” a stripped-down track with a drum machine and light electric keys. Vocally, Sly opts for a grumbling, conversational cadence that adds a certain intimacy. The result is a song that feels like a personal conversation about life’s ups and downs.

Read more at Pitchfork.

Life is too complex to cover with one song. There’s too much strife, too much anger, too many complex questions and issues. But sometimes some songs fit situations so perfectly.

Sly & The Family Stone have many great songs and albums. … Consider the setting for the early several albums. From 1967 to 1973, you had the rise and fall of flower power, the increasing anger over Vietnam, racial and religious conflicts were skyrocketing, and the political scene was polarizing and chaotic. Does any of that situation sound relevant to today?

Please understand that I’m not suggesting that any song, any music group, any particular album will be the balm to cure any societal ailment. But Sly & The Family Stone’s “Everyday People” is such a great song. And it seems to apply as much now as it did in 1968.

Read more at the St. Cloud Times.

Just in time for Sly’s birthday, Rolling Stone has compiled a list of what it considers to be 20 essential songs by Sly & The Family Stone. Do you agree? Read the full list.

Funkadelic and Boston production duo Soul Clap enjoy a casual Corvette cruise and confront the horrors of unmitigated oil consumption in the surreal live-action/claymation clip for “In Da Kar.”

Recorded during the pair’s 2013 sessions — and featuring a rare appearance from Sly Stone on keys — “In Da Kar” boasts a slick, smooth, understated groove while George Clinton’s voice crackly voice roughens up the edges. It’s an undeniable driving song, and the video fittingly opens with the Soul Clap guys, decked out in flamboyant Seventies-style outfits, pulling up to a gas station in slow motion to refill the tank of their black Corvette.

Read more at Rolling Stone.

Sly & The Family Stone’s “Everyday People” was covered on the inaugural episode of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” by Mavis Staples and the show’s house band. Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, members of Beirut, Buddy Guy, Ben Folds, Aloe Blacc, Derek Trucks, and others were alongside Staples during the cover performance.

Read more and check out the video at Pitchfork.