Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt to Receive 2024 Kennedy Center Honors

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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has selected the 2024 Honorees for lifetime artistic achievements: acclaimed director and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola; legendary American rock band the Grateful Dead (Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Bobby Weir); blues rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Bonnie Raitt; jazz trumpeter, pianist, and composer Arturo Sandoval; and The Apollo, which will receive a special Honors as an iconic American institution.

“Our Honorees this year have each played an invaluable, pioneering role in developing American culture—not with one act of art but with their decades-long devotion to pushing creative boundaries,” said Deborah F. Rutter, Kennedy Center President, in the July 18 announcement. “In December, we are thrilled to pay special tribute to New York City’s renowned Apollo Theater on its 90th anniversary. Throughout its history, The Apollo has guided us and the world forward by discovering and nurturing raw talent, molding a unique cultural identity that defines American culture still today. Across Honors weekend, artists with special connections to the Apollo will serve as ambassadors of the institution’s legacy.”

The Dead in 1977 (l to r): Donna Godchaux, Keith Godchaux, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart

“It goes without saying that the Kennedy Center Honors represents the highest of reaches for artistic achievement,” said Hart, Kreutzmann, Lesh and Weir in a joint statement. “To be recognized alongside the artists who have in the past received this honor is beyond humbling. The Grateful Dead has always been about community, creativity and exploration in music and presentation. We’ve always felt that the music we make embodies and imparts something beyond the notes and phrases being played—and that is something we are privileged to share with all who are drawn to what we do—so it also must be said that our music belongs as much to our fans, the Dead Heads, as it does to us. This honor, then, is as much theirs as ours.”

(As the Kennedy Center only bestows its Honors upon living artists, only the surviving members of the Grateful Dead are designated as recipients. Since the announcement, Lesh died, on Oct. 25.)

Bonnie Raitt in 1989

Said Raitt, who turned 75 on Nov. 8, “I am deeply honored and thrilled to have been chosen to receive one of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors. I have long been an admirer of the Awards and have been so blessed to be able to participate in several shows honoring others. There is no higher level of esteem nor as delightful a celebration and I want to extend my sincere thanks to all who have chosen me to receive this honor. I look forward to the upcoming ceremony and festivities, which I know will be one of my life’s peak experiences.”

The Kennedy Center Honors will be awarded on Dec. 8, and will be broadcast on CBS Dec. 23.

Watch Heart pay tribute to Led Zeppelin at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in 2012