As previewed by Loudwire last month (Jan. 5), the Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards ceremony took place last night (Feb.4) at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. Excitingly, the recipients included Nirvana and Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson (as well as Nile Rodgers, Bobby McFerrin, The Supremes, Slick Rick and Ma Rainey).
As Billboard notes, the Special Merit Awards are meant to be “a small, intimate affair, where the Academy dispenses its lifetime achievement awards, trustees awards, technical Grammy Awards and the music educator award.” It’s also where “you get personal glimpses of artists that are revealing.”
Likewise, the Recording Academy’s Chief Awards & Industry Officer, Ruby Marchand, introduced the ceremony by welcoming attendees, adding: “Today, we are honoring exceptional contributions in music by individuals and groups both on and off the stage.”
Naturally, Dave Grohl, Pat Smear and Krist Novoselic accepted the lifetime achievement award for Nirvana. During his speech, Novoselic contemplated:
And they said that Kurt [Cobain] was witty or maybe he was a smartass. And he said, ‘Teenage angst has paid off well.’ It has. I do fan mail – old-fashioned fan mail. I get letters from around the world, like Nirvana fans. Like, just all around the world. A lot of young people. There’s a new generation of Nirvana fans and I’m just very grateful for that.
Meanwhile, Grohl stood quietly behind him.
As for Nancy Wilson, she reflected:
In 1974, I followed my calling, which pulled out of my college dorm room to capture this dream I had with my sister since we were little kids. The dream was to be the Beatles; we followed our muse through the decades [and] we blazed a few trails and broke a few glass ceilings along the way for both men and women. [To the] Recording Academy, thank you forever for this. It’s gonna look super sweet on my grandma’s piano in my home studio.
Ann Wilson wasn’t there, so Hipgnosis Songs founder Merck Mercuriadis accepted on her behalf. Billboard specifies that he “recalled being a 12-year-old in Canada and hearing Heart’s first hit, ‘Magic Man,’ on the radio and said he has been a fan ever since. He noted that Ann is still going strong – featured on a track on Disturbed’s new album and on Dolly Parton’s upcoming rock album.”
You can check out footage from the event below, and Loudwire congratulates all of the winners.
Of course, Loudwire will also be covering the 65th annual Grammy Awards itself. It takes place tonight (Feb. 5) at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, starting at 8PM ET / 5PM PT. You can tune into CBS to see catch all of the nominees and winners (and see if your predictions were correct).
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