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Lifetime Achievement Award - The Doors..


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The Doors Honored With Lifetime Achievement Award

Joan Baez, The Grateful Dead and Bob Wills will also be honored by The Recording Academy.

Recipients of the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award have been announced by The Recording Academy.

Joan Baez, Booker T. & The MG's, Maria Callas, Ornette Coleman, the Doors, the Grateful Dead and Bob Wills will receive The Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Lifetime Achievement Award honors lifelong artistic contributions to the recording medium.

Formal acknowledgment of these special merit awards will be made at an invitation-only ceremony during Grammy Week, as well as during the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, which will be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 11, and broadcast live at 8pm ET/PT on CBS.

Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees:

The Doors (John Densmore, Bobby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, and (a)Jim Morrison) -- As one of the most influential and controversial rock bands of the '60s, The Doors' music included socially, psychologically and politically influenced lyrics.

The band formed in 1965 -- when Morrison and Manzarek were film students at UCLA -- with a sound that was dominated by Manzarek's electric organ and Morrison's deep, sonorous voice with which he sang his highly poetic lyrics. Blending blues, classical, Eastern music, and pop into sinister but beguiling melodies, the band sounded like no other.

The group's first album, The Doors, featuring the hit "Light My Fire," was a massive success, and endures as one of the most exciting, groundbreaking recordings of the psychedelic era. The Doors' music and Morrison's legend continue to fascinate succeeding generations of rock fans.

Joan Baez -- As one of the most accomplished interpretive folk singers of the '60s, Joan Baez has influenced nearly every aspect of popular music in a career that is still going strong after more than 45 years.

Possessed of an instantly recognizable soprano, Baez has received eight gold albums, a gold single, six Grammy Award nominations, and the 2003 Recording Academy San Francisco Chapter Governors Award.

Booker T. & The MG's (Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, (a)Al Jackson, Booker T. Jones, and Lewie Steinberg) -- As the house band at Stax Records in Memphis, Booker T. & The MG's had tight, impeccable grooves that can be heard on classic hits by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Carla Thomas, to name a few.

They also were one of the top instrumental outfits of the rock era, recording classics including "Green Onions," "Time Is Tight," and "Hang 'Em High." As a band that featured two blacks and two whites playing as a cohesive group in the highly-charged south of the '60s, they set an example of how music can transcend social ills.

(a)Maria Callas -- Among her contemporaries, Maria Callas had the deepest comprehension of the classical Italian style, the most musical instincts and the most intelligent approach, with exceptional dramatic powers.

She had a wide range from high E to the F below the staff, and an innate feel for the style of bel canto roles, but she was most notable for bringing a commitment and intensity to her dramatic portrayals that was unprecedented at the time.

Her fame has transcended the usual boundaries of classical music, and she has been the inspiration for several movies, an opera, and a successful Broadway play.

Ornette Coleman -- One of the most notable figures in jazz history, American jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman is considered one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the '60s.

He has influenced virtually every saxophonist of a modern disposition and nearly every jazz musician of the following generation. Coleman's timbre is one of the most easily recognized in jazz: his keening, crying sound draws heavily on the blues.

From the beginning, his music and playing were unorthodox, and his sense of harmony and chord were not as rigid as most swing music or bebop performers and were easily changed and often implied. His growing reputation placed him at the forefront of jazz innovation, and free jazz was soon considered a new genre.

The Grateful Dead ((a)Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, and Bob Weir) -- The Grateful Dead were the psychedelic era's most beloved musical ambassadors as well as its most enduring survivors, spreading their message of peace, love and harmony across the globe for more than four decades.

The ultimate cult band, the Dead were known for their unique and eclectic songwriting style, fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, country, jazz, psychedelia, and gospel, and for live performances, featuring long jams. The band released more than 50 albums, and was music's top-grossing live act year after year.

As strong and passionate supporters of numerous educational and humanitarian charities, they established the Rex Foundation. Today, more than 10 years after Jerry Garcia's death, the legions of fans -- called Dead Heads --have only grown larger and stronger.

(a)Bob Wills -- Bob Wills' name will forever be associated with Western swing. He is credited with popularizing the genre and changing its rules. Wills' band, The Texas Playboys, combined dance music, blues, jazz, pop, and country into a uniquely popular form.

The band gained fame playing for eight years on a Tulsa, Oklahoma radio station and ultimately influenced generations of country and pop artists with its iconoclastic approach and individual sound.

(a)Denotes posthumous.

Copyright Yellowbrix 2006

Copyright © 2003-2006 Clear Channel. All rights reserved.

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You may have missed this story when it ran in October of 05, but I think it's relevant here. I assume the whole story can still be found at this URL:

If not, an email to sparkplug54@copper.net will get you a copy.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-et-doors5oct05,1,5477422.story

From the Los Angeles Times

COLUMN ONE

Ex-Door Lighting Their Ire

Drummer John Densmore refuses to let the group's songs be used in TV ads, much

to the chagrin of his former bandmates.

By Geoff Boucher

Times Staff Writer

October 5, 2005

Bob Dylan is singing "The Times They Are A-Changin' " in a television ad for

healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente these days, and who could argue? With Led

Zeppelin pitching Cadillacs, the Rolling Stones strutting in an Ameriquest

Mortgage ad and Paul McCartney warbling for Fidelity Investments, it's clear

that the old counterculture heroes of classic rock are now firmly entrenched as

the house band of corporate America.

That only makes the case of John Densmore all the more intriguing.

Once, back when rock 'n' roll still seemed dangerous, Densmore was the drummer

for the Doors, the band with dark hits such as "Light My Fire" and "People Are

Strange." That band more or less went into the grave with lead singer Jim

Morrison in 1971, but, like all top classic-rock franchises, it now has the

chance to exploit a lucrative afterlife in television commercials. Offers keep

coming in, such as the $15 million dangled by Cadillac last year to lease the

song "Break On Through (to the Other Side)" to hawk its luxury SUVs.

To the surprise of the corporation and the chagrin of his former bandmates,

Densmore vetoed the idea. He said he did the same when Apple Computer called

with a $4-million offer, and every time "some deodorant company wants to use

'Light My Fire.' "

The reason? Prepare to get a lump in your throat — or to roll your eyes.

"People lost their virginity to this music, got high for the first time to this

music," Densmore said. "I've had people say kids died in Vietnam listening to

this music, other people say they know someone who didn't commit suicide because

of this music…. On stage, when we played these songs, they felt mysterious and

magic. That's not for rent."

That not only sets the Doors apart from the long, long list of classic rock acts

that have had their songs licensed for major U.S. commercial campaigns, it also

has added considerably to Densmore's estrangement from former bandmates Ray

Manzarek and Robbie Krieger, a trio that last set eyes on one another in the Los

Angeles County Superior Courthouse last year.

"Everyone wanted him to do it," said John Branca, an attorney who worked on the

Cadillac proposal. "I told him that, really, people don't frown on this anymore.

It's considered a branding exercise for the music. He told me he just couldn't

sell a song to a company that was polluting the world.

"I shook my head," Branca said, "but, hey, you have to respect that. How many of

your principles would you reconsider when people start talking millions of

dollars?"

Densmore relented once. Back in the 1970s, he agreed to let "Riders on the

Storm" be used to sell Pirelli Tires in a TV spot in England. When he saw it he

was sick. "I gave every cent to charity. Jim's ghost was in my ear, and I felt

terrible. If I needed proof that it was the wrong thing to do, I got it."

Since then, the animus between the drummer and Manzarek and Krieger has

intensified, including a bitter dispute over naming rights.

In August, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Gregory W. Alarcon ruled that

Manzarek and Krieger could no longer tour together as the "Doors of the 21st

Century."...

Edited by Guest
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