The 47th Kennedy Center Honors – celebrating the best of American performing arts – recognized legendary rockers the Grateful Dead and genre-hopping guitarist and singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt, alongside New Hollywood filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and jazz trumpeter, composer, and pianist Arturo Sandoval.
For the first time in its history, the Honors also inducted a venue: Harlem's history-defining Apollo Theater. The event was hosted by Queen Latifah and taped on December 8, before airing on CBS on December 22.
The 2024 event also saw outgoing President Biden attend the ceremony and deliver remarks about the honorees.
He called the Grateful Dead – whose original members, guitarist Bobby Weir, and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, were in attendance – “technical virtuosos fiercely dedicated to their craft,” adding that “they fused decades and dozens of musical styles to create a whole new American sound: experimental, innovative, and brave.”
“This honor, to me, is not just to the band members, it's also to the audience, our Deadheads,” Kreutzmann told CBS Mornings when commenting on the induction. “It's to all the people that have really enjoyed our band and kept us going. It's a creative honor for all.”
As a nod to Bonnie Raitt's immense legacy, Brandi Carlile delivered a rendition of I Can’t Make You Love Me [from Raitt's 1991 album Luck of the Draw], accompanied by Sheryl Crow on piano, while Emmylou Harris and Dave Matthews delighted audiences with their own spin on the John Prine-penned Angel From Montgomery, which Raitt popularized with her version on the 1974 album Streetlights.
“As you get older you reflect on how you got where you got and that’s not just in your career but life, and I attribute a lot to Bonnie,” Crow told Billboard before the show.
“When you’re a 17-year-old girl and you play piano, and you go see Bonnie Raitt and she’s ripping and she’s fronting a guy band and she’s singing truth… I would never have picked up a guitar or seen myself being out front had it not been for her.”
Carlile added, “I was maybe 17 years old at a Bonnie Raitt concert when a ‘No Nukes’ guitar pick landed on the toe of my shoe, and I picked that up and I found out what she meant by that. I carry all of her messages forward.”
Musical and non-musical guests came out in full force, including guitarists Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, and Jackson Browne; singer-songwriters Leon Bridges and Maggie Rogers; filmmaker Martin Scorsese; actors Robert De Niro and Al Pacino; and television host David Letterman, to name but a few.
The 47th Kennedy Center Honors can now be streamed in full on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME.
