Allman Brothers, Diana Ross to Get Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards

The original lineup of the Allman Brothers outside of Macon, Georgia.

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

The Allman Brothers Band and Diana Ross will lead the next class of Special Merit Awards recipients at the Grammys. The Allmans, Ross, Glen Campbell, country music great George Jones, Brazilian songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim, the late soul poet Gil Scott-Heron and the Memphis Horns are all set to receive Lifetime Achievement Awards. 

In addition, Trustees Awards – which recognize those who contributed to the recording industry in a non-performance capacity – will go to the late Steve Jobs, New Orleans composer-arranger Dave Bartholomew and jazz producer Rudy Van Gelder. Recipients will be honored at an invitation-only event during Grammy Week and on the 54th annual Grammy Awards telecast on February 12th.  

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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