The Recording Academy will honor its 2019 Special Merit Awards recipients with "Grammy Salute To Music Legends", an awards ceremony and live tribute concert on Saturday, May 11 at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This year's Lifetime Achievement Award honorees are BLACK SABBATH, GEORGE CLINTON & PARLIAMENT-FUNKADELIC, Billy Eckstine, Donny Hathaway, Julio Iglesias, Sam & Dave, and Dionne Warwick. Lou Adler, Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, and Johnny Mandel are Trustees Award honorees; and Saul Walker is the Technical Grammy Award recipient. Also being honored is Jeffery Redding, this year's recipient of the Music Educator Award presented by The Recording Academy and Grammy Museum. Led by Grammy-nominated industry icon Greg Phillinganes as musical director, the tribute concert will feature rare performances by honorees and never-seen renditions by those they've inspired. Currently scheduled to appear are Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Clinton; Grammy winner Bootsy Collins, who will salute Clinton and PARLIAMENT-FUNKADELIC; five-time Grammy winner Lalah Hathaway and Kenya Hathaway, who will pay tribute to their father Donny; past Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Johnny Mathis, who will honor Warwick; Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Sam Moore; two-time Grammy winner Gregory Porter, who will pay tribute to Eckstine; Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Simpson; past Grammy nominee Snoop Dogg, who will salute Clinton and PARLIAMENT-FUNKADELIC; and Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Warwick. Presenters for the evening will include Grammy winners Cheech & Chong. Additional performers and presenters will be announced shortly. Tickets for the event will be on sale via a Ticketmaster pre-sale, beginning today at 10 a.m. PT. The password to access the pre-sale is LEGENDS. The Recording Academy will produce "Grammy Salute To Music Legends" in partnership with Thirteen as part of the "Great Performances" series on PBS, set to air later this year. Previously held during Grammy Week, this is the fourth year The Recording Academy has celebrated the Special Merit Awards with a stand-alone TV event and musical tribute. In addition to the tribute concert, special celebrity guests will present recipients their award statues and guests will enjoy never-before-seen video packages celebrating each of the honorees' contributions to the music industry and our cultural heritage. A production of Thirteen LLC for WNET, "Grammy Salute To Music Legends" on "Great Performances" will be written by David Wild and directed for television by David Horn, with Mitch Owgang as producer and David Horn and Neil Portnow as executive producers. The Lifetime Achievement Award honors performers who have made contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording, while the Trustees Award recognizes such contributions in areas other than performance. Both awards are determined by a vote of The Recording Academy's National Board of Trustees. Technical Grammy Award recipients are determined by vote of the Academy's Producers & Engineers Wing Advisory Council and Chapter Committees and ratified by the Trustees. The award is presented to individuals and companies who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field. The Music Educator Award is selected by a Blue Ribbon Committee and is approved by the National Board of Trustees. In February 2017, SABBATH finished "The End" tour in Birmingham, closing out the quartet's groundbreaking 49-year career. "The End" was SABBATH's last tour because guitarist Tony Iommi, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and is currently in remission, can no longer travel for extended amounts of time. SABBATH wrote and recorded its 2013 reunion album, "13", and toured it all over the world while Iommi was going through treatment for his illness, with the guitarist having to fly back to England every six weeks. The original lineup of SABBATH came together in 1969 with Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, Geezer Butler on bass and Bill Ward on drums. That lineup recorded and toured through 1978, and periodically reformed through the '90s and 2000s for live work. They regrouped again in late 2011 for a new album and tour, although Ward dropped out after a few months over financial issues. SABBATH has used Ozzy's regular touring drummer Tommy Clufetos since then for live work. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE's Brad Wilk laid down the drum tracks on "13", which came out in June 2013.
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