Cher, Paul Simon, Whitney Houston & More to Receive Honors from the Recording Academy

Cher, Paul Simon, Whitney Houston, and more will be honored during the Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards Ceremony on Jan. 31, 2026. The event will celebrate the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustee Award and Technical Grammy Award recipients at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. 

Carlos Santana, Chaka Khan, Cher, Fela Kuti, Paul Simon, and Whitney Houston are the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award honorees; Bernie Taupin, Eddie Palmieri and Sylvia Rhone are the Trustees Award honorees; and John Chowning is the Technical Grammy Award honoree. 

“It’s a true honor to recognize this year’s Special Merit Award recipients — an extraordinary group whose influence spans generations, genres and the very foundation of modern music,” said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy. “Each of these honorees has made a profound and lasting impact, and we look forward to celebrating their remarkable achievements on the eve of Grammy Sunday.”

Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees

The Lifetime Achievement Award is a Special Merit Award presented by vote of the Recording Academy’s National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetime, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording. 

For nearly 50 years, Cher has remained one of the world’s most enduring entertainers, with a career spanning music, film, and television. The only artist with No. 1 hits in six consecutive decades, she is an Academy Award, Grammy, Emmy, and Golden Globe winner whose influence has shaped pop culture and fashion worldwide. Rising to fame with the groundbreaking hit “I Got You Babe,” she went on to achieve solo chart-toppers like “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves,” “Half-Breed” and “If I Could Turn Back Time,” before redefining dance-pop with the Grammy-winning “Believe,” one of the best-selling singles in history. Her story came to Broadway with The Cher Show, debuting in 2018.

For over five decades, Carlos Santana has been a pioneering force in music, fusing Afro-Latin, blues, rock, and jazz into a sound that transcends genre, culture and generation. A 10-time Grammy and three-time Latin Grammy winner, he made history with Supernatural in 1999, earning eight Grammys in a single night. He is a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a Kennedy Center Honoree, and a recipient of Billboard’s Century and Latin Music Lifetime Achievement Awards. 

Chaka Khan is one of the most transformative vocal artists of the last five decades, a 10-time Grammy winner, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee (2023) and a creative innovator whose influence reaches across pop, R&B, jazz, rock, country, gospel, dance, classical, indie, and beyond.  She has collaborated with more artists, across more genres, than any other singer in history, with admirers and creative partners ranging from Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Prince, Sia, Stevie Wonder, and Whitney Houston. 

Fela Kuti was a Nigerian musician, producer, arranger, political radical, outlaw, and the father of Afrobeat. In the 1960s, he created the genre by combining funk, jazz, salsa, calypso, and a blend of traditional Nigerian rhythms. Fela’s influence and catalog of music have been widely celebrated and explored, including the podcast series Fela Kuti: Fear No Man  (the New Yorker’s No. 1 Podcast of 2025), and the Tony Award-winning Broadway run of Fela! The Musical from 2008-2010. 

Songwriter, recording artist, performer, and philanthropist Paul Simon has shaped the sound of modern music across seven decades with classics like “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “The Sound of Silence,” and his album Graceland. Widely regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, he has earned 16 Grammy Awards, three for Album Of The Year, and holds a rare place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a two-time inductee. His accolades also include the Kennedy Center Honors, the inaugural Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the Polar Music Prize, and the Smithsonian’s Great Americans Medal.

Whitney Houston, renowned worldwide as “The Voice,” was a record-breaking vocalist whose unparalleled talent and more than 220 million records sold made her one of the most celebrated artists in music history. Born into a dynasty of legendary singers, she rose from performing in New York clubs to signing with Clive Davis in 1983 and releasing her groundbreaking self-titled debut album in 1985, which became the best-selling debut album by a solo artist. Houston made history with seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits and eight consecutive multi-platinum albums, achievements that cemented her status as a generational icon. 

Trustees Award Honorees

This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy’s National Trustees to individuals who, during their music careers, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording. 

Bernie Taupin is a celebrated lyricist, author and visual artist whose words have shaped some of the most enduring songs in modern music. Best known for his legendary partnership with Elton John, Taupin helped create more than 35 gold and 25 platinum albums, over 30 consecutive U.S. Top 40 hits and one of the best-selling singles of all time, “Candle in the Wind 1997.” His achievements have earned him the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, a dozen Ivor Novello Awards, an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and a Commander of the British Empire honor.

Eddie Palmieri was a visionary pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader whose own personal signature took Afro-Caribbean music to new horizons for over seven decades. Born in 1936 in Spanish Harlem to Puerto Rican parents, he began playing piano in childhood and launched his professional career in the 1950s. In 1961, he founded La Perfecta, replacing trumpets with trombones to forge a bold new sound that helped define modern salsa. His landmark 1965 recording Azúcar Pa’ Ti,  exemplified his groundbreaking works and was inducted into the Library of Congress in 2009. In 1975, Palmieri became the first Latino ever to win a Grammy for his recording Sun of Latin Music, eventually earning eight Grammy Awards and two Latin Grammys.

Sylvia Rhone is a pioneering music executive whose five-decade career reshaped the recording industry and forged historic pathways for women and people of color. Rising from Harlem, she became the first woman to serve as CEO of a major record label owned by a Fortune 500 company and went on to hold top executive roles across all three major music groups at four companies, including Atlantic Records, Elektra, Motown, and Epic Records, where she was named Chairwoman and CEO in 2019. Her leadership has earned her more than three dozen honors, including the Recording Academy’s Global Impact Award, Billboard’s Executive of the Year and the City of Hope Spirit of Life Award. 

Technical Grammy Award Honorees

This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Producers & Engineers Wing Advisory Council and Chapter Committees and ratification by the Recording Academy’s National Trustees to individuals and/or companies/organizations/institutions who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field. 

John Chowning is a composer and computer-music innovator whose discovery of frequency modulation (FM) synthesis in 1967 revolutionized electronic sound. After studying with Nadia Boulanger and earning his doctorate at Stanford, he launched the university’s early computer-music program and developed the first digital algorithm for surround-sound localization. Stanford’s licensing of his FM patent to Yamaha led to the most successful synthesis engine in the history of electronic instruments. A co-founder of Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) in 1974, Chowning helped establish one of the world’s leading hubs for computer-music research.