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Gershwin Prize for Popular Song
The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song
The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song celebrates the work of an artist whose career reflects lifetime achievement in promoting song as a vehicle of musical expression and cultural understanding. Within the context of the award, “song” is defined as either a single composition or a number that may be extracted from a larger work such as musical, film score, or television soundtrack. The styles in which these works are composed cross social, racial, and national boundaries, and reflect myriad contemporary traditions like rock, jazz, country, pop, blues, folk, and gospel. While song has always been considered a “popular” work, the advent of sound recordings and radio and television broadcasting at the beginning of the last century significantly extended audiences. It is “song” in this broadest definition to which the prize refers. The recipient-whether composer, singer/songwriter, or interpreter-is recognized for entertaining and informing audiences, for drawing upon the acknowledged foundations of popular song, and for inspiring new generations of performers on their own professional journeys.
The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song will honor either a songwriter, interpreter, or singer/songwriter whose career reflects lifetime achievement in promoting the genre of song as a vehicle of artistic expression and cultural understanding.
The selection will be made by the Librarian of Congress in consultation with a board that is both credible and broad enough in scope to represent the full spectrum of popular song. Board members may include but need not be limited to scholars, producers, performers, music critics, songwriters, and subject specialists within and outside the Library of Congress.
Stevie Wonder, Second Gershwin Prize Recipient
Born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1950, Stevie Wonder became blind shortly after birth. He learned to play the harmonica, piano and drums by age 9. By the time he was 10, his singing and other musical skills were known throughout his neighborhood, and when the family moved to Detroit, impressed adults made his talents known to the owners of Motown Records, who gave him a recording contract when he was age 12.
His early hits included "Fingertips," "Uptight (Everything’s All Right)" "For Once in My Life," "My Cherie Amour," "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours," and "If You Really Love Me." He undertook the study of classical piano, and later, music theory, and beginning in 1967, he began writing more of his own material. In the early 1970s, Wonder toured with the Rolling Stones and had major hits with the songs "Superstition" and "You are the Sunshine of My Life."
In the mid-70s, his album "Songs in the Key of Life" topped the charts for 14 weeks. Over the years Stevie Wonder has garnered 25 Grammy Awards, as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. He collected an Academy Award for the 1984 hit "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from the film The Woman in Red. In 1989, he was inducted into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. In 1999, Stevie became the youngest honoree of the Kennedy Center Honors. He was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 2002, and in 2004 he won the Johnny Mercer Award in recognition of a lifetime of outstanding creative work.
In 2005, the Library of Congress added Stevie Wonder’s 1976 double album "Songs in the Key of Life" to the National Recording Registry, which recognizes recordings that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States."
Related Resources
- Singer/Songwriter Stevie Wonder Named Recipient of Library of Congress Gershwin Prize, Sept. 2, 2008
- National Recording Registry
Paul Simon, First Annual Gershwin Prize Recipient
Photo ©2007 courtesy Rahav Segev/Photopass.com
During his distinguished career Paul Simon has been the recipient of many honors and awards including 12 Grammy Awards, three of which ("Bridge Over Troubled Water", "Still Crazy After All These Years" and "Graceland") were albums of the year. In 2003 he was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for his work as half of the duo Simon and Garfunkel. He is an inductee of The Songwriters Hall of Fame and is in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame both as a member of Simon and Garfunkel and as a solo artist. His song "Mrs. Robinson" from the motion picture "The Graduate" was named in the top ten of The American Film Institute's 100 Years 100 Songs. He was a recipient of The Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and was named as one of Time Magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World" in 2006.
Of his many concert appearances, he is most fond of the two concerts in Central Park in New York (with his partner and childhood friend Art Garfunkel in 1981 and as a solo artist in 1991) and the series of shows he did at the invitation of Nelson Mandela in South Africa: the first American artist to perform in post-apartheid South Africa.
Simon's philanthropic work includes the co-founding of The Children's Health Fund with Dr. Irwin Redlener. The CHF donates and staffs mobile medical vans that bring health care to poor and indigent children in urban and rural locations around the United States. In the twenty years since its inception it has provided over 1,200,000
doctor/patient visits. In the wake of Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina it was the primary health care source for those communities decimated by the storms. Simon has also raised millions of dollars for worthy causes as varied as AMFAR, The Nature Conservancy, The Fund for Imprisoned Children In South Africa and Autism Speaks. In 1989 The United Negro College Fund honored him with its Frederick D. Patterson Award.
Related Resources
- Paul Simon To Be Awarded First Annual Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by Library of Congress, March 1, 2007
- PBS will broadcast the gala concert on Wednesday, June 27 at 9 p.m. EDT on stations nationwide.
Last Updated: 09/29/2008