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Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners

  • Louis ArmstrongLouis Daniel Armstrong was born in New Orleans on the 4th of August 1901. He grew up in a rough neighborhood known as The Battlefield on Rampart Street.
  • The BeatlesIn November 1956, a sixteen-year-old John Lennon formed a skiffle group with friends from Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool.
  • Michael JacksonMichael Joseph Jackson entered the world on the 29th of August 1958 inside a two-bedroom house on Jackson Street in Gary, Indiana.
  • Bob DylanOn the 24th of May 1941, Robert Allen Zimmerman entered the world at St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth, Minnesota. His parents ran a furniture and appliance…
  • David BowieDavid Robert Jones was born on the 8th of January 1947 in Brixton, London. His mother worked as a waitress at a cinema while his father managed promotions…
  • Elvis PresleyElvis Aaron Presley was born on the 8th of January 1935, in a small two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi. His twin brother Jesse Garon had been stillborn…
  • Frank SinatraFrancis Albert Sinatra entered the world on the 12th of December 1915 inside a tenement building at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey.
  • Jimi HendrixJohnny Allen Hendrix arrived in Seattle on the 27th of November 1942. His father Al Hendrix was stationed in Alabama during the birth and could not visit due…
  • John LennonJohn Winston Lennon was born on the 9th of October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital. His father Alfred worked as a merchant seaman and was away during…
  • Queen (band)In 1963, Brian May built a guitar with his father that would become the signature sound of Queen. The group Smile formed shortly after with singer Tim…
  • Buddy HollyCharles Hardin Holley was born on the 7th of September 1936 in Lubbock, Texas. He grew up during the Great Depression with three siblings who all played…
  • Billie HolidayEleanora Fagan was born on the 7th of April 1915, in Philadelphia to an unwed teenage couple named Clarence Halliday and Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan.
  • Aretha FranklinAretha Louise Franklin was born on the 25th of March 1942, at her family's home located at 406 Lucy Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee.
  • Led ZeppelinIn August 1968, four musicians gathered in a room below a record store on Gerrard Street in London to play their first song together.
  • Nirvana (band)Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic met while attending Aberdeen High School in Washington state. They became friends by frequenting the practice space of the…
  • Prince (musician)Prince Rogers Nelson entered the world at Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota on the 7th of June 1958. His father John Lewis Nelson was a pianist…
  • Marvin GayeMarvin Pentz Gaye Jr. entered the world on the 2nd of April 1939 at Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C. His first home sat within the Fairfax Apartments…
  • Ella FitzgeraldElla Jane Fitzgerald was born on the 25th of April 1917, in Newport News, Virginia. Her mother Temperance Fitzgerald and father William Ashland Fitzgerald…
  • Little RichardRichard Wayne Penniman was born on the 5th of December 1932 in Macon, Georgia. He grew up as the third child among twelve siblings in a household where his…
  • Black SabbathIn 1968, four musicians met in the industrial city of Birmingham to form a heavy blues rock band. Guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward had previously…
  • Igor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia, on the 17th of June 1882. His father worked as a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint…
  • Duke EllingtonOn the 29th of April 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington entered the world in Washington, D.C., born to James and Daisy Ellington.
  • Judy GarlandFrances Ethel Gumm stood on the stage of her father's movie theater in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, at the age of two. She sang a chorus of Jingle Bells…
  • Sam CookeSamuel Cook arrived in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on the 22nd of January 1931. He was the fifth child born to Reverend Charles Cook and Annie Mae Carroll.
  • James BrownJames Joseph Brown was born on the 3rd of May 1933, inside a small wooden shack in Barnwell, South Carolina. His mother Susie Behling was only sixteen years…
  • Earth, Wind & FireIn 1969, Maurice White joined two friends in Chicago to form a songwriting team called The Salty Peppers. They secured a recording contract with Capitol…
  • Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney was born on the 18th of June 1942 at Walton Hospital in the Walton area of Liverpool. His mother Mary Patricia Mohin worked as a nurse and…
  • John ColtraneJohn William Coltrane was born in his parents' apartment at 200 Hamlet Avenue in Hamlet, North Carolina, on the 23rd of September 1926.
  • Joni MitchellRoberta Joan Anderson was born on the 7th of November 1943 in Fort Macleod, Alberta. Her father served as a Royal Canadian Air Force flight lieutenant during…
  • Miles DavisMiles Dewey Davis III arrived in the world on the 26th of May 1926, born into an affluent African-American family in Alton, Illinois.
  • The SupremesIn 1958, Florence Ballard stood in the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects of Detroit and met Paul Williams. They were members of a local singing group called…
  • Chuck BerryCharles Edward Anderson Berry was born on the 18th of October 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. He grew up in a neighborhood called the Ville where many…
  • The Beach BoysOn the 20th of June 1958, Brian Wilson turned sixteen inside a bedroom he shared with his brothers Dennis and Carl in their family home in Hawthorne…
  • George Clinton (funk musician)George Edward Clinton was born on the 22nd of July 1941 in Kannapolis, North Carolina. He grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey during his teen years.
  • Bing CrosbyHarry Lillis Crosby Jr. entered the world on the 3rd of May 1903, in Tacoma, Washington. He grew up at a house his father built at 1112 North J Street before…
  • Johnny CashJohnny Cash was born J. R. Cash on the 26th of February 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas. His family moved to Dyess, Arkansas, in March 1935 when he was three…
  • The DoorsOn a hot July day in 1965, Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek crossed paths on Venice Beach. Both men had attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and…
  • Run-DMCIn 1983, three young men from Hollis, Queens formed a group that would change music history. Joseph Simmons and Darryl McDaniels met Jason Mizell at…
  • Jerry Lee LewisJerry Lee Lewis was born on the 29th of September 1935, in Ferriday, Louisiana. He grew up in an impoverished farming family where his parents mortgaged…
  • Grammy Lifetime Achievement AwardIn 1963, the Recording Academy presented its first Lifetime Achievement Award to Bing Crosby. This moment marked the official birth of a new honor created…
  • Bee GeesThe Gibb brothers were born on the Isle of Man in the late 1940s. They moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, England, in 1955.
  • George HarrisonOn the 25th of February 1943, George Harrison was born at 12 Arnold Grove in Wavertree, Liverpool. He grew up as the youngest of four children to Harold and…
  • Dolly PartonDolly Rebecca Parton was born on the 19th of January 1946, inside a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, Tennessee.
  • Grandmaster Flash and the Furious FiveGrandmaster Flash and the Furious Five formed in 1978 within the South Bronx of New York City. The group began as a trio called the Three MC's featuring…
  • Roy OrbisonRoy Kelton Orbison was born on the 23rd of April 1936, in Vernon, Texas. His father worked as an oil-field driller who struggled to find steady work after…
  • Frank ZappaFrank Vincent Zappa was born on the 21st of December 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland. His father worked at the Edgewood Arsenal chemical warfare facility of the…
  • Julie AndrewsJulia Elizabeth Wells arrived in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, on the 1st of October 1935. Her mother Barbara Ward Wells had married Edward Charles Ted Wells in…
  • KraftwerkIn 1970, two students named Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter met at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf. They began playing together as part of a…
  • Bo DiddleyEllas Bates McDaniel arrived in the world on the 30th of December 1928, inside a small town called McComb, Mississippi. He was the only child of Ethel…
  • Gil Scott-HeronGilbert Scott-Heron arrived in Chicago on the 1st of April 1949. His mother Bobbie Scott was an opera singer who performed with the Oratorio Society of New…