This year’s Kennedy Center honorees Joni Mitchell, Bette Mider, Berry Gordy, Lorne Michaels and Justino Díaz were celebrated this weekend with a reception at The White House, a medallion ceremony at The Library of Congress and a splashy, black-tie event at the performing arts center’s Opera House.
President Joe Biden and the First Lady attended the gala event Sunday night, a return to tradition that did not go unnoticed by host David Letterman.
“Poetically expansive” is how pianist and composer Herbie Hancock described Mitchell’s classic song Both Sides Now, which she wrote when she was in her early 20s.
“I think the polio was a rehearsal for the rest of my life,” she said after receiving her Kennedy Center Honor medallion.
Honoree Justino Díaz sang in the inaugural performance at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House as the leading male role in Alberto Ginastera’s Beatrix Cenci.
The fact that Kennedy Center Honors are lifetime achievement awards in the performing arts provided fodder for Saturday Night Live cast members past and present.
Her friend and The First Wives Club costar Goldie Hawn said Midler simply, “did not pay any attention to rejection.” She added: “She sang.
The Motown hit machine brought the soul of Detroit to the rest of the world with artists like Smokey Robinson, The Four Tops, The Temptations, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Jackson Five and numerous others.