Kennedy Center Honorees, operatic bass-baritone Justino Diaz, Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, actress and singer-songwriter Bette Midler, and Motown founder, songwriter, producer, and director Berry Gordy, pose for the 44th Kennedy Center Honors class photo following the Medallion Ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., U.S.
The arts community largely did not object to that absence.
Gordy, a songwriter and record producer from Detroit, founded the Motown record label that became synonymous with a jazz- and blues-influenced musical sound popularized by Black artists including Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Lionel Richie, whose careers he helped shape.
Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day.