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\n\tThis morning\u2019s announcement<\/a> that the Grateful Dead<\/a> will receive the Kennedy Center Honors in December is the latest sign that that the Kennedy Center has finally gotten the memo \u2013 In music, sometimes people do their best and most lasting work in groups.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Kennedy Center Honors was set up in 1978 to honor individuals. It wasn\u2019t until 2008 that the Center recognized its first musical group: The Who<\/a>. Before that, they had singled out the most famous member of a group or duo for honors \u2013 Paul Simon (2002), Tina Turner (2005), Smokey Robinson (2006), Diana Ross (2007) and Brian Wilson (2007).<\/p>\n \n\tEven after 2008, the Kennedy Center often opted to single out a member of a group rather than honor the entire group. The Beatles should certainly have been honored by the Kennedy Center, but the Center selected Paul McCartney for a solo honor in 2002. (McCartney was unable to attend that year due to a family commitment and was finally honored in 2010.)<\/p>\n \n\tOther group members who were honored as individuals instead of as part of the groups with which they first achieved fame are Carlos Santana (2013), Sting (2014), Mavis Staples (2016), Gloria Estefan (2017), Lionel Richie (2017), Cher (2018), Gladys Knight (2022) and Barry Gibb (2023). In some cases, it made more sense to honor the individuals. In other cases, it made less sense. Even Barry Gibb would doubtless say that his best and most lasting work was done in the Bee Gees alongside his brothers Robin and Maurice.<\/p>\n \n\tBoth of Gibb\u2019s brothers had died by 2023, and the Kennedy Center generally doesn\u2019t honor people posthumously \u2014 though it made an exception for Glenn Frey, who had died by the time the Eagles<\/a> were honored in December 2016. (He was alive when the group was selected in 2015. Miranda Lambert performed the Eagles classic \u201cDesperado\u201d on the 2015 show as a mini-tribute.)<\/p>\n \n\tThe rule about not honoring group members posthumously needs review. To honor Earth, Wind & Fire<\/a>, as the Kennedy Center did in 2016, without honoring its mastermind Maurice White is hard to fathom. Likewise, to honor Grateful Dead without recognizing its principal songwriter and lead guitarist\u00a0Jerry Garcia just seems off.<\/p>\n \n\tThis year\u2019s other honorees are Bonnie Raitt<\/a>; jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer Arturo Sandoval<\/a>; filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola; and the\u00a0legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem, which is the first venue to be honored.<\/p>\n \n\tHere\u2019s a complete list of the groups that have been received Kennedy Center Honors, together with the dates they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and that they received lifetime achievement awards from the Recording Academy.<\/p>\n