The Eagles, Al Pacino, Mavis Staples, James Taylor at a bittersweet Kennedy Center Honors 2016
Reporting from Washington — Rocker Glenn Frey died before he could accept a Kennedy Center Honors award last year, but his Eagles bandmates and four other artists were feted Sunday at a bittersweet edition of the glitzy annual gala, the last of the Obama administration.
Actor-director Al Pacino, singer-songwriter James Taylor, singer Mavis Staples and pianist Martha Argerich rounded out the Kennedy Center Class of 2016.
For the record:
12:38 p.m. Nov. 7, 2024An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported the day on which Irving Azoff, the manager of the Eagles, had been interviewed. It was on Saturday, not Sunday. Also, Azoff said that 2016 had a hard beginning for “our Eagles family,” not “for our Eagles fans.”
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The Eagles, credited with shaping the Southern California sound with hits such as “Life in the Fast Lane,” “Desperado” and “Hotel California,” were to receive Kennedy Center Honors last year, but their awards were postponed when band co-founder Frey took ill. He died Jan. 18 at age 67 from complications of rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia.
That left Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit and Joe Walsh, all 69, to collect Kennedy Center medallions on Sunday with Frey’s widow, Cindy.
“For our Eagles family, 2016 couldn’t have had a harder beginning or a more appropriate ending,” the band’s manager Irving Azoff said Saturday.
Added Schmit on Sunday as he entered the black-tie event at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts: “The whole thing was a great ride from the moment I joined the band till the end,” he said. “It was kind of a roller-coaster ride, but it was real joyful.”
Ringo Starr heralded the Eagles’ legacy, then Bob Seger, the Kings of Leon, Vince Gill and the Colombian musician Juanes performed some of the Eagles’ biggest hits.
Earlier in the evening, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama had taken their seats to a standing ovation.
Soon the audience was transfixed when a past president took the stage: Bill Clinton left his saxophone at home but spoke in tribute of Taylor.
Taylor, 68, is the tall troubadour whose warm baritone gave the world “Carolina in My Mind,” “Sweet Baby James” and “Country Road.”
After Clinton paid homage to Taylor, his “friend of many years,” a medley of his lasting hits was performed by Sheryl Crow, Garth Brooks and Darius Rucker.
Pacino, 76, was honored for his searing portrayals of a whistleblower-cop (“Serpico”), a gangster (“The Godfather” films), a bank robber (“Dog Day Afternoon”) and a blind, retired lieutenant colonel who is taken with a beautiful, younger woman — while tango dancing. That last film, “Scent of a Woman,” earned him a lead actor Oscar, and on Sunday, his two younger co-stars, Gabrielle Anwar and Chris O’Donnell, took the stage to reprise the South American dance. Actor and friend Sean Penn made clear Sunday that Pacino is a beloved mentor.
The Chicago-born Staples, 77, began singing as a child in churches with her father, “Pops” Staples, and her sisters and a brother. After the family befriended Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, the Staples Singers’ civil rights anthems became the soundtrack of the movement.
Along the way she rose on the charts with “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself” and pivoted between gospel, soul, folk, pop, R&B, rock and hip-hop.
Staples still lives on Chicago’s South Side with the group’s other two living members: brother Pervis and sister Yvonne. Staples’ protégés have included the late singer Prince as well as Bob Dylan, who once proposed to her. She was ecstatic to mingle with the other honorees, saying she had serenaded Pacino with a bit from “Let’s Do It Again.”
“I said, ‘Let’s do it in the morning. Do it,’ and he said, ‘I don’t do it in the morning,’” she said, laughing.
Buenos Aires-born pianist Argerich, 75, is a child prodigy who rose to fame by interpreting the piano literature of the 19th and 20th century virtuosos, from Chopin to Shostakovich.
For the third straight year, late-night host Stephen Colbert emceed the program. He kicked things off with a reference to President-elect Donald Trump, welcoming the locals as the “endangered swamp dwellers.”
Kennedy Centers honorees are chosen for lifetime contributions to U.S. culture whether through music, dance, theater, opera, motion pictures or television. Usually only living artists are chosen, making Frey’s a rare posthumous award.
CBS will air the program on Dec. 27.
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