Celebrities, cultural icons and a few surprise guests have gathered for the annual Kennedy Center Honors celebration in Washington. This year’s recipients of the lifetime achievement award for artistic accomplishment are director Francis Ford Coppola, the Grateful Dead, jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, and singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt. The venerable Harlem theater The Apollo, which has launched generations of Black artists, also was recognized Sunday night. The ceremony featured personalized tributes with performances and testimonials from fellow artists during the gala at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It closed out with the packed house dancing in the aisle to “Not Fade Away,” the bouncy tune the Dead had used to close out hundreds of concerts over the years.
