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CIRQUE DU SOLEIL: A KURIOS BAND OF MUSICIANS 1

Australian Musician’s Greg Phillips catches up with Marc Sohier and Paul Butler, two key members of the Cirque du Soleil band currently playing in the show KURIOS

The notion of a circus coming to town conjures up all kinds of nostalgic thoughts. A parade of bohemian strangers arriving in a nearby park, setting up a huge big top tent and creating a carnival atmosphere can be very enticing. Of course the traditional Barnum & Bailey style circus days, where trained animals were the stars of the show have long gone. Today’s modern day circus is all about an extraordinary human experience and since 1984, the kings of the genre have been the Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group.

Established in Montreal, the Canadian organization has brought wonder and delight to over 190 million spectators with productions presented in close to 450 cities in 60 countries. Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group currently has over 4,000 employees, including 1,400 artists, from nearly 50 countries. The latest Cirque du Soleil production which is currently in Australia and heading to Melbourne is KURIOS, featuring a cast of 47 artists from 17 countries including world-class gymnasts, acrobats, contortionists, hand-puppeteers, yo-yo wizards, clowns, actors and musicians. KURIOS – Cabinet of Curiosities is a tale in which time comes to a complete stop, transporting the audience inside a fantasy world where everything is possible. In this realm set in the latter half of the nineteenth century, reality is quite relative indeed as our perception of it is utterly transformed.

Marc Sohier

Not only is KURIOS a visually stunning show, the music too plays a major role in building the drama and helping to create such an enjoyable adventure for the audience. Marc Sohier, bandleader and bass player for KURIOS has the nightly responsibility of keeping the musical component together.

After studying jazz bass at the University of Montreal and doing freelance work around the Quebec province, Sohier found himself enroute to New York in 1992 to catch up with friends who were performing with the Cirque du Soleil group in the show Saltimbanco. “Two days before I arrived in New York, there were two musicians who left the show, so it was perfect timing,” Marc recalls. “They asked me if I wanted to join, so I joined the circus a couple of months after. I am still working with the company after all those years. I took 7 years off from 2009 to beginning of 2014 with KURIOS. After 7 years break I was ready to start that crazy life again. I’m back playing bass, leading the band and taking care of the music.”

For Sohier, it’s a challenging assignment which requires intense concentration and versatility, while at the same time trying to stay relaxed and radiating a sense of joy. “The job is more like a moving movie soundtrack,” he explains. “We have action happening in front of us which is really organic, changing all the time. The music is played in sections and we may have to expand or extend and improvise, so my job is mainly to keep the synchronisation with what we are seeing but unlike a movie soundtrack, this one is different every day. You have to be relaxed but at the same time, you have to be there mentally. You cannot suddenly start thinking about something else, there is no room for that. You need to be there from moment to moment and be ready to react if the section becomes longer or shorter or they skip something. There may be a brand new challenge that is about to happen, so you have to be ready.”

Marc learned about the importance of concentration very early on in his Cirque days. He had only been playing bass in the Saltimbanco show band for a week when he found himself mesmerised by the skill of the circus performers and had an out of body experience. “At one point I was playing and I became like a person sitting in the house looking at the show,” he laughs as he recalls the moment. “I was hearing the bass and thinking my god the bass is wrong and then I came back in my head and thought, oh no … I am the bass player! I was totally looking at the show and I was gone. I have concentrated ever since because I don’t want that to ever happen again.”

There are four basses which Marc uses in the current show, his main bass being a 5 string fretted MusicMan. He also has a custom made fretless bass which was created by a Montreal-based guitar builder, a Hofner bass, and an NS Design electric upright. “All of this goes through a bi-amp system with the API pre amp. I go into a channel of my API … I go through my Lexicon processor for the effects and I go back and re-amp the signal and then I send those 2 channels to the front of house, there are no amps. We are all on in-ear monitors. So I don’t have my big Ampeg, it’s at home.”

Paul Butler

Marc’s comrade in rhythm is Adelaide-based drummer Paul Butler, who has been with Cirque for nine years. Paul came up through the ranks of the Adelaide music scene, idolising the likes of Vinnie Colaiuta and Stewart Copeland and found himself doing a seven year stint with the South Australian Police Band, despite not being a cop himself. Paul has also studied percussion at various respected institutions both here and overseas and has toured the world extensively. Like Marc, Paul’s introduction to Cirque du Soleil was through musician friends who had been performing with the company and suggested he audition. “I did my first show with Cirque 9 years ago, a show called CORTEO,” he says. “I was with that show for 5 years and went through Europe and South America, Central America and Mexico. After that I auditioned for another show KOOZA, and I was on that show for 3 years and we toured Australia, Asia, Singapore, China, Korea and Europe. And now I have joined KURIOS after another audition. Even though you’ve been with shows for many years, you still have to prove your worth and audition each time, which is good. It keeps people honest.”

In regard to his role in the band, Butler echoes Sohier’s thoughts on concentration and the need to be flexible but also not forgetting to inject a little of his own musical flair into the mix. “A challenge is to be consistent and provide a good platform for the artists on stage and not just support them but enhance them,” he explains. “We like to provide a solid foundation but I also like to be creative and put a little flavour in there that will inspire them to enjoy what they are doing. We do a lot of shows, 300 plus a year so you want to keep it fresh. The music does evolve, it’s live entertainment and with the action on stage, we have to move and be prepared to change at any moment in time. The challenge is to do that in the most musical way possible but also to hit the point, to accentuate the action as it happens.”

For KURIOS, Paul is using a basic 5 piece kit, a kick, snare, 12”, 14”, 16”, toms and a bunch of cymbals, ranging from crashes to chinas. There is also an element of electronics that Paul uses in the show. “I use a Roland Bar trigger to trigger some things but I’m also the assistant bandleader, so when I am running the show for the band and giving them the cues for the music, we run through Ableton. Being a drummer I don’t want to be on a talk back and playing drums into the mic, so this way I don’t have to. I have lots of pre-recorded counts and calls and things and I launch them off a Roland SPD FX pad.”

Brisbane audiences have been loving the KURIOS show and in March it heads south for the Melbourne season. Paul is proud of the part he plays in the show and believes everyone should make the effort to experience the magic of KURIOS. “From beginning to end it is just a great show,” he tells me. “Everything is well thought out, well designed. It’s high energy, it’s positive but it also takes you on a journey.”

Marc Sohier also suggests that KURIOS is one of the best Cirque shows that he has been involved with. “A lot of shows get so big and mechanical but this is more of a human experience,” he says. “The costumes are amazing, the music is beautiful and it’s extremely melodic. It’s a feel-good show. Everybody will get something out of it. I look out and see people smiling and I think they get much more than what they pay for.”

Melbourne Season: From 12 March – 10 May 2020
Venue: Under the grey and white Big Top at Flemington Racecourse
Performances: Tuesday to Friday 8pm; Saturday 4:30pm & 8pm; Sunday 1:30pm & 5pm
Tickets: From $80
Bookings: www.cirquedusoleil.com/kurios or 1800 036 685

Following Melbourne KURIOS plays:
29 May – 7 June, Adelaide, Showground
15 July – 2 August, Perth, Claremont Showground

LEVEL 42 TO TOUR AUSTRALIA & NZ FOR FIRST TIME IN MAY 0

Level 42 touring Australia and New Zealand for the first time in May 2020
May 14 PERTH Astor Theatre
May 16 MELBOURNE Palais Theatre
May 18 SYDNEY Enmore Theatre
May 20 AUCKLAND The Civic

Level 42 left their mark on the 1980’s with a polished, upbeat, danceable pop/rock sound largely defined by lead singer / bassist Mark King’s thumb-slap bass technique. Catchy hits such as ‘Lessons in Love’, ‘Running in the Family’ and ‘Something About You’ crossed the band from their jazz-funk fusion roots firmly into the mainstream pop charts and gave them a fanbase worldwide.

To date Mark King and the band have released 14 studio albums, 7 live albums, and 6 compilation albums, had 18 top 40 singles, including Lessons in Love, Something About You, Leaving Me Now, Running in the Family, and Hot Water, selling in excess of 30 million albums worldwide.

As a live act Level 42 have primarily toured the UK (They’ve sold out London’s Wembley Arena for a total of 21 nights over their career), Scandinavia and Continental Europe, and have had a number of forays into the North American market on arena tours with the likes of Peter Gabriel and Steve Winwood. Why they never made it down-under for concerts has Mark King scratching his head, but he is rapt the opportunity is finally here 40 years into his career, “Touring with the band this year has been about as much fun as I can remember having had on the road, and If you had asked me back in 1980 if I thought we would be selling out theatres around the world when I was sixty years old I probably would have laughed! Re-invention can be a wonderful thing!”

At the beginning of their career, Level 42 was squarely a jazz-funk fusion band, contemporaries of fellow Brit funk groups like Atmosfear, Light of the World, Incognito, and Beggar & Co. The band’s commercial peak came with 1985’s World Machine. Starting out as ‘The Early Tapes’ on the Isle of Wight in 1979, the band featured Mark King (bass, vocals) and Mike Lindup (keyboards) who are both still in the band today, along with brothers Phil Gould (drums) and Boon Gould (guitar). Before they released their first single, “Love Meeting Love,” as the band were initially an instrumental act, they were pushed to add vocals to their music in order to give it a more commercial sound. Mark King became the lead singer. Level 42 had several minor hit singles before 1984’s “The Sun Goes Down (Living It Up)” hit the British Top Ten. Released in late 1985, World Machine broke the band worldwide; “Lessons in Love” hit number one in Britain and “Something About You” hit number seven in America. Their next two records, Running in the Family (1987) and Staring at the Sun (1988), were a big success in the U.K., yet made little headway in the U.S. Both of the Gould brothers left the band in late 1987; they were replaced by guitarist Alan Murphy and drummer Gary Husband. Murphy died of an AIDS-related illness in 1989; he was replaced by the renowned fusion guitarist Alan Holdsworth for 1991’s Guaranteed. The band followed Guaranteed in 1995 with Forever Now.

Throughout the remainder of the ‘90s and the 2000s, the band’s line-up fluctuated, with King the lone constant and his brother, guitarist Nathan King, onboard since 2001. In 2010, the band celebrated its 30th anniversary with a special tour, as well as a box set, Living It Up, which included a disc of fresh acoustic versions recorded by Mark King and Lindup. 2010 also saw Husband leave the band once again, replaced by Pete Ray Biggin. The group continued to tour over the next few years before releasing new material in 2013, in the form of the EP Sirens. Supporting the release with an extensive tour of the U.K. and Europe, the group also recorded the live release The Sirens Tour, at their stop in London in 2015. The band continued to tour into 2016 with performances at festivals across Europe and South America. 2019 proved to be another very busy year for Level 42 with the guys playing 20 festivals from Quebec to Russia, Denmark, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, and the UK.

2020 will see the From Eternity To Here Tour as the guys take to the road with a string of festivals and concerts worldwide. A Royal Albert Hall date awaits them in the middle of an extensive UK tour in October / November.

Level 42 have proven to be one of the most successful and enduring British bands of the 1980’s, and with the recent re-issues of the bands vast catalogue on Universal Music, and the ‘Collected’ series on CD and Vinyl, it is clear they continue to be a benchmark for British Jazz Funk at the highest level.

Level 42 Australia & NZ tour Facebook events links:

Perth https://www.facebook.com/events/591180274945811/
Melbourne https://www.facebook.com/events/490194911930219/
Sydney https://www.facebook.com/events/196392394888435/

Level 42 are:
Mark King bass/vocals
Mike Lindup keys/vocals
Nathan King guitar/vocals
Sean Freeman sax/vocals
Dan Carpenter trumpet/vocals
Nichol Thomson trombone/vocals
Pete Ray Biggin drums

SUZI QUATRO NAMM 2020 INTERVIEW 0

Neil Peart, Rush Drummer Who Set a New Standard for Rock Virtuosity, Dead at 67 0

HARTS IS ULTRA EXCITED 0

Our recent interview with singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Harts could be summarised as a tale of two Fender Strats. One of them is a guitar he uses in his Harts Plays Hendrix show. It’s an upside down left-handed Strat, strung for a right-hander, a mirror image of the guitar that Jimi Hendrix played. The other is the new American Ultra Strat, which Fender has bestowed upon him due to his role as an ambassador for the model. The American Ultra Strat is one of the most comfortable guitars Harts has ever played. Conversely, the Hendrix show Strat is quite challenging to play. Harts reveals why in our chat about the upcoming Harts Plays Hendrix tour in 2020, his role as ambassador for the American Ultra Strat and the many other projects he’s been working on. By Greg Phillips

Harts at Howler 2018 by Jason Rosewarne

In 2020 Darren Hart, aka Harts will embark on a national tour presenting his new show Harts Plays Hendrix. The show consists of a carefully curated set list from Jimi’s entire catalogue, performed live by Harts in a powerful three-piece band experience, with guest appearances by some of Australia’s most beloved musicians. A Hendrix tribute show is certainly nothing new, many have attempted the difficult task but for Harts the idea came about due to the persistent requests from his fans.
“The idea came from the fans,” he tells me. “At the end of a Harts show I would always throw in a cover and a lot of the time it was a Hendrix song. People were like, oh it would be awesome to see you play a whole gig of that, so it was always in the back of my mind. I thought that’s a pretty cool idea, I want to do that at some point. Then I had little moments of opportunities like at Blues On Broadbeach. A couple of years ago they did a Hendrix tribute and I came out to do one song for that. So there were a few little opportunities like that I had been part of and thought it was good timing to do it for 2020. I was talking with my friend at the Hendrix estate and basically I said to them, is that something you think I should do or how do you think it’s a good idea and they were very supportive about it. It was a long process. We were talking about it for 2 or 3 years in the background. We did one Melbourne show to gauge the response to see if there was a market or demand because we didn’t know if there was. Tickets are going well so far, so it’s proven there is a market for it.”

Harts was introduced to the music of Jimi Hendrix through first hearing Buddy Guy. Buddy was his first taste of the blues and led the young guitarist down the rabbit hole of exploring other great blues performers including Hendrix. It wasn’t so much Jimi’s tone or even songs that appealed most to Harts, it was the sense of freedom with which he played that really inspired him. “It felt like there wasn’t the same restrictions or rules with him as I’d seen with other people and I didn’t understand why,” Harts says. “I didn’t really get it because you felt like everybody was improvising and playing what was in their heart and their soul but there was something about Hendrix that felt more fearless in his playing … It’s really hard to articulate but I think it was just a fearlessness and freedom that he had when he played that was really inspiring to everybody. It was like this guy was on another level, not just because of his skill but he was not afraid to go places that no one had been before and take the guitar into a whole other realm.”

For the upcoming Harts Plays Hendrix tour, Darren is more focused on displaying the Hendrix spirit as opposed to precisely matching Jimi’s guitar tones. While there are some must-haves for his pedalboard, it’s not the deal breaker for him. “I am not trying not to make it an impersonation in any way and that was something I was very conscious about from the start,” he explains. “Definitely I want to send some cues like the upside down Strat and with the guitar tone, there are some things that you just have to have like that Octavia type of fuzz, the high octave fuzz on a lot of things. I am definitely going to recreate some of those sounds within the songs but I still want to open it up to a modern sound. Back then they weren’t using big PAs and big drum sounds, so we wanted to make it like a modern rock show with the kick drum hitting you in the chest and tie that gap between a normal Harts show and the Hendrix thing. So using the Hendrix sounds but putting them through a modern filter I guess.”

Playing the upside down Strat has been quite a learning curve for Harts. It’s strung for a right hand player so that’s not an issue, it’s more about the body being upside down and the guitar’s protruding horn (which would normally be on top) making it difficult to access frets. “What I didn’t realise was that because of the Strat’s cut out style, you can’t access above the 14th or 15th fret and I never realised that, something I just overlooked. That took a bit of getting used to, just to access those high frets. You have to bend your hand in a really awkward way and it hurts a little bit. I got used to it but also the tone and volume knobs are constantly getting knocked by your strumming hand because they are on top. I always found I was rolling back my tone and volume. Half way through a song my knobs were almost off, so it was a challenge to play without hitting those knobs. I think I have to figure a way to glue them in place temporarily. It’s really hard when you are trying to go in and turn everything up to ten and get that feedback but then you realise your volume is on 3! It happened to me at Caloundra. I have to figure a way around that. I don’t know how he did it, bent his wrist a little bit more or something. I actually have to go back and watch some stuff and figure out why he wasn’t hitting his knobs all the time … maybe he was!”

As alluded to in this interview’s intro, the polar opposite to that guitar from a playing comfort perspective is the new Fender American Ultra Strat, which Harts has become an ambassador for. In fact, with it’s rolled edges and D shape neck, straight out of the box the Ultra Strat felt instantly comfortable in Harts’ hands.
“Usually when I pick up a new guitar for the first time, it does take a while to get used to because I come from using cheaper guitars like the Squier … so whenever I upgrade to a really good guitar, it does feel different. When I picked up the Ultra, the differences weren’t there straight away. There’s a video that I hope Fender is going to bring out which are my reactions from the first time I played it. It was genuine, it just felt really good straight away and I didn’t understand why because they didn’t tell me anything about the neck shape or anything. I wasn’t used to the trem system but everything else felt so familiar, especially the neck profile and they had it strung with 9 gauge strings, so it felt just right for me. Everything felt great straight out of the box.”

Harts loved the sculpted neck heel too, which is major feature of the Ultra series guitars …
“That’s something that I never had on a guitar before,” he says. “I was used to the big, old-school heel joint. I didn’t know it was such an improvement. Access to the higher frets becomes so seamless but it is something that I hadn’t thought of. The contour on the neck changes too … the radius as you go up, so it’s little things like that which I have never felt on a guitar before. That’s why I didn’t feel that rigidness going up the neck anymore. The main thing that I really love about it though is the S1 switch. I have a Squier Strat, not one I play on stage but I had it modified to have that mod in it, so I could hit a switch and add the neck to the bridge, add the neck to all three in the configuration. I was already doing that and didn’t think Fender would actually add that to a line of guitars. I really like that because there is a specific configuration for funk music that sounds amazing and it is basically all three together, it’s in between the bridge and middle position and then you press the S1 switch to activate the neck and it feels great for funk.”

While Harts has been relatively quiet on social media lately, he’s been extremely busy in the studio with a wide range of projects, many of which he’s not in a position to announce just yet. What we do know however is that he is responsible for the music theme to the upcoming 2020 Cricket World Cup.
“They reached out to a bunch of artists to work on the song and they picked me to do it. It will be used in all of their advertising campaigns throughout 2020. That was a big project to be part of and something I really enjoyed because I am into cricket as well. I’ve also been working really hard producing some records at the moment, a lot of local up and coming musicians. I always wanted to give back and help other artists achieve what they are trying to do. I have been delving into that world. I am producing a rock album for a friend, an EP and some other things for other artists which I can’t really say anything about until it lands a placement. A lot of hip hop stuff, working with a lot of rappers. So I’ve been really busy in the studio. I have been quiet on social media because like the Fender Ultra thing, a lot of things are yet to be announced. I think once 2020 rolls around and things are announced, it will all start to make more sense. I have also been doing a little bit of modelling for David Jones, a bit of their campaign and trying to get into acting, doing a lot of different activities which are not all music related. It’s actually really good because there was a time when I was getting a little confused about where I was heading. I didn’t want to do rock or guitar-based music forever and I didn’t know how to do that without being Harts, so there was a lot time just trying to figure out a direction because I had achieved what I wanted to very early. It was great, a blessing but it left me a bit stumped for a while. A lot of this year was planning the next five years and how am I going to get there and just being open to opportunities that come along and saying yes to things and being more involved in the music community as a whole. So a lot of that thinking and decisions are leading to the things that are being announced now and into next year. Had I not been open to new ideas these things wouldn’t have happened and who knows what I’d be doing? I’d probably be doing another Harts album but reluctantly so, just because I didn’t have anything else on the table. I am just happy to go wherever the road’s leading. At the moment there are a lot of things going on and in the next months things will reveal themselves and this conversation won’t sound as vague as it does now!”

For more info on the American Ultra Series, visit Fender HERE

HARTS PLAYS HENDRIX DATES

6 MARCH THE GOV ADELAIDE, SA
7 MARCH PALMS AT CROWN MELBOURNE, VIC
27 MARCH ANITA’S THEATRE WOLLONGONG, NSW
28 MARCH ENMORE THEATRE SYDNEY, NSW
3 APRIL THE TIVOLI BRISBANE, QLD
29 MAY TWIN TOWNS TWEED HEADS, NSW
30 MAY EVENTS CENTRE CALOUNDRA, QLD
5 JUNE ASTOR THEATRE PERTH, WA
6 JUNE BUNBURY REC BUNBURY, WA
12 JUNE PENRITH PANTHERS PENRITH, NSW
13 JUNE THE ARTHOUSE WYONG, NSW
20 JUNE COSTA HALL GEELONG, VIC

Ticket info https://hartsmusic.com/

CHICAGO, ROBERTA FLACK, ISAAC HAYES, IGGY POP, JOHN PRINE, PUBLIC ENEMY AND SISTER ROSETTA THARPE TO BE HONOURED WITH RECORDING ACADEMY® LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 0

Pic by Jason Rosewarne

The Recording Academy® is honoured to announce its 2020 Special Merit Awards recipients. The Lifetime Achievement Award honorees are Chicago, Roberta Flack, Isaac Hayes, Iggy Pop, John Prine, Public Enemy and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Ken Ehrlich, Philip Glass and Frank Walker are Trustees Award honorees; and George Augspurger is the Technical GRAMMY® Award recipient. A special award presentation ceremony and concert celebrating the honorees will be held on April 18, 2020, at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Additional details regarding the ceremony will be announced shortly.

“Our industry is one that prides itself on influence and paying it forward, and each year the Recording Academy has the privilege of honoring a select group of visionaries whose creative contributions have rippled throughout our culture,” said Deborah Dugan, President/CEO of the Recording Academy. “Our Special Merit Awards recipients have molded their musical passion into pieces of history that will continue to influence and inspire generations of music creators and music lovers to come.”

GRAMMY-winning rock band Chicago are among the first acts to bring big jazz band-style horns into rock music. Following their 1969 debut album, Chicago Transit Authority, which was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame®, they have released five No. 1 albums and nearly three dozen Top 40 hits.

Roberta Flack is a true testament of what music education can do if you foster talent from an early age.  Classically trained since age 15, she has garnered four GRAMMYs®, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and an everlasting musical legacy with songs such as “Where Is The Love” and “Killing Me Softly With His Song.”

A soul music pioneer, Isaac Hayes* was an in-house songwriter/producer at the legendary Stax Records, where he wrote such hits as “Soul Man” and “B-A-B-Y.” He also had a successful solo career, releasing the GRAMMY-winning “Theme From Shaft” in 1971.

Godfather of Punk Iggy Pop was the lead singer of influential proto-punk band the Stooges and has released more than 15 albums as a solo artist. With rebellious and sometimes dangerous stage antics, he has influenced countless acts, including Sid Vicious and the Clash.

John Prine’s witty approach to storytelling has made him one of the most revered country & folk singer/songwriters since his emergence in the ’70s. He has garnered two GRAMMYs and his classic eponymous debut album was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame.

Public Enemy are one of the architects of hip-hop, bursting on the scene in ’86, with a sonic firestorm of hard-hitting political, cultural rhymes. They’ve since released 13 acclaimed LP’s including their classic album, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, which was named one of the greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone. In 2018, their song “Fight The Power” was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe*’s combination of gospel and blues, and her renowned technique on electric guitar, has influenced countless musicians, from Little Richard to Bob Dylan. The Godmother of Rock and Roll’s 1945 hit, “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” has been credited as the first gospel song to cross over to the R&B charts, becoming an early model for rock and roll.

Ken Ehrlich has shepherded the GRAMMY Awards® telecast for the last 40 years and his ability to create events that are memorable and innovative has set a standard for television programming in the music industry. He helped pioneer the GRAMMY Moment — unique artist collaborations never before seen onstage.

Composer and pianist Philip Glass is widely regarded as the most influential composer of the late 20th and 21st centuries. Through his operas, film scores, concert pieces, theater works and wide-ranging collaborations with the likes of David Bowie, Paul Simon and Martin Scorsese, his music with repetitive structures has shaped the modern contemporary classical cannon.

Frank Walker* began his career as an A&R scout for Columbia Records and went on to discover artists such as country great Hank Williams and blues legends Bessie Smith and Blind Willie Johnson. After wearing many hats at Columbia, he became the label chief for MGM Records in the mid-40s, where he introduced the soundtrack album concept and helped establish the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA).

An audio and acoustical engineer, George Augspurger has designed rooms for some of the most reputable studios in North America. After beginning his career at JBL, where he established the JBL Professional division, he started his own independent consulting firm, Perception Inc., and continues to work after 70 years in the industry.

The Lifetime Achievement Award celebrates performers who have made outstanding contributions of artistic significance to the field of recording, while the Trustees Award honors such contributions in areas other than performance. The Recording Academy’s National Board of Trustees determines the honorees of both awards. Technical GRAMMY Award recipients are voted on by the Academy’s Producers & Engineers Wing® Advisory Council and Chapter Committees, and are ratified by the Academy’s Trustees. The award is presented to individuals and companies who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording industry.

*Denotes posthumous honoree.

For more information about the Academy, please visit www.grammy.com.