Honoring the Grateful Dead Without Including Jerry Garcia? Why the Kennedy Center Needs to Change Its Policy on Group Members Who Have Died (Op-Ed)

Honoring the Grateful Dead without including co-founder Jerry Garcia, which the Kennedy Centers Honors program is doing this year, would be like honoring Earth, Wind & Fire without including Maurice White. Oh wait – the Kennedy Center did that too, in 2019, when they honored three members of the groundbreaking R&B group, but not its principal architect.

It’s not that the Kennedy Center is unaware of what a crucial role Garcia and White played in those groups. It’s just that they reserve their honors for artists who are living. Garcia died in 1995, 29 years before the group was chosen for the Kennedy Center Honors. White died in 2016, three years before EWF got the nod.

This year’s Kennedy Center Honors were presented on Sunday Dec. 8 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. The show, hosted by Queen Latifah, will air on CBS on Sunday Dec. 22 at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT.

The members of Grateful Dead who are being honored are drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, bass guitarist Phil Lesh and rhythm guitarist Bobby Weir. Lesh died on Oct. 25, three months after this year’s honorees were announced. (The Kennedy Center allows posthumous inductions if the honorees were selected before they died.)

Two other groups received Kennedy Center Honors without key members who had died by the time the groups were included. The Who was honored in 2008, but without drummer Keith Moon, who died in 1978, or bassist John Entwistle, who died in 2002. Led Zeppelin were honored in 2012, but drummer John Bonham, who died in 1980, was not posthumously included.

The Kennedy Center Honors’ site makes plain that the awards “provide recognition to living individuals (emphasis added) who throughout their lifetimes have made significant contributions to American culture through the performing arts.” (Here’s a link to the site’s list of previous inductees.)

Eagles were selected for the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015, but founding member Glenn Frey was too ill to attend, so the honor was postponed one year. By that time, Frey had died, but the Center included him as a recipient anyway – on the grounds that the group was selected before he died. I’ll take it, but a better reason to honor him would have been that he co-founded the genre-bridging group with Don Henley and it wouldn’t have been what it was without him.

Mercifully, all four members of U2 were alive when the band received the honors in 2022. So were both members of The Nicholas Brothers, a popular dance duo of the 1930s to the 1950s. But if one of them had passed away, should that have precluded them from receiving the honor?

The Beatles, the GOAT of all pop and rock groups, are conspicuous by their absence on the roster of Kennedy Center Honors recipients. Paul McCartney was honored as an individual in 2010. A century from now, people looking over the list of Kennedy Center Honors recipients will find it strange that McCartney was honored but the group in which he did his best and most lasting work was not. Why haven’t they been? John Lennon died in 1980, followed by George Harrison in 2001. Their deaths are tragic losses, but why should those deaths keep the group from receiving an award it undisputably deserves?

Bee Gees were never honored. Instead, Barry Gibb got a solo nod in 2023, after the deaths of his brothers Maurice in 2003 and Robin in 2012. Even Barry Gibb would probably say it would have made more sense for him to be saluted alongside his brothers. Almost all of their successes as recording artists were as a unit.

The Beach Boys were never honored. Instead, Brian Wilson got a solo nod in 2007. He was unquestionably the group’s resident genius, but the quintet was one of the most iconic American groups of all time. Unfortunately, Wilson’s brother Dennis died in 1983, followed by Carl in 1998.

There are a few cases where it’s debatable whether it would have made more sense to honor an individual or the entire group. The Kennedy Center honored R&B great Mavis Staples in 2016. Two other members of The Staple Singers had died by that point – Pops Staples (in 2000) and Cleotha Staples (in 2013). In similar fashion, Gladys Knight was honored in 2022. Two other members of the mighty Gladys Knight & the Pips had died at that point – Edward Patten (in 2005) and William Guest (in 2015). There are arguments to be made on both sides about whether it made more sense to honor Staples and Knight as individuals or with the groups in which they had most of their greatest successes, but the fact that group members had died should not be the deciding factor.

When the Kennedy Center Honors finally get around to The Rolling Stones (and what are they waiting for?) it would be nice if they included drummer Charlie Watts, who died in 2021. Other groups that are (or should be) on their list of future inductees which have both living and dead members include Fleetwood Mac, Chicago, Pink Floyd and Queen.

It’s a sad fact of life that artists die. But with our greatest artists, their work lives on. The Kennedy Center should modify its rules so all key members of groups and duos are honored, whether they’re still living at the time of their inductions or have taken their final earthly bows.

The Kennedy Center Honors has become perhaps the most prestigious honor in American arts and entertainment. Who they choose to honor matters. That’s why they should take a close look at this limiting policy.

If they start to honor group members who have died, should they also change their rules and honor individuals who have died – maybe one per year? I certainly wouldn’t object. They could start with Elvis Presley and Bing Crosby, who died in 1977, the year before the Kennedy Center Honors got underway. And they could catch up to some other great artists they missed, including Prince, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Burt Bacharach.

This year’s other honorees, in addition to the Dead, are Bonnie Raitt, jazz musician Arturo Sandoval; director and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola; and The Apollo, which will receive a special Honors as an iconic American institution.