The Recording Academy has announced the recipients of its 2026 Special Merit Awards. These include the Lifetime Achievement Grammys, which will go to Santana, Chaka Khan, Cher, Fela Kuti, Paul Simon, and Whitney Houston. Bernie Taupin, Eddie Palmieri and Sylvia Rhone are this year’s Trustees Award honorees; John Chowning, the composer and computer engineer who discovered FM synthesis in 1967, is the Technical Grammy Award honoree.
“It’s a true honor to recognize this year’s Special Merit Award recipients — an extraordinary group whose influence spans generations, genres and the very foundation of modern music,” Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, said in a press statement. “Each of these honorees has made a profound and lasting impact, and we look forward to celebrating their remarkable achievements.”
The ceremony for the Lifetime Achievement Grammys will take place January 31 at Los Angeles’ Wilshire Ebell Theatre, on the afternoon before the 68th annual Grammy Awards go down at Crypto.com Arena in downtown LA.
