"The Recording Academy Honors" - Page 3

Not only is he a singer, dancer, composer, producer and actor, Timberlake is also a philanthropist who believes in fostering music education. In 2001, The Justin Timberlake Foundation began providing grants to schools in need of instruments, sheet music, or staffing, as well as to nonprofit organizations which provide much needed after-school music programs.

WDIA was the first radio station in America that was programmed entirely by African-Americans for the African-American community. It empowered a huge segment of the population that was, until the late 1940s, largely unserved. The "Goodwill Station," as it came to be known, was a pioneer in community involvement, setting new standards of civic responsibility for the electronic media. Its annual Goodwill and Starlight Revues played to capacity crowds, and all the money raised was used for charitable activities. Drawing from talent throughout the mid-South, WDIA was the opportunity unknown performers were praying for. Local talents such as Rufus Thomas, Dwight "Gatemouth" Moore, and Maurice "Hot Rod" Hulbert worked there as DJs; and future legends such as B.B. King and Bobby Blue Bland played live on the air and and plugged their local gigs on WDIA.

Nashville Honorees:

At 34, singer, musician and producer Alison Krauss has achieved more career milestones than most people do in a lifetime. With 17 to date, she has won more Grammy Awards than any other female musician. Along with Union Station, her band of highly acclaimed musicians, Krauss has sold more than 7 million albums and in the process won over countless new fans to bluegrass music. Krauss also is recognized as an accomplished record producer, having worked with Nickel Creek, Reba McEntire and the Cox Family; and as a guest vocalist or instrumentalist she's contributed her talents to albums in a bewildering array of genres, including classical, jazz, pop, country, bluegrass and polka. The Champaign, Ill., native also has been a part of several blockbuster movie soundtracks including O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Cold Mountain, and Mona Lisa Smile.

Grammy-winner Tim McGraw's career achievements are as remarkable as they are numerous: nine albums spawning 25 No. 1 singles and selling 33 million copies, and tours that consistently rank among the top box office draws. He uses his touring band, the Dancehall Doctors, on his records noting that it brings a "new kind of honesty to the sound and makes what we do on stage that much purer to the vision we had originally." Last year McGraw made his major motion picture acting debut opposite Billy Bob Thornton in Friday Night Lights, and will appear in his first starring role next year in an updated take on the 1941 classic My Friend Flicka. He and wife Faith Hill make up Nashville's current power couple.

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