The annual Kennedy Center Awards, for TV purposes, is an old-fashioned variety show, and again this year it has recruited some of the best entertainers in the business.
Now in its 36th year, the show has already honored a lot of the top living entertainers. But we’re not running out — and this year, in contrast to last year, the honorees don’t include British rock stars.
They are Martina Arroyo, Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana, Shirley MacLaine and Billy Joel.
Jeffrey R. Staab
Anna Kendrick performs during the 36th annual awards show.
It's a group that’s heavy on music, which is okay. It certainly makes producing a lively television show easier.
The format, as always, is that the honorees don’t perform. Other stars do their material while the guests beam down at the stage from a balcony box.
In the end, then, it’s the performers and presenters who carry the show.
Jeffrey R. Staab
Patina Miller gets air time at the Kennedy Center Honors.
No other awards show is likely to have a Supreme Court justice, like Sonia Sotomayor, introducing an honoree, in this case Arroyo.
Sotomayor doesn’t sing or dance, but there is plenty of that anyway. The show-stopper is a Broadway song-and-dance medley honoring MacLaine, with Patina Miller, Sutton Foster, Karen Olivo and Anna Kendrick singing some of MacLaine’s signature songs.
The Herbie Hancock segment brings in Snoop Lion. Carlos Santana’s tribute includes Buddy Guy and Steve Winwood.
Jeffrey R. Staab
Garth Brooks sings at the Kennedy Center honors.
The most intriguing matchup, though, has to be Tony Bennett rhapsodizing about the music of Billy Joel.
Bennett calls Joel an inheritor of the great American songbook mantle of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and the Gershwins.
Whether this will permanently enshrine Joel in that company remains to be seen. But that’s what the Kennedy Center Honors is after.
dhinckley@nydailynews.com
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