Toronto's The Band to get lifetime Grammy

The Band, the influential Toronto rock band whose careerlasted from 1967 through 1976, is about to win its first Grammy.

The Band is on a list of recipients of Lifetime Achievement Grammys announced Tuesday by the U.S.-based Recording Academy.

Other recipients of the award acknowledging a lifetime contribution to music are:

• Burt Bacharach, a singer and composer who already has six Grammys.
• Doris Day, the film star and chanteuse.
• Cab Calloway, jazz singer and band leader.
• Itzhak Perlman, violinist and conductor.
• Max Roach, bebop percussionist and conductor.
• Earl Scruggs, bluegrass musician.

Most members of The Band started outin a backup band for Ronnie Hawkins and then formed a band under the leadership of Levon Helm that played backup for Bob Dylan.

The group was rechristened The Band in 1967, issuing its first album Music from Big Pink in 1968. The Band also played at Woodstock.

A second 1969 album, The Band, with songs such as Up on Cripple Creek and The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down by Robbie Robertson, established a following for the group.

They did another tour with Dylan in 1973, played at Watkins Glen with The Grateful Dead and did a memorable album with Muddy Waters.

Since splitting up in 1976, members of the group have played together sporadically but without Robertson, whoestablished a solo career.

Robertson, 64, keyboardist Garth Hudson, 70, and Helm, 67, are the surviving members of the group. Rick Danko and Richard Manuel are both dead.

Bacharach composed dozens of hit pop songs in the 1970s and 1980s, working with lyricist Hal David.

Among his hits are What's New Pussycat, for Tom Jones, Baby It's You, for the Beatles, Walk On By for Isaac Hayes and That's What Friends are For for Dionne Warwick.

The awards will be posthumous for Calloway, who died in 1994, and for Roach, who died in August.

It is not known if Day, 83, who lives a reclusive life in Carmel, Calif., will attend, Grammy organizers said.

She won an Academy Award for her signature song Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera), but has never been recognized with a Grammy.

Israeli-born Perlman, 62, has won 15 Grammys andappeared with every major orchestra around the world over the past 40 years.

Scruggs, 83, is known for his style of banjo picking that is considered a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. He is a four-time Grammy winner.

The awards will be presented Feb. 9 in a ceremony the day before the Grammy Awards.