A Gershwin Award for Carol King is overdue!

http://www.facebook.com/songin.usGershwin Prize for Popular Song
The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song

The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song celebrates the work of an artist whose career reflects lifetime achievement in promoting song as a vehicle of musical expression and cultural understanding. Within the context of the award, “song” is defined as either a single composition or a number that may be extracted from a larger work such as musical, film score, or television soundtrack. The styles in which these works are composed cross social, racial, and national boundaries, and reflect myriad contemporary traditions like rock, jazz, country, pop, blues, folk, and gospel. While song has always been considered a “popular” work, the advent of sound recordings and radio and television broadcasting at the beginning of the last century significantly extended audiences. It is “song” in this broadest definition to which the prize refers. The recipient-whether composer, singer/songwriter, or interpreter-is recognized for entertaining and informing audiences, for drawing upon the acknowledged foundations of popular song, and for inspiring new generations of performers on their own professional journeys.

The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song will honor either a songwriter, interpreter, or singer/songwriter whose career reflects lifetime achievement in promoting the genre of song as a vehicle of artistic expression and cultural understanding.

The selection will be made by the Librarian of Congress in consultation with a board that is both credible and broad enough in scope to represent the full spectrum of popular song. Board members may include but need not be limited to scholars, producers, performers, music critics, songwriters, and subject specialists within and outside the Library of Congress.