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Calvin Simon to Receive GRAMMY® Recording Academy™ Lifetime Achievement Award

CALVIN SIMON

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member, Calvin Simon, will once again be joining his Parliament Funkadelic band members at the upcoming 61st Annual 2019 GRAMMY® Awards February 10th. The group has been honored with the Recording Academy's prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, with an announcement being made at the GRAMMY® Awards that will be followed with a special award presentation ceremony and concert May 11, 2019 in Los Angeles. The Lifetime Achievement Award celebrates performers who have made outstanding contributions of artistic significance to the field of recording, and Parliament Funkadelic is among the most sampled acts of the funk/R&B era, which laid the foundation for countless hip-hop hits.

"This is such a big honor for all of the members of Parliament Funkadelic," said Simon. "I send my hearty congratulations to my P-Funk bandmates and look forward to joining them at the GRAMMY® Awards. It's so incredible to think back to the beginning, when the five founding members started this journey that turned into a 25-year music career for me. I'm so grateful and humbled by this recognition."

Simon's journey with Parliament Funkadelic began in the late 1950's, when the group was known as The Parliaments, and became Funkadelic in the mid-60's. The historic musical journey led to the band growing with several additional members and led to numerous gold and platinum albums. Chart-topping songs also became the norm, with such tunes as "One Nation Under a Groove," "Mothership Connection (Star Child)," (Not Just) Knee Deep," "(I Wanna) Testify," among many others. Parliament Funkadelic was honored with an induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

 
Original Parliament Photo (1966)
L-R: Raymond Davis, Calvin Simon, Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins, Grady Thomas, George Clinton

Simon left Parliament Funkadelic in 1979 and joined three of the group's founding members, Davis, Haskins and Thomas, to form the new group The Original P, which toured and recorded throughout the 1980's and 90's. At this point, Simon turned his music talents to his faith and created Par Golf Music Productions and Simon Sayz Recordings. His first album as a solo Christian artist, Share The News, released in 2004 and reached No. 21 on Billboard's Gospel Album chart when Simon had to shut down all promotion for the project due to being diagnosed with thyroid cancer. As he healed, his wife was diagnosed with bone cancer and passed away in 2013. It took Simon a few years to recover from the trauma, but in 2016 he released his second record with the inspirationalIt's Not Too Late that received coverage from such high-profile outlets as Sirius XM, Voice of America, VFW Magazine, and the Christian Broadcasting Network. Simon released his latest project, I Believe, on Oct. 5, 2018. The album has received major radio airplay on Black Gospel stations that include Detroit, MI; Philadelphia, PA; Miami, FL; Cincinnati, OH. The second single from the album, "Passing Time," is going for adds this month.

 

For continued updates about Simon, 

www.calvinsimon.net,

www.facebook.com/calvinsimonmusic

www.instagram.com/calvinsimon2017.

Tags : calvin simon calvin simon news 2019 grammy awards GRAMMY® Recording Academy™ Lifetime Achievement Award

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