The National GUITAR Museum has awarded Eddie Van Halen a “Lifetime Achievement” Award.
Below is the press release:
(NEW YORK, NY December 19, 2020): Every year for more than a decade, The National GUITAR Museum has given our “Lifetime Achievement Award” to a living guitarist who has contributed to the legacy of the guitar. The guidelines are straightforward: the person must have been a performing or recording artist whose talents had an effect on guitar playing—and whose career inspired and influenced other guitar players.
This year, the year of the pandemic, has given us reason to make an exception to our annual presentation.
For 2020, we are recognizing Eddie Van Halen as the recipient of our Lifetime Achievement Award. It is being awarded, for the first time, in memoriam.
It is perhaps fitting that we don’t need to explain why Eddie is deserving of such an honor—everyone who has ever heard his guitar playing knows. Eddie certainly would have received this award at some point in the future, as it seemed that he still had a lifetime of guitar greatness to give.
Several of the people we’ve honored over the past decade have left us in the years since we presented them with the award. In this case, however, the sadness of Eddie Van Halen’s passing is somehow harder to accept.
Thanks, Eddie. We only wish we could deliver this in person.
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Previous Recipients
2010: David Honeyboy Edwards
2011: Roger McGuinn of The Byrds
2012: B.B. King
2013: Vic Flick
2014: Buddy Guy
2015: Tony Iommi
2016: Glen Campbell
2017: Bonnie Raitt
2018: Jose Feliciano
2019: Liona Boyd
2020: Eddie Van Halen
About The National GUITAR Museum:
The National GUITAR Museum (NGM) is the first museum in the United States dedicated to the history, evolution, and cultural impact of the guitar. Its touring exhibitions have been installed in more than 40 museums across the United States.
For more on the National GUITAR Museum visit their website and join their Facebook page.
The Van Halen News Desk thanks The National GUITAR Museum Executive Director HP Newquist for sending us this press release and everyone at the NGM for honoring our guitar hero!
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