Janet Jackson, Heart, Lucinda Williams and More Mark the 2026 Grammy Hall of Fame Gala

The third annual Grammy Hall of Fame gala, held Friday night at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, was built exactly the way the Hall itself is: broad, a little unruly, and pointedly uninterested in genre boundaries. This year’s program moved from Josh Groban singing “Brucia La Terra,” the Sicilian-language version of The Godfather’s love theme, to George Clinton, joined by Erykah Badu and Blackbyrd McKnight, tearing into Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” and “Can You Get to That.” Fourteen recordings were inducted in all, though only seven were given live spotlights, with broadcast journalist Anthony Mason returning as host.

That range also framed the evening’s larger point. Heart, Lucinda Williams, and Clinton all revisited songs from the albums that earned them Hall of Fame recognition, while other artists stepped in to honor the recordings themselves: Take 6 on the Soul Stirrers’ “Jesus Gave Me Water,” Taylor Hanson on Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon,” and Isabel Marie on Selena’s “No Me Queda Mas.” Norah Jones also performed as she received the Ray Charles Architect of Sound Award, while Teddy Swims and Groban each delivered two songs in the night’s tribute to Warner Records, this year’s label honoree.

Behind the scenes, the gala was produced by former Grammy Awards executive producer Ken Ehrlich with Ron Basile, Chantel Sausedo and Lynne Sheridan, and musical direction from Grammy and Latin Grammy-winning composer, producer and conductor Cheche Alara. The inductions also extended beyond the seven performances mentioned onstage, with 2Pac’s All Eyez on Me, Radiohead’s OK Computer, Eric B. & Rakim’s Paid in Full, Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidanada, The Rouse Brothers’ “Orange Blossom Special” and Bertha “Chippie” Hill’s “Trouble in Mind” among the year’s other additions.

Janet Jackson and Jimmy Jam on Rhythm Nation 1814

Janet Jackson didn’t perform, but she did appear to accept the Hall of Fame award for Rhythm Nation 1814 with co-producer Jimmy Jam. Jackson called the recognition deeply meaningful and used the moment to return to the album’s central idea: that the project still exists as more than a hit record.

“Rhythm Nation still resonates on a deep and profound level. It’s an ongoing force that fights bigotry and promotes understanding. It cannot be stopped. It’s simply too strong, too positive.”

She described the suite of songs as an attempt to imagine “a world free of fear and despair,” and closed by tying that original impulse to the present: “the prayer driving this remains exactly the same — that peace prevail.” Jam, who co-produced the album with Terry Lewis and Jackson, was equally direct about the record’s origin. He said the trio was reacting to “the pain and injustice and the tragedy” they were seeing in the news, and that the album, while commercially successful, also changed lives. He also argued that so much of what now gets discussed as female empowerment in music can be traced back to Jackson’s influence.

Jam’s comments were less nostalgia than inventory. Nearly 40 years on, Rhythm Nation 1814 still sits in music history as an example of how pop can move like public speech without losing its shape as pop. That tension, between message and form, is part of why the album remains so heavily cited and so hard to separate from the era that followed it.

Heart Return to the Songs That Started It All

Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart have likely played “Magic Man,” “Dreamboat Annie” and “Crazy on You” more times than anyone can count since Dreamboat Annie arrived in August 1975, and then six months later in the U.S. But the songs still landed with force at the gala. The sisters brought the same authority they’ve carried for decades, making the debut-era material feel less like heritage than something still in motion.

Ann thanked Ehrlich, the event’s producer, along with lawyer Don Passman and Mike Flicker, who produced the album. Nancy then singled out several of the musicians who played on the record, including Howard Leese and Roger Fisher, calling them “the original gypsy tribe that started the whole thing.” Her remarks leaned into the communal nature of the band’s first chapter, stressing the resilience and camaraderie behind songs that have long outlived their original moment.

Lucinda Williams and the Americana Argument

Lucinda Williams’ set pulled from Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, her 1998 album that is often credited with helping define Americana before the category had an official Grammy home. She performed “Can’t Let Go” and the title track, both reminders of how the record sat between country and rock in a way the industry initially struggled to name.

That ambiguity became part of the evening’s framing, with Mason noting that without Williams, a later wave of artists might not have had the same path. Williams accepted the award with the kind of plainspoken clarity that has long marked her best work.

“They said my music fell in the cracks between country and rock, which later became known as Americana. Don’t give up if your music falls betwen the cracks. That’s where it’s supposed to be. That’s a good place.”

She finished by saying it felt good to be recognized “for what you do and not how many records you sell.” Coming from Williams, that lands less as a slogan than as a practical philosophy. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road has only grown in stature, and the recognition fits the way the album has been folded into the genre’s history, helping make sense of artists such as Jason Isbell, Margo Price and Brandi Carlile.

Norah Jones, Ray Charles and a Very Specific Line of Influence

Norah Jones was the second recipient of the Ray Charles Architect of Sound Award, following Jon Batiste last year, and her connection to the late legend was already written into her career long before Friday night. She and Charles shared two Grammys for 2004’s “Here We Go Again,” which took record of the year and best pop collaboration with vocals. At the gala, Jones performed “Seven Spanish Angels” and “Hallelujah, I Love Her So,” two songs that made the tribute feel less ceremonial than personal.

Jones said meeting Charles left her in tears, and that his music had been a constant in her life from childhood onward. Her mother listened to him in high school and even saw him perform in a gymnasium, Jones said, which gave the honor a family-history dimension that fit the broader evening’s emphasis on continuity.

“His music is everything to me, and I wouldn’t be anything without listening to him.”

Selena’s Legacy, Kept in the Room

Isabel Marie performed “No Me Queda Más,” one of the emotional high points from Selena’s 1994 album Amor Prohibido. The recording has remained central to Selena’s legacy, and the Hall of Fame induction gave the song another public life in front of an audience that clearly understood what was being honored.

Suzette Quintanilla-Arriaga, Selena’s older sister, accepted on the singer’s behalf and thanked the Recording Academy for recognizing the album. She also acknowledged A.B. Quintanilla, who produced the record, and Pete Astudillo and Ricky Vela, who wrote many of the songs. Her remarks returned to the ongoing force of Selena’s place in Latino culture, even three decades after the album’s release and more than 30 years after Selena was killed in 1995 at age 23.

“I also want to show love to what Selena represents, still to this day, so many years later, even though she’s physically gone.”

Fyütch and Aura V Give a Children’s Song a 2026 Pulse

One of the night’s more unusual pivots came with Fyütch and Aura V, the father-daughter duo who performed Ella Jenkins’ “You’ll Sing a Song and I’ll Sing a Song.” The set opened with archival footage of Jenkins singing the piece on Mister Rogers Neighborhood before moving into the live performance. It was a neat way to connect the song’s original setting to the present without flattening either one.

The pair, who won a Grammy in February for their album Harmony, initially kept the arrangement close to Jenkins’ nursery-rhyme style. Then Aura V, who is 8, cut through the formality with a blunt instinct for tempo: “Can we speed it up? I think it needs a little bop to it.” She was right, and the song’s final turn into hip-hop gave a 1966 children’s tune a surprisingly modern outline without losing its shape.

Taylor Hanson Takes on Nick Drake

Taylor Hanson, eternally linked in the public memory to Hanson’s 1997 hit “MMMBop,” took on a much steeper assignment with Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon,” the opening track and title song from Drake’s 1972 third and final studio album. The performance mattered because the song itself still carries the aura of understatement that made the original so difficult for some listeners to grasp at first.

Hanson’s cover did not try to compete with that history. It worked because it recognized the song’s quiet severity and allowed the material to hold its own in the room. Drake’s Pink Moon was once too spare for easy consensus; now it’s canon, and the performance reflected that shift without overplaying the point.

Warner Records Looks Back Before Looking Forward

Warner Records’ tribute closed the night with a corporate history lesson that doubled as an argument about how major labels still imagine themselves. Aaron Bay-Schuck, co-chairman and CEO of Warner Records Group, spoke at length about taking over the company in 2018 and the need to acknowledge the label’s past before trying to define its future. He pointed to Prince, Madonna, Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Neil Young as part of the institution’s line of fearless, self-defining artists.

“In a time where data and algorithms were sending people in the direction of quick wins and fleeting moments, we were going to demonstrate that talent, quality and vision still mattered the most.”

Tom Corson, co-chairman and COO of Warner Records Group, also spoke. Then Teddy Swims and Josh Groban handled the performance side of the tribute, with Swims singing “Mister Know It All” and his Hot 100-topping breakthrough “Lose Control,” and Groban delivering two songs from Cinematic, which was released the same day, May 8. The segment underlined how the gala likes to stitch prestige and present-tense industry logic together, even when the result is more instructive than thrilling.