David Letterman's "stupid human tricks" and Top 10 lists vaulted into
the ranks of cultural acclaim Sunday night as the late-night comedian
received this year's Kennedy Center Honors with rock band Led Zeppelin,
an actor, a ballerina and a bluesman.
Stars from New York, Hollywood and the music world joined President Barack Obama at the White House on Sunday night to salute the honorees, whose ranks also include actor Dustin Hoffman, Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy and ballerina Natalia Makarova.
The honors are the nation's highest award for those who
influenced American culture through the arts. The recipients were later
saluted by fellow performers at the Kennedy Center Opera House in a show
to be broadcast Dec. 26 on CBS.
Obama drew laughs from his guests when he described the honorees as "some extraordinary people who have no business being on the same stage together."
Noting that Guy made his first guitar strings using the wire from a window screen, he quipped, "That worked until his parents started wondering how all the mosquitoes were getting in."
The president thanked the members of Led Zeppelin for behaving themselves at the White House given their history of "hotel rooms trashed and mayhem all around."
Obama noted Letterman's humble beginnings as an Indianapolis weatherman who once reported the city was being pelted by hail `the size of canned hams.'"
"It's one of the highlights of his career," he said.
All kidding aside, Obama described all of the honorees as artists who "inspired us to see things in a new way, to hear things differently, to discover something within us or to appreciate how much beauty there is in the world."
Stars from New York, Hollywood and the music world joined President Barack Obama at the White House on Sunday night to salute the honorees, whose ranks also include actor Dustin Hoffman, Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy and ballerina Natalia Makarova.
Obama drew laughs from his guests when he described the honorees as "some extraordinary people who have no business being on the same stage together."
Noting that Guy made his first guitar strings using the wire from a window screen, he quipped, "That worked until his parents started wondering how all the mosquitoes were getting in."
The president thanked the members of Led Zeppelin for behaving themselves at the White House given their history of "hotel rooms trashed and mayhem all around."
Obama noted Letterman's humble beginnings as an Indianapolis weatherman who once reported the city was being pelted by hail `the size of canned hams.'"
"It's one of the highlights of his career," he said.
All kidding aside, Obama described all of the honorees as artists who "inspired us to see things in a new way, to hear things differently, to discover something within us or to appreciate how much beauty there is in the world."
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