The Songwriters' Hall of Fame Awards - Part 2
"I'm going to just take a second,” McCartney said, “with all the talent assembled in this room, and all the vibes, just to drink it in." McCartney described Wilson as "one of your great American geniuses" and described how "in the '60s, he wrote some music that, when I played it, made me cry... there's just something so deep in it."
Wilson described the award as the greatest honor he had ever received, and then gave the stage to pop group Hanson, who rocked to Wilson's "God Only Knows" from Pet Sounds. Shaft writer/performer Isaac Hayes announced the posthumous induction of Curtis Mayfield, writer of pop and soul classics such as "For Your Precious Love" and "Talking About My Baby" and the album Superfly." Hayes said, "As a struggling do-wopper, I used to stand on street corners and harmonize to his melodies and utter his words, and now I stand with the wonderful privilege to induct this man." With Mayfield's wife and daughter standing alongside him, Mayfield's manager Marv Heiman gave a heartfelt acceptance speech, describing Mayfield's socially conscious music as a "soundtrack for the civil rights movement." Heiman said that when told of his pending induction, only a few weeks before his death, Mayfield smiled and said, "What an honor. Without my songs, who would have been Curtis Mayfield?"
R&B artist Brian McKnight had flown in from Australia just to honor Mayfield, singing Mayfield's immortal "People Get Ready." He said he had first sung it with his brothers in a barbershop quartet when he was seven. "Singers come and go. Songs last forever," McKnight said.
Bandleader Paul Schaffer was on hand to present the Johnny Mercer Award to Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, who, he said, "damn near invented rock-and-roll. Their early stuff was blues, really, but they were creating distinctive melodies for their blues. One of their early hits was "Kansas City." When I heard they wrote it, I couldn't believe it. I thought God wrote that song." Schaffer introduced a film clip medley of their catalog, which included Elvis hits like "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock," all of The Coasters’ hits, including "Yakety Yak" and "Poison Ivy," and other chart toppers, such as "On Broadway," and "Stand By Me." Lieber and Stoller accepted the award with a humorous banter befitting their fifty-year collaboration.
In the last performance of the night, Ben E. King sang Lieber and Stoller’s hit, "Stand By Me" (co-written
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