GEORGIA MUSIC HALL OF FAME CEREMONY
The 8 p.m. Oct. 5 event will be televised live on Georgia Public Broadcasting. For those who want to attend in person at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, tickets are $125 per person for the show, reception and dinner (or $1,250 for a table of 10). Tickets will not be available the night of the show, and all tickets include the reception and dinner (no “show only” tickets).
To purchase tickets, call 770-491-9494, Ext. 15, or email gamusicawards@ers.us.com.
The great Goodie Mob comeback continues, as the group, and its most visible member, Cee Lo Green, top the list of this year’s inductees into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
The Atlanta hip-hoppers, Green, Big Gipp, T-Mo and Khujo, return on Tuesday with their first album in 14 years and will receive the “Performers” award at the Oct. 5 ceremony at the Georgia World Congress Center.
Joining Goodie Mob in the honoree circle is Kansas, which will receive the “Group” award during the 40th anniversary of the band’s career. Yes, obviously, Kansas was founded in Kansas, but in 1975, the band relocated to Georgia. Original members Phil Ehart, Steve Walsh and Richard Williams are still in the band, along with Billy Greer (a member since the 1980s) and David Ragsdale (since the 1990s).
The ceremony will also honor sometime-Atlantan Whitney Houston with the “Posthumous Award.” Houston would have turned 50 earlier this month, and her brother, Gary Houston, who sang with Houston for 20 years, will perform a special tribute.
Northwest Georgia natives Kathy, June, Kim and Christy Forester, known professionally as the Forester Sisters, will receive the “Pioneer Award.” Though their careers blossomed in Tennessee, the women still live on Lookout Mountain, where they began singing as children in church.
This year’s “Non-Performer Award” will be bestowed upon Atlanta radio legend James “Alley Pat” Patrick. Now 93, Patrick is the last surviving DJ from the first black-owned station in the U.S., WERD-AM on Auburn Avenue.
Major country music songwriter Pat Alger, a native of LaGrange who grew up in New York and hit the professional world in Nashville, will receive the “Songwriter Award.” Alger has written songs for artists including Dolly Parton, the Everly Brothers, Kathy Mattea and Garth Brooks.
And notable newcomers von Grey, the Alpharetta-based sibling quartet of Kathryn, Annika, Fiona and Petra von Grey, are this year’s beneficiaries of the “Horizon Recipient Encouraging New Performers” award. The alt-folk group has recently performed on “Late Show With David Letterman” and “Conan.” Their first live album, “Live at Criminal Records 01.01.13,” was released earlier this year.
Steering the 35th annual awards ceremony will be former WSB-TV personality Monica Pearson and HLN “Morning Express” anchor Robin Meade.
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