The NEA Announces Its 2020 National Heritage Fellowship Winners
A soul singer from Atlanta, an Iroquois bead artist, West African dancers and an Armenian vocalist are among this year's recipients of National Heritage Fellowship
On Tuesday, the National Endowment for the Arts announced its newest class of National Heritage fellows: 10 artists, ensembles and cultural workers who represent the richness and breadth of America's traditional arts. They range from one of the pioneers of the Memphis sound of Southern soul to an Ojibwe birchbark canoe builder.
The winners of this year's grants include, a Memphis-born, Grammy Award-winning Black singer and songwriter. First signed to Stax as a songwriter and then as a solo artist, his 1977 song "Tryin' to Love Two" became a on the Billboard 100. He also co-wrote the classic blues, "Born Under a Bad Sign" (with Booker T. Jones), which became an R&B hit for Albert King and then was famously re-recorded by Cream.
