This spring, the roster of artists playing Encore Theater is chock-a-block with influential, award-winning musicians spanning multiple genres and eras. From the electronic music of Kraftwerk to the funk/soul/pop of Lionel Richie and the smooth jazz of George Benson (in April), learn about these incredible artists and their significant legacies, and listen to a selection of their songs (with a bit of fun trivia about each).
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April 4
Kraftwerk, Multimedia Tour 2025
“Kraftwerk, alongside the Beatles, are one of the two most influential bands in the history of postwar popular music.” So began GRAMMY award-winning ethnomusicologist Rob Bowman’s essay accompanying the German band’s 2021 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Plenty of artists have influenced other artists, but few, if any, have influenced so many disparate genres as Kraftwerk, whose “robot pop” music has shaped the genres we’ve come to know as hip hop, electro, house music, drum-and-bass, techno, post-punk, ambient, synth-pop, club music, and EDM.
Sampled and emulated by everyone from David Bowie, Depeche Mode, R.E.M., Joy Division, New Order, Miley Cyrus, Coldplay, and the Human League to Afrika Bambaataa, Timbaland, LCD Soundsystem, Gary Newman, Soft Cell, the Prodigy, and Madonna; and covered by the likes of U2 and Siouxsie and the Banshees, music fans around the world have heard Kraftwerk’s influence; which is likely why they were awarded the 2014 GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2007, Mojo ranked Kraftwerk’s fourth studio album, Autobahn (1974), at no. 5 on its list of “100 Records that Changed the World.” However, many of their other works have become mega-hits over the years.
“Uranium” from Radio-Activity (1975), the band’s fifth studio album, was sampled on New Order’s Euro-disco/synth-pop hit “Blue Monday” (1983), the best-selling 12” single of all time.
“Trans-Europe Express,” the lead single from Trans-Europe Express (1976), the band’s sixth studio album, was sampled on the proto-Hip Hop/Electro/Funk 12” single, “Planet Rock” (1982) by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force.
“Electric Café” from Electric Café (1986), the band’s ninth studio album, was used (in a sped-up form) as the theme for Mike Myers’ recurring German television spoof “Sprockets” on Saturday Night Live (1989).
April 9–12
Lionel Richie, King of Hearts
Lionel Richie has won almost every award a musician and songwriter can collect, including four GRAMMY Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and 11 American Music Awards. He rose to acclaim as a founding member of the Commodores before embarking on an incredible solo career in 1982. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and as a songwriter, he might best be known for penning “Lady” (1980) for Kenny Rogers and (with Michael Jackson) “We Are the World” (1985).
Richie has received the Kennedy Center Honors (2017), has been a judge on American Idol since 2018, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. Six of his songs—“Three Times a Lady,” “Lady,” “Endless Love,” “All Night Long (All Night),” “Hello,” and “We Are the World”—have been nominated for a GRAMMY Award for Song of the Year, a distinction he shares with only Jack Antonoff, Beyoncé, and Paul McCartney, and which is surpassed only by Taylor Swift (with eight).
Sky Ferreira covered “Easy” from Commodores (1977), the band’s fifth studio album, for the soundtrack to Baby Driver (2017).
“Running with the Night” from Can’t Slow Down (1983), Richie’s second studio album, and GRAMMY Award-winner for Album of the Year (1985) was sampled on Rihanna’s single “Push Up On Me” from her album Good Girl Gone Bad (2007).
“Say You, Say Me” from White Nights: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1985) and Dancing on the Ceiling (1986) topped the Billboard Top 100 for four weeks in early 1986 and earned Richie both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Original Song.
April 25–26
George Benson, The George Benson Celebration
A child prodigy who played ukulele in a corner drug store at the age of seven, then guitar in a nightclub at eight, and was recording music by age nine, George Benson is a brilliant jazz musician who has won 10 GRAMMY Awards in his more than six-decade career. A much sought-after guest artist, that’s Benson’s skillful strumming you’ll hear on such hits as Miles Davis’s “Paraphernalia” (1968), Stevie Wonder’s “Another Star” (1976), and Gorillaz’s “Humility” (2018).
Whitney Houston’s chart-topping hit, “Greatest Love of All” (1986), was a cover of Benson’s “The Greatest Love of All,” which he’d written and recorded nearly a decade earlier, as the main theme for the Muhammad Ali biopic, The Greatest (1977). In 2009, the National Endowment of the Arts bestowed upon Benson the Jazz Master Award (deemed the United States’s highest honor in jazz).
“This Masquerade” from Breezin’ (1986), Benson’s 15th studio album, one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, topped multiple Billboard charts including “Jazz Albums,” “Pop,” and “R&B.” Written and originally released by Leon Russell (1972), “This Masquerade” was covered by Helen Reddy (1972) and by the Carpenters (1973), before being given the George Benson treatment in 1986. It won the GRAMMY Award for Record of the Year (1977) and nominations for Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male.
“On Broadway,” the lead single from the live album Weekend in L.A. (1978), was recorded live at the Roxy in West Hollywood. The album was certified Platinum by the RIAA. Originally written by married songwriting duo Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and recorded by the Cookies (1963). Mann and Weil then teamed up with the songwriting duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, with whom they reworked the song for the Drifters, who (with a young Phil Spector on guitar) recorded it in 1963. This version was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame in 2013. It won the GRAMMY Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance (1979).
“Give Me the Night,” the lead single from the album Give Me the Night (1980), was a hit on Billboard’s Hot Disco Singles chart, but it has been retroactively categorized as part of the Yacht Rock genre. It won the GRAMMY Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance (1981).