Classic Pop Icons

Led Zeppelin, Buddy Guy, ballerina Natalia Makarova, David Letterman, and Dustin Hoffman were this year’s recipients of Kennedy Center Honors in Washington D.C. on Sunday.

President Obama led tributes to the recipients at a special afternoon reception at the East Room of the White House, referring to Buddy Guy as one of the “last guardians of the great American blues” and joking that “a generation of young people survived teenage angst with a pair of headphones and a Zeppelin album, and a generation of parents wondered what all that noise was about.”

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Jimmy Page has said that he has been looking through the Led Zeppelin archives to prepare expanded and remastered editions of the band’s albums.

Page told Mojo magazine:

“There are different versions of tracks that we have that can be added to the album[s], so there will be box sets of material that will come out, starting next year. There will be one box set per album with extra music that will surface.”

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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has revealed that the recipients of the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors will be Buddy Guy, Led Zeppelin, David Letterman, Dustin Hoffman and ballerina Natalia Makarova.

Kennedy Center Chairman, David M. Rubenstein, said “Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant transformed the sound of rock & roll with their lyricism and innovative song structures, infusing blues into the sound of rock & roll and laying the foundation for countless rock bands.”

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Keith Richards has topped a list of the “10 Greatest Ever Rhythm Guitarists” compiled by Gibson.com. The list is dominated by veteran players, with only two under the age of 50. Kaki King is the youngest and the only female to make the list.

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