Lila Downs; Earth, Wind & Fire; Andy Garcia And The CineSon All Stars; Lucrecia; Martina McBride; and JD Souther are the first performers announced for "GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends," the awards ceremony and live tribute concert honoring The Recording Academy's 2016 Special Merit Awards recipients.

Taping April 23 at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, "GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends," which will feature rare performances by honorees and never-before-seen renditions by those they've inspired, is produced in partnership with Thirteen Productions as part of the "Great Performances" series on PBS, and is set to air later this year. Additional performers will be announced shortly.

Purchase tickets for "GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends" 

This year's Lifetime Achievement Award honorees are Ruth Brown; Celia Cruz; Earth, Wind & Fire; Herbie Hancock; Jefferson Airplane; Linda Ronstadt; and Run DMC. John Cage, Fred Foster and Chris Strachwitz are Trustees Award honorees; and EMT and Dr. Harvey Fletcher are Technical GRAMMY Award recipients. Also being honored is Phillip Riggs, this year's recipient of the Music Educator Award.

Paying tribute to Cruz — internationally known as the Queen Of Salsa — are Latin GRAMMY nominee Lucrecia and GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY winner Garcia, who will bring his Cuban musical group, Andy Garcia And The CineSon All Stars, to the stage.

Earth, Wind & Fire, one of the most important and innovative musical forces in pop and R&B, are set to deliver a roof-raising performance.

A salute to Ronstadt will feature pop, country and Latin musical offerings from GRAMMY and two-time Latin GRAMMY winner Downs and GRAMMY nominees McBride and Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Souther.

A production of Thirteen Productions LLC for WNET, "GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends" will be written by David Wild and directed for television by David Horn, with Mitch Owgang as producer, and Horn and Neil Portnow as executive producers. Don Was is music director.