Noah Kahan, Billy Strings, more in honor of the Grateful Dead

MusicCares‘ Benefit gala Persons of the Year 2025, in honor of Grateful deadwill feature an A-list of artists. Noah Kahan, Johannes MayerDead & Company, Vampire Weekend and Maren Morris belong to the line-up, Rolling stone has learned. The event is scheduled for January 31.

There will also be Zac Brown, Sierra Ferrell, Mick Fleetwood with Stewart Copeland, Dave Matthews, Sammy Hagar, Bruce Hornsby, Norah Jones, Dave Matthews, My Morning Jacket, Billy Stringsthe war on drugs, the war and the treaty, Wynonna Judd and Dwight Yoakam, RS can confirm, among other things. (The Hollywood Reporter was the first to report the lineup.)

Dead & Company – which plays the music of Grateful Dead – currently consists of Grateful Dead co-founders Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, in addition to Mayer, Jay Lane, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti. The event will likely honor founding bassist Phil Lesh died in October at the age of 85. August 2025 also marks the 35th anniversary of the death of Grateful Dead lead songwriter and guitarist Jerry Garcia.

The MusiCares event is one of them some official Grammys parties remains scheduled after numerous others – including Spotify’s Best New Artist showcase – were canceled to focus efforts there raise money for those affected by the Los Angeles fires. MusiCares, the Academy’s nonprofit organization created to help the music community in times of struggle, such as disasters or healthcare, has already raised $2 million in wildfire relief funds.

Grateful Dead joins a long list of previous honorees including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and Barbra Streisand.

This marks only the third time a band (as opposed to a single artist) has received MusiCares’ annual award, following Fleetwood Mac in 2018 and Aerosmith in 2020. Garcia and Lesh will also be the first people to receive the honor posthumously.

“This honor is truly a testament to the legacy of the music, which has always been bigger than us – it’s about the connection between us, the crew and everyone who has been on this long, strange journey,” says Weir, Lesh, Hart and Kreutzmann said this in a statement just days before Lesh’s death. “It’s not just about what we create, but about making sure that the people behind it, who stand behind us every night, the ones who quietly make it all happen, have the support they need to keep going, no matter what life has to offer them.”