The Doors celebrate Grammy honour

The Doors hits include Light My Fire and Riders On The Storm

Iconic rock group The Doors and folk singer Joan Baez have received Grammy awards for lifetime achievement.

They were among the acts celebrated by the US Recording Academy in recognition of careers that changed music.

Also honoured were psychedelic rockers The Grateful Dead, soul band Booker T and The MGs, jazz legend Ornette Coleman and opera singer Maria Callas.

The lifetime awards were presented on the eve of the main Grammy ceremony, where Mary J Blige leads nominations.

The Doors' guitarist Robby Krieger said the band's late singer, Jim Morrison, would have been "very honoured" to be recognised.

"People think he was anti-establishment, but in reality he wanted to be bigger than the Beatles," he said.

Tributes

Surviving members of The Grateful Dead, whose lead singer Jerry Garcia died in 1995, also paid tribute to their former bandmate.

President Bush is the best publicity agent I've ever had Joan Baez

"I wish the rest of my brothers in the band could be here," said Bill Kreutzmann, one of the group's two drummers.

Booker T. Jones, whose band epitomized the Memphis soul sound, thanked his family "for keeping me alive all these years.

"It's been a difficult thing to do," he said.

He and other musicians from his group made reference to band-member Al Jackson, who died from a gunshot in 1975.

Saxophonist Ornette Coleman, one of the main innovators in the 1950s free jazz movement, also used his speech to muse about the meaning of life and death.

"How do we kill death since it kills everything?" he asked. "You don't have to die to kill and you don't have to kill to die."

Bush tribute

Protest singer Baez, who was a key figure in the anti-Vietnam war movement. closed the ceremony by paying tribute to US President George W Bush.

"President Bush is the best publicity agent I've ever had," she said.

"People always ask me to compare then versus now. It's very much like a re-run."

Other prizes handed out at the ceremony included the Trustees award, presented to Stax Records co-founder Estelle Axton, theatrical composer Stephen Sondheim, and New Orleans-based engineer Cosimo Matassa.

The award recognises outstanding contributions to the recording industry in a non-performing capacity.

Recording engineer David M. Smith and the Yamaha Corporation, which manufactures a variety of recording equipment and musical instruments, each won a Technical Grammy award.