Diana Ross To Present Taylor Swift With Dick Clark Award for Excellence At AMAs
Recently, Taylor Swift became the first woman to unseat herself from the Billboard Hot 100’s top spot. Prior to that, her new album 1989 had the highest first-week sales since Eminem‘s The Eminem Show – in 2002. So naturally, as E! reports, the American Music Awards chose to recognize Swift with the first-ever Dick Clark Award for Excellence, to be presented by none other than Diana Ross.
Ross – Supremes frontwoman, disco frontrunner and future Voice guest mentor – has been honored a few times herself lately. Aretha Franklin covered the group’s 1966 No. 1 hit “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” for her concept covers album, Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics. Later, Bette Midler offered a country and western take on another Supremes No. 1 record from the same year, “You Can’t Hurry Love,” for her girl-groups cover album It’s the Girls!
Meanwhile, Swift will receive the Dick Clark Award for being “someone whose spirit and excellence capture the visionary passion that Dick Clark himself incorporated into everything he did.” (Having three albums sell over a million copies during their first weeks helps, too.) She will also kick off the AMAs, 8 p.m. EST on ABC, with her debut TV performance of current single “Blank Space.”
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