The following individuals have received Lifetime Achievement Awards, listed by year.
| Year |
Recipient |
| 1962 |
Bing Crosby |
| 1965 |
Frank Sinatra |
| 1966 |
Duke Ellington |
| 1967 |
Ella Fitzgerald |
| 1968 |
Irving Berlin |
| 1971 |
Elvis Presley |
| 1972 |
Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson |
| 1984 |
Chuck Berry, Charlie Parker |
| 1985 |
Leonard Bernstein |
| 1986 |
Benny Goodman, The Rolling Stones, Andrés Segovia |
| 1987 |
Roy Acuff, Benny Carter, Enrico Caruso, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Woody Herman, Billie Holiday, B. B. King, Isaac Stern, Igor Stravinsky, Arturo Toscanini, Hank Williams Sr. |
| 1989 |
Fred Astaire, Pablo Casals, Dizzy Gillespie, Jascha Heifetz, Lena Horne, Leontyne Price, Bessie Smith, Art Tatum, Sarah Vaughan |
| 1990 |
Nat "King" Cole, Miles Davis, Vladimir Horowitz, Paul McCartney |
| 1991 |
Marian Anderson, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Kitty Wells |
| 1992 |
James Brown, John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters |
| 1993 |
Chet Atkins, Little Richard, Thelonious Monk, Bill Monroe, Pete Seeger, Fats Waller |
| 1994 |
Bill Evans, Aretha Franklin, Arthur Rubinstein |
| 1995 |
Patsy Cline, Peggy Lee, Henry Mancini, Curtis Mayfield, Barbra Streisand |
| 1996 |
Dave Brubeck, Marvin Gaye, Georg Solti, Stevie Wonder |
| 1997 |
Bobby "Blue" Bland, The Everly Brothers, Judy Garland, Stéphane Grappelli, Buddy Holly, Charles Mingus, Oscar Peterson, Frank Zappa |
| 1998 |
Bo Diddley, The Mills Brothers, Roy Orbison, Paul Robeson |
| 1999 |
Johnny Cash, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson, Mel Tormé |
| 2000 |
Harry Belafonte, Woody Guthrie, John Lee Hooker, Mitch Miller, Willie Nelson |
| 2001 |
The Beach Boys, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis, Jr., Bob Marley, The Who |
| 2002 |
Count Basie, Rosemary Clooney, Perry Como, Al Green, Joni Mitchell |
| 2003 |
Etta James, Johnny Mathis, Glenn Miller, Tito Puente, Simon and Garfunkel |
| 2004 |
Van Cliburn, The Funk Brothers, Ella Jenkins, Sonny Rollins, Artie Shaw, Doc Watson |
| 2005 |
Eddy Arnold, Art Blakey, The Carter Family, Morton Gould, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jelly Roll Morton, Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins, The Staple Singers |
| 2006 |
David Bowie, Cream, Merle Haggard, Robert Johnson, Jessye Norman, Richard Pryor, The Weavers |
| 2007 |
Joan Baez, Booker T. & The MG's, Maria Callas, Ornette Coleman, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Bob Wills |
| 2008 |
Burt Bacharach, The Band, Cab Calloway, Doris Day, Itzhak Perlman, Max Roach, Earl Scruggs |
| 2009 |
Gene Autry, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Four Tops, Hank Jones, Brenda Lee, Dean Martin, Tom Paxton |
