Last night CBS televised the lifetime achievement award ceremony at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. There were a couple amazing musical moments. One was when Earl Scruggs played with Mark O'Connor and Randy Scruggs, in honor of statements by Steve Martin, one of the recipients, that he was inspired to learn banjo from listening to Earl Scruggs when Martin was younger. Earl Scruggs, who is well over 80, tore up that banjo on "Foggy Mt. Breakdown," and having the greatest living country fiddle player accompanying him, as well as his own flesh and blood, provided an amazing performance.

Then, following, in the musical tribute to Diana Ross, another award recipient, a number of female African American singers did a medley of some of her hits. But what really topped off the performance was when the curtain was pulled and a 125 member black gospel choir joined Yolanda Adams’ powerful performance of “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” . It was such strong and moving music that Ross was sincerely moved to tears and was clearly swept away in the moment. It was awesome.

It's nice to stumble onto some quality performances on network TV. It's way too rare.