Ahead of the 2024 Grammys, the Recording Academy’s ceremony celebrating the 2023 Special Merit Award recipients was held Feb. 3 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.
Laurie Anderson, the Clark Sisters, Gladys Knight, N.W.A, Donna Summer, and Tammy Wynette were the 2024 Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award honorees; Peter Asher, DJ Kool Herc and Joel Katz were the Trustees Award recipients; the late Tom Kobayashi and Tom Scott were the Technical Grammy Award honorees; and “Refugee,” written by K’naan, Steve McEwan, and Gerald Eaton (a.k.a. Jarvis Church), was honored with the Best Song for Social Change Award.
“The Academy is honored to pay tribute to this year’s Special Merit Award recipients — a remarkable group of creators and industry professionals whose impact resonates with generations worldwide,” said Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy. “Their contributions to music span genres, backgrounds and crafts, reflecting the rich diversity that fuels our creative community.”
The Technical Grammy Award is presented by vote of the Producers & Engineers Wing Advisory Council and Chapter Committees and ratification by the Recording Academy’s National Trustees to individuals and/or companies/organizations/institutions who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field.
Tom Kobayashi and Tom Scott met at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound in 1985, when the duo joined the company and completed the building of the Skywalker post-production facilities in both Northern and Southern California. Together, they launched the Entertainment Digital Network, also known as EDnet, which employed fiber-optic networks to send high-quality video and audio great distances.
Its then-revolutionary technology enabled the industry to link together talent, executives and production facilities at great cost savings. For 25 years, that company connected hundreds of recording studios worldwide in the days before the Internet could handle high-quality audio.
EDnet became a part of Onstream Media, and over the decades, tens of thousands of long-distance collaboration sessions were facilitated for the music, advertising, TV, and cinema businesses.
Born on March 24, 1929, Kobayashi, a respected film and television audio executive in Hollywood, died on March 3, 2020 in Bakersfield at the age of 91. He was survived by his wife of 43 years, Christine, his son Jesse, his daughter Kimiko, six grandchildren, and two sisters.
The earliest years of his life were difficult, being born a child of Japanese immigrant parents and surviving incarceration during World War II. He still proudly served in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1951, and was a proud USC Trojan. Upon graduation from USC’s Marshall Business School, he began his career in Hollywood as an accounting clerk at a film lab.
After many years as president of Glen Glenn Sound in Hollywood, Kobayashi was recruited in 1985 by George Lucas to head his new Lucasfilm post production division, Skywalker Sound. He completed the construction of the technical audio post production facility on Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch in Marin County.
After the first two pictures, Francis Coppola’s “Tucker” and Lucas’ “Willow,” directed by Ron Howard, Kobayashi constructed a second post facility in Santa Monica, Skywalker Sound South. Both facilities flourished and dozens of acclaimed films were completed, such as “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “Backdraft” and “Terminator 2.”
Kobayashi and his engineers then simplified the post-production challenge in 1992 by clever use of digital telephone technology and newly developed audio compression devices from Dolby. Lucas then allowed Kobayashi to start his own new company, EDnet.
Kobayashi retired in 2000 so that he could use his extensive experience to further education of the next generation. He served as a board member of Azusa Pacific University, helping initiate their film program. He was also a voting member of he Motion Picture Academy since 1979.
Kobayashi and his wife moved to Bakersfield in 2015 to be near their children. Though he accomplished much through his work, watching his children and grandchildren mature into a great new generation of Kobayashis brought him great joy.
Kimiko has devoted her creative business sense to M.A.R.E., a nonprofit organization that provides equine therapy for children, adults and veterans.
Jesse inherited his father’s tenacity and motivation to contribute to the film and special effects industry in major projects in Hollywood.