Honouring his musical hero on this day in 2009, US president Barak Obama invited Stevie Wonder to the
White House to bestow a Gershwin prize on the artist, a distinction from the Library of Congress for popular music and lifetime contribution, given in the tradition of the fraternal collaboration that produced Rhapsody in Blue and many other standards from the American Songbook. The first recipient was, with input from public broadcasters PBS and NPR, was Paul Simon with a gala performance in 2007 including Philip Glass, Alison Krauss, Grover and Elmo and Art Garfunkel. The below promise was a campaign song for Obama’s bid for presidency and he doubted whether their relationship would have been sustainable if they had not been mutual fans.