Led Zeppelin to receive Kennedy Centre award Rock band Led Zeppelin and blues musician Buddy Guy will receive prestigious honours from Washington's Kennedy Centre on 2 December. Academy Award-winning actor Dustin Hoffman, talk show host David Letterman and ballerina Natalia Makarova will also receive awards at a ceremony which President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle are expected to attend, having hosted the award winners first at the White House. Led Zeppelin, known for memorable 1970s songs such as Stairway To Heaven, are being recognised as a band but keyboardist and bassist John Paul Jones, singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page will each receive individual honours. The band have not worked together since 2009, when Page and Jones abandoned their plan to replace front man Plant. The singer has been concentrating on other projects, including work with Alison Krauss, and Patty Griffin in his the Band of Joy. Kennedy Centre Chairman David Rubenstein said: "With their extraordinary talent, creativity and tenacity, the seven 2012 honourees have contributed significantly to the cultural life of our nation and the world." Guy, a Louisiana-born pioneer of the Chicago blues who has won six Grammy awards, was said to have been "a tremendous influence on virtually everyone who has picked up a guitar in the last half century." The Kennedy Centre Honours were created in 1978 and among those previously honoured have been Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Luciano Pavarotti, Willie Nelson and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.