WASHINGTON DC, United States?President Barack Obama told Bruce Springsteen that the rocker was indeed "the Boss," at an awards ceremony that also honored actor Robert De Niro, film director Mel Brooks, composer Dave Brubeck, and opera singer Grace Bumbry.

The five luminaries were at the White House to receive their Kennedy Center Honors for exemplary lifetime achievement in the performing arts.

"On a day like this I remember, I'm the president, but he's the Boss," Obama told some 300 attendants at the ceremony as he paid tribute to Springsteen.

In his tribute to Brubeck, Obama recalled his father taking him to his first jazz concert in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1971.

"And it was a Dave Brubeck concert. The world he opened up to a ten-year-old boy was spectacular," the president said.

To Mel Brooks, Obama said he saw his film "Blazing Saddles."

"I think, according to the ratings, I should not have been allowed in the theater," Obama said with a smile. "I got a fake ID (pause). The statute of limitations has passed."

The guests included actors Harvey Keitel, Matthew Broderick, and Ben Stiller, director Martin Scorsese, reporter Barbara Walters, ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov, singer-composer Sting, and former defense secretary William Cohen.