Dec 14

Grammy Awards

GRAMMY AWARDS

 
A Grammy Award  (originally called Gramophone Award), or Grammy, is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry.  The annual presentation ceremony features performances by prominent artists, and the presentation of those awards that have a more popular interest.  The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4, 1959, to honor the musical accomplishments by performers for the year 1958.  Following the 2011 ceremony, NARAS overhauled many Grammy Award categories for 2012.   (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
Cindy Bullens also contributed vocals on three songs to the soundtrack for the movie Grease, notably “It’s Raining on Prom Night”; and she received a Grammy nomination for her efforts.
 
(January 2010)
 
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Hacienda caught the attention of Dan Auerbach of the acclaimed blues-rock band the Black Keys, who produced both of their albums.  One of Bomp! Records’ recent coups was releasing the first album by this band in 2002 called The Big Come-Up; the new Black Keys album, Brothers is one of the standout albums of 2010, landing a Grammy nomination and a #2 ranking on the 2010 Albums of the Year by Rolling Stone, and even making Time Magazine’s list of Best of 2010 in Music.
 
(January 2011)
 
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Homer released an album called Grown in U.S.A. in 1970.  Bandmembers by that time were Phil Bepko (vocals), Frank Coy (vocals), Galen Niles (lead guitar), Howard Gloor (lead, steel guitar), Gene Coleman (drums), and Chet Himes (bass).  The music ranged from psychedelia to progressive rock, with instruments that included a Mellotron.  Christopher Cross – who had several hits in the early 1980’s including “Sailing” and got the Grammy in 1980 for Best New Artist – also had some involvement with the album.  (Christopher Cross was born on May 3, 1951, same as me!).
 
(September 2011)
 
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So far, I only have the Black Keys’ first album, The Big Come-Up, but that won’t be true much longer:  For sure, I need their 2010 album Brothers, which won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album last year and also spawned a No. 1 Alternative hit song for them, “Tighten Up”.   
 
(January 2012)
 
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When one of Johnny Cash’s later albums, Unchained (1996) won a Grammy for Best Country Album, he and his record company ran an ad in Billboard magazine saying the following:  “American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support.”  The ad was accompanied by a truly fierce photograph of Cash flashing the middle finger.   
  
(September 2012)
 
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One thing that has really impressed me in country music is the recent emergence, finally, of genuine country bands – instead of just a singer or singers backed by musicians – like Lady Antebellum and the Band Perry.  As I remember it, for seemingly ages, the Statler Brothers, and then Alabama kept winning the Grammy for Best Country Duo or Group simply because there really was no one else doing that. 
 
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The king of all of the new garage-y bands is probably the blues-rock duo the Black Keys.  The Black Keys won three Grammy Awards at the 2011 Grammy Awards from their album Brothers that also includes their hit single “Tighten Up” that made the top of the Alternative Rock Charts.  For the 2013 Grammy Awards next month, they have five nominations derived from their most recent album, El Camino. 
 
(January 2013)
 
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Country music and rockabilly artist Johnny Horton had a good streak of his own going with several “historical ballads”, beginning with “The Battle of New Orleans” in 1959; the song won the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording.  Horton continuing the following year with two more hits, “Sink the Bismarck” and “North to Alaska” (the latter being the theme song for the John Wayne movie called North to Alaska).  There is no telling how much further Horton might have been able to take this craze had it not been for his tragic death in November 1960. 

 

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Tiny Tim’s albums were remarkably good; Allmusic gives his debut album, God Bless Tiny Tim four stars, and it features his takes on several classic tunes, some corny ghost stories, and other fun stuff.  On his follow-up album, Tiny Tim’s Second Album, Tiny Tim posed with his parents; and his third album, For All My Little Friends (a collection of children’s songs), was nominated for a Grammy.    

 

(March 2013)

 

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In addition, Chuck Berry received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984 and was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.   

 

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Bob Dylan (who was 17 at the time) attended Buddy Holly’s show on January 31, 1959 – only three days before the airplane crash.  Dylan spoke of the concert during his 1998 Grammy acceptance speech for Album of the Year for Time out of Mind:  “And I just want to say that when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory, and I was three feet away from him . . . and he LOOKED at me.  And I just have some sort of feeling that he was – I don’t know how or why – but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.” 

 

(June 2013/1)

 

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In 2005, Bill Miller’s instrumental album, Cedar Dream Songs won the Grammy Award for Best Native American Music Album.  Miller also won four Native American Music Awards in 1999 and another in 2006.  In all, Bill Miller has released 15 albums. 

 

(August 2013)

 

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The lead single “Fast Car” was a Top 10 hit in both the U.S. and the U.K.; and Tracy Chapman won a clutch of Grammies in 1989 also.  

 

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Melissa Etheridge had a memorable appearance at the 2005 Grammy Awards, where she performed “Piece of My Heart” in a tribute to Janis Joplin.  She was slick bald at the time due to chemotherapy for breast cancer (from which she recovered); and the boldness of her appearance there – some years before Robin Roberts’ shorn locks on Good Morning America – only endeared her further to the American public. 

 

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Janis Ian might have remained a most remarkable one-hit wonder had she not taken up other controversial issues – as related by Wikipedia, “adolescent cruelty, the illusion of popularity, and teenage angst” – with her biggest hit song “At Seventeen” (1975).  The song and the accompanying album, Between the Lines both reached #1 on the Adult Contemporary Singles and Hot 100 Albums Billboard charts, respectively, with much less drama than had befallen “Society’s Child”.  What’s more, Janis Ian won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance – Female that year, beating out Linda Ronstadt (whose breakthrough album Heart Like a Wheel had been nominated), as well as Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy.  

 

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Peggy Lee won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “Is That All There Is?”, and the song was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.  


(January 2014)
 
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“Somebody’s Knockin’” earned Terri Gibbs a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song, and the accompanying album, Somebody’s Knockin’ won the Academy of Country Music Award for Best New Country Artist and the inaugural Horizon Award (for an artist gaining new recognition) from the Country Music Association Awards.  Terri Gibbs toured with George Jones and sang duets with him; she also performed at the Grand Ole Opry.  

 

I have Terri Gibbs’ first album, Somebody’s Knockin’ – rated 4 stars by Allmusic – and every song is rendered well in her understated but expressive voice.  Her follow-up single “Rich Man” made the Country Top 20, as did two later singles.  Her 1987 album, Turn Around was also nominated for a Grammy and generated three hit singles on the CCM charts.   

 

(July 2014)

 

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Little Jan Buckner-Goff was inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame herself in 2010.  After Wendy Bagwell’s death in 1996, Jerri Morrison no longer wanted to travel, but Little Jan still yearned to perform.  Several of her songs have been nominated for Grammys, and she was named the Female Vocalist of the Year by the Southern Gospel Music Association on two occasions.  Her song “Walk Around Me, Jesus” was the #1 song on the Cash Box Music Charts.  

 

(November 2014)

 

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In the mid-1990’s, Kim Fowley edited a video demo and went to 24 record labels trying without success to sign three young brothers who were in a band named Hanson.  In 1997, Hanson got a major-label contract and had a worldwide hit, “MMMBop”; they also received three Grammy nominations that year. 

 

(January 2015/1)

 

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During the tributes to Glen Campbell at this year’s Grammy Awards and Academy Awards, it occurred to me that I am more of a country music fan than I usually let on to other people – or even to myself.  Besides the June 2012 concert appearance by the Flaming Lips as part of their mini-tour to set the Guinness World Record for the largest number of concerts in a 24-hour period (and travelling by bus no less), the only live concerts that I have been to in the past four (maybe five) years are the “Queen of Rockabilly” Wanda Jackson in February 2013 and Glen Campbell in August 2011.  The latter concert was at the IP Casino in Biloxi after he publicly acknowledged being afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease and was a warm-up concert for Glen Campbell’s Goodbye Tour, which extended from August 31, 2011 through November 30, 2012.  Part of the intention of the Goodbye Tour was to help ease the social stigma associated with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. 

 

Besides his long hit-making career and the requisite accolades – such as four Grammy Awards, three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards, and his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005 – Glen Campbell also appeared in several major films, most famously the John Wayne movie True Grit (1969) that earned Campbell a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer. 

 

With co-writer Julian Raymond, Glen Campbell won a Grammy Award for writing and performing the theme song of the film Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me, “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”; and the song was also nominated for an Academy Award.  By the 2015 award season, Glen Campbell was too sick to make public appearances and is now living in an assisted-living facility.  Tim McGraw performed “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” at the 2015 Academy Awards.  
 
(February 2015)
 
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Smokey Joe’s Café is a musical revue of early rock and roll songs that was largely based on Leiber/Stoller material; it opened on Broadway in 1995 and ran for more than 2,000 performances, making it the longest running musical revue in Broadway history.  The original Broadway cast recording, Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs Of Leiber And Stoller won the Grammy Award in 1996 for Best Musical Show Album.  Smokey Joe’s Café had a run in London also. 

 

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Black Russian had some assistance with the lyrics, perhaps because English is not their native language; they hardly spoke the language at all at the time that they defected.  Lyricists who lent a hand include Allee Willis, who co-wrote the lyrics for their beautiful first single “Leave Me Now”.  Willis has had a long career as a writer, songwriter, set designer, and artist.  Allee Willis was also one of the writers of the song by the Rembrandts, “I’ll be There for You” that was the theme song for the massively popular sitcom Friends and one of the best selling TV theme songs of all time.  Willis won a Grammy Award in 1985 for Best Soundtrack for Beverly Hills Cop. 

 

(April 2015/1)

 

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From Wikipedia:  “The [Chris Cornell] album proved commercially unsuccessful although the album’s single ‘Can’t Change Me’ was nominated for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance at the 2000 Grammy Awards.  He also contributed the song ‘Sunshower’ (a bonus track on the Japanese release of Euphoria Morning) to the soundtrack of the 1998 film, Great Expectations; and a reworked version of the track ‘Mission’, retitled ‘Mission 2000’, was used on the soundtrack to the 2000 film, Mission: Impossible II.” 

 

(April 2015/2)

 

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The article in Wikipedia on the Beatles’ most famous album starts off like this:  “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles.  Released on 1 June 1967, it was an immediate commercial and critical success, spending 27 weeks at the top of the albums chart in the United Kingdom and 15 weeks at number one in the United States.  Time magazine declared it ‘a historic departure in the progress of music’, and the New Statesman praised its elevation of pop to the level of fine art.  It won four Grammy Awards in 1968, including Album of the Year, the first rock LP to receive this honor.” 
 

(June 2015)

 

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Crystal Mansion had one more shot with a third self-titled album in 1979, Crystal Mansion (also called Tickets) that was released on 20th Century Fox Records, the same label that released Milan’s only LP in 1964, I Am What I Am. A notice in Billboard magazine calls the band “a new record act” and notes that some of the “top veteran local jazzmen” have been recruited to accompany them, among them “saxophonists Jim Horn, Bill Green, Bud Shank, Buddy Collette, Marshal Royal, and Tom Scott, bassist Richard Davis, trumpeter Jerry Hey, trombonist Bill Watrous, keyboard man Steve Porcaro, and percussionist Alan Estes”. Three-time Grammy winner and album producer Brooks Arthur (who was the engineer on the band’s other two albums) is quoted as saying of the band: “I feel so strongly about Crystal Mansion’s musicianship and ability, I felt only guest artists of that caliber could perform well enough with this band.”
 
(August 2015)
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Blues Traveler, Four – Front man John Popper has the vocal and harmonica chops to put this blues-rock jam band into the charts over a 25-year period.  This 1994 album had slow sales at first until the opening track “Run-Around” became the band’s biggest hit song, peaking at #8.  The song also won a Grammy in 1995.
 
(December 2015)
 
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The debut album by Salt-N-Pepa, Hot, Cool and Vicious (1986) had several moderate R&B hit songs, but the group hit it big when a remix version of “Push It” became a platinum hit and pushed their album sales above the one-million mark.  Salt-N-Pepa has had a productive career over many years, including a Grammy win for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group in 1995 for “None of Your Business”.
 
(September 2016)
 
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At the 2005 Grammy Awards, Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino introduced Green Day’s live performance of “American Idiot” by saying: “Instead of fading away, they’ve grown up and released a concept album with a novel concept: All the songs are good.” 
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“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” is Green Day’s biggest hit single to date, with 2 million copies sold. Wikipedia notes: “As of 2017, ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ remains the only song in history to win both the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and the MTV Music Video Award for Video of the Year.”  
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In another move out of left field, Karen O wrote or co-wrote all but one of the songs for the soundtrack of the Spike Jonze film, Where the Wild Things Are that is based on the beloved 1963 children’s book by Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are. Her work is identified on the soundtrack as “Karen O and the Kids”; my sister Julie W. Kovasckitz is a fan and had no idea that Karen O’s band Yeah Yeah Yeahs was responsible for those snarling songs on Fever to Tell. “All Is Love” from this soundtrack (co-written by Karen O and Nick Zinner of Yeah Yeah Yeahs) was nominated for a Grammy. 
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Each album by the Black Keys seemed to be more popular than the one before, with 2010’s Brothers (and its top single “Tighten Up”) winning three Grammys and a #2 spot on Rolling Stone’s list of the best albums of 2011; El Camino (2012) leading to the band’s first arena tour; and their eighth and most recent album (and third collaboration with Danger Mouse), Turn Blue (2014) reaching the top of the album charts in the US, Canada, and Australia.  
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The cover of their breakthrough album, Brothers has a plain appearance and simply states: “This is an album by the Black Keys. The name of this album is Brothers.” The cover of their hit single “Tighten Up” has similar packaging. (This is not the same song as the 1968 hit by Archie Bell and the Drells also called “Tighten Up”). According to Wikipedia: “Inside the package, the album’s disc was coated with a thermal film that changes colors (black and white) at different temperatures.” Remarkably, Patrick Carney’s brother Michael Carney, who has designed the album art for all of their records, won a Grammy in 2011 for Best Recording Package for Brothers. 
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Besides his work with the Black Keys, Dan Auerbach has had several side projects and has released two solo albums. He handled the production duties for the three albums by past UARB Hacienda. From Wikipedia: “In addition to winning several Grammy Awards as a member of the Black Keys, Auerbach received the 2013 Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical for co-producing his band’s 2011 album, El Camino, and for producing records by Dr. John (Locked Down) and Hacienda.” 
(June 2017)

Last edited: April 3, 2021