Grammy Awards

The Grammy Awards were instituted in 1958 by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence in recorded music.
 
Although subject to criticism since its inception, a Grammy is still the single most prestigious award a recording artist can receive.
 
The shows were more of an industry insider banquet from ‘58 through 1970 — in fact in the early years they were held in both New York and L.A. to accommodate both sides of the musical family.
 
But beginning in 1971 when they started to be televised, the closed banquet ceremony became a show business “show.”
 
No matter what you think of the Grammy winners, the list of nominees each year reflects at least some of the best music made each annum. Since most of the nominees in the major categories perform live at the ceremonies, and with some sort of additional artist tribute every year, there’s usually at least a performance or two from each show that really stands out.
 
One reason the show’s subject to criticism from so many angles is because it’s about music — not one genre of music. That’s both its strength and its curse. Any given show will feature pop and jazz, country and R&B, classical and rap. It’s not exactly niche programming. You have to have a pretty broad appreciation of music to sit through a 3-hour telecast, but that’s where your RockPeaks tree of hope comes in.  
 
Picking the best of anything is a precarious venture, especially when it comes to subjective  music, but you have to give it to the Academy — they aren't wrong too many times. If you read through the 50+ Songs of the Year that won Grammys, you're hard pressed to find a bad song in that list.  And for every Toto IV that won a Best Album, there's five other winning masterpieces that you have in your collection.  
 
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SONGS tab

Important Note:
From a RockPeaks point of view, every performance you see is done in front of that artist’s heroes, mentors, friends, enemies, and employers — oh and about 100 million people watching live around the world. It’s one of the hardest gigs in all of music to come out and be “on” for.
 
Gooey jammy Grammy Peaks . . .

In one of the first Grammy telecasts in 1973, with no less a rock legend than uh … Andy Williams hosting, there’s the mighty Staples Singers, “I’ll Take You There,” with Mavis Staples delivering on the promise and bringing the goods. If you wonder about the Grammy’s diversity, this is about as black & white as you can get.
 
Or for a more contemporary mixture of black and white, you can’t get any more stark than blond-haired Irish-pale Christina Aguilera doing the Godfather of Soul James Brown’s tribute at the Grammys shortly after he died in 2007. If you’ve already seen this performance, you know. If you haven’t, I hope you’re sitting down. We’re still waiting for some singer — any singer — to top this.
 
Another historic part of that same 2007 ceremony was how Grammy voters made a huge statement against George Bush and censorship by giving The Dixie Chicks a clean sweep of 5 Grammy including Best Album, Best Record and Best Song of the Year for Not Ready To Make Nice. As captured in the brilliant documentary “Shut Up and Sing,” the Chicks were kicked off of and banned from country radio — even though they had the #1 song in country at the time with Travelin’ Soldier — and were fending off death threats from homegrown right-wing terrorists — but they came back with this musical response that took the world and the Grammys by storm.
 
Or there’s Bob Dylan in 1980 in his gospel-meets-the-harmonica period doing a joyous Gotta Service Somebody to a spontaneous standing ovation, before accepting the Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male, by a Right-handed Pitcher in the Second Game of Double Header, or whatever they call these long-titled awards.
 
One of the other treats of the Grammys is the red-hot carpet full of the hottest babes wearing the least clothes of any award show on television. And sometimes that carries over to the stage, like in 2002 with the classic Lady Marmalade, with Christina Aquilera, Lil’ Kim, Pink and Mya flaunting their prostitutes garters during one of the sexiest pop hits ever written. The song may be from a movie, but the Academy Awards ain’t puttin on no show like this.
 
But hot dancing and tingling singing isn’t restricted to babes, as Michael Jackson proved in 1988, when he debuted his new robotic moonwalking modern dance routine during The Way You Make Me Feel — the same song that Stevie Wonder broke down while singing at the R&R HoF Concert at MSG in 2009. Michael then lights into a chilling, show-stopping Man In The Mirror, probably the best song he ever wrote. The arrangement, the delivery and the transcendent refrain are why this guy is in pantheon.
 
Beyond any one other element, the Grammys area showcase for songwriting. There’s never a show where you know every song performed, and there’s never one where something unexpected doesn’t blow your mind and stay with you. In 1990, Mike & The Mechanics — yeah–who? You mean the bass player from Genesis has a band now? Gimme a break. And then he comes out and breaks your heart, and opens the waterworks for everyone who was ever cut off from a parent or child. The Living Years has such a omnipotent message delivered in such a hauntingly effective way, you’ve got to be the one already dead to not be wiped out by this.
 
1998 was one of those historic and memorable ceremonies. For one thing, Bob Dylan actually won Album of The Year — for the very first time — for his Time Out of Mind disk produced by Daniel Lanois. Plus, Radiohead won their Grammy for OK Computer. But on a performance level, the night was remembered for two unplanned events. One was Bob Dylan’s performance of Love Sick being joined by the “Soy Bomb” dancer. The other, was Luciano Pavarotti having to cancel at the last minute due to a sore throat, and the Queen of Soul, Miss Aretha Franklin, stepped in on literally a moment’s notice to sing Puccini’s Nessun Dorma aria to a stunned and then spontaneous standing ovation audience.
 
2006 was another banner year for both the Awards and the show. Green Day won Record of the Year. U2 won Song, and Album. John Legend was the Best New Artist. The White Stripes, Sonny Rollins, Les Paul, Jay-Z, Springsteen and the Black Eyed Peas all walked away with a Gramophone. But the show itself was a classic. Paul McCartney performed Helter Skelter. Sly Stone made his first public appearance in nearly 20 years! joining in an all-star tribute to Sly & The Family Stone, with Aerosmith Joss Stone, John Legend, Robert Randolph and a stage-ful of others. Alicia Keys joined Stevie Wonder for his powerful pop-gospel Higher Ground — U2 did "Vertigo," then had Mary J. Blige join them for “One” — the whole night was full of unpredictable collaborations, but the Grammyrific combo of the night had to be Jay-Z (wearing a John Lennon New York City shirt) and Lincoln Park being joined by Sir Paul McCartney for a "Numb/Encore" — with that great line, “I’m rap’s Grateful Dead” → The Beatles’ “Yesterday” with Paul strolling out unannounced, linkin’ up these two foundations of music.
 
 
Rock Valleys
 
And of course, having been around for over 50 years, they’ve had their share of miscalls, miscues, and muddled performances.
 
Maybe Glen Campbell’s By The Time I Get To Phoenix wasn’t the VERY Best Album of 1969, nor Steely Dan’s Two Against Nature exactly the most lasting from 2001, but the single humiliation they’ve never been able to live down was voting Milli Vanilli Best New Artist in 1990. It was later retracted, but was a horrible blunder, a perfect storm of bad press, a Peewee Herman at the porno theater of humiliation. To the Grammys defense, in the years preceding they’d awarded Best New Artist to Tracy Chapman, Bruce Hornsby, and Sade, and in the years to follow to Arrested Development, Sheryl Crow, Lauryn Hill and the like — so it’s not like Grammy voters are completely out of it. But this 1990 blunder gave critics of the Awards a lifetime of ammunition and punch-lines.
 
Just as with so many awards over so many years they’ve been blessed with not too many disasters — so too with performances. Other than some momentary technical glitches or the occasional raspy voice, most giants deliver a passable-at-worst performance. And then there’s Bob.
 
In the midst of George Bush Sr.’s first Gulf War when political correctness and blind patriotism were theme of the times, Bob Dylan was given a Lifetime Achievement Award. A lot of people remember his speech when he accepted the Award from Jack Nicholson, saying, “it's possible to become so defiled in this world that your own father and mother will abandon you — and if that happens, God will always believe in your ability to mend your ways."
 
But not many remember his intentionally disguised and unintelligible Masters of War. The guy’s receiving his Lifetime Achievement Award, so he mumbles a monotone melody-less butchering that, after his hopeless Live Aid, solidifies his perception as a complete fuck-up.
 
But sometimes you have to throw the people trailing you off the scent for a while or you can’t cover ground as quickly.