Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards was a three-and-a-half-hour extravaganza, but the long listing of performance artists sounded more like an all-day music festival than this year’s show.
The Performers:
Paul McCartney rocked out with Dave Grohl on drums, who was clearly enjoying himself. How appropriate they played “I Saw Her Standing There,” one of the original Beatle songs that kicked off the British Invasion and influenced most of today’s performers.
Very cool to see B.B. King and John Mayer on stage together with Buddy Guy and Keith Urban, jamming in tribute to Bo Diddley.
Radiohead put on an amazing performance of “15 Step” with help from the USC Marching Band. I thought it was an unique presentation, and so cool to see the marching drums on stage.
MusiCares Person Of The Year is Neil Diamond, who was honored at a ceremony last Friday with performances from Coldplay, the Foo Fighters and Jennifer Hudson. The MusiCares organization offers financial and medical help to music people in need.
The Winners:
Album Of The Year went to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, who also won for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals with “Rich Woman.” In total, Plant and Krauss gathered up five Grammys, including Record of the Year for “Please Read The Letter,” from their platinum selling album Raising Sand, produced by T Bone Burnett.
Ironic that the lead singer of rock’s biggest band would win an award in the country category, but that’s what happened. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss also won a Grammy for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals for “Killing The Blues.” I guess that pretty much kills any existing rumors that Robert Plant will join Led Zeppelin for a reunion tour. The bluegrass is much greener on this side.
Coldplay won three Grammys with their Viva La Vida album…Song of the Year, Best Rock Album, and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.
Best Alternative Music Album went to Radiohead for In Rainbows.
Adele won for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “Chasing Pavements.”
Jennifer Hudson won the award for Best R&B Album with her self-titled debut. Good for her!
No surprise here; Bruce Springsteen wins Best Rock Song for his track from Magic, “Girls In Their Summer Clothes.”
Interesting that one of my favorite vocal groups, The Eagles won the award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance: “I Dreamed There Was No War” from their album Long Road Out Of Eden.
Best Pop Instrumental Album: Jingle All The Way by Bela Fleck & The Flecktones
Best Pop Vocal Album: Rockferry by Duffy
Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album: Still Unforgettable by Natalie Cole
Best Traditional Blues Album: B.B. King for One Kind Favor
The award for Best Contemporary World Music Album went to Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju and Giovanni Hidalgo for their Global Drum Project.
Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance went to John Mayer for his song “Gravity.” Yes, Mayer is a good vocalist, but I recognize him more for his guitar work than anything else. In particular, the John Mayer Trio with Steve Jordan and Pino Palladino. Good stuff.
The Mars Volta won Best Hard Rock Performance for the track “Wax Simulacra,” from their album The Bedlam in Goliath.
Best Metal Performance went to Metallica for the track “My Apocalypse” from their Death Magnetic album.
Now this is noteworthy…Best Rock Instrumental Performance went to the Zappa Plays Zappa touring ensemble featuring Steve Vai and Napoleon Murphy Brock, led by bandleader Dweezil Zappa, for “Peaches En Regalia.” Frank would be proud!
The Grammy for Best Musical Album For Children went to They Might Be Giants for Here Come The 123s.
The Best Comedy Album award went to the late, great George Carlin for his album It’s Bad For Ya.
Surprising where some artists appear…one of my favorite performance artists Peter Gabriel won a couple of categories for soundtrack songs he did for the Disney/Pixar movie Wall-E. He grabbed two Grammys for Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television or other Visual Media for “Down to Earth,” and Best Instrumental Arrangement for Define Dancing, also from Wall-E.
Rick Rubin got Producer Of The Year (Non-Classical) for five big albums…Death Magnetic (Metallica,) Home Before Dark (Neil Diamond,) Mercy (Dancing For The Death Of An Imaginary Enemy) (Ours,) Seeing Things (Jakob Dylan,) and Weezer’s Red Album.
Best Long Form Music Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Peter Bogdanovich, director, Skot Bright, producer.
Monday, February 9th, 2009
Written by: Mike Withrow
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Posted in Awards, Blues, Classic Rock, Jazz, Pop, Rock & Roll, Soul
4 Responses to “Grammy Awards”
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rockandrollguru Says:
February 10th, 2009 at 12:43 pmI got a chance to see Zappa plays Zappa last summer and they were phenomenal. One of the best shows I saw in ’08.
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Mike Withrow Says:
February 10th, 2009 at 11:27 pmYes! I saw that tour in Dallas a couple of years ago, and it was awesome! The band is simply amazing and Dweezil did a great job of leading the band through Frank’s music, especially “The Black Page.” A stunning performance!!
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Mike Withrow Says:
February 10th, 2009 at 11:30 pmI agree, they deserve those Grammys. Plant and Krauss did a great job on Raising Sand, but also credit to T Bone Burnett for those incredible production values! It’s great to see Plant reinvent himself, rather than burn out trying to revive the Zeppelin days.
February 9th, 2009 at 5:08 am
m happy with this years grammys ! think plant and krauss really deserved the awards