Grammy Goofs

The Grammy Awards will be handed out this week. This is supposedly the pinnacle of the recording industry. Why do I say "supposedly"? Well, the good folks who are members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences who vote on these things have made some MAJOR goofs in their time. The prestige has almost been obliterated because of the way they have dished some awards out.

The most bizarre/unusual awards:

Best Country Song, 1958. Earth to NARAS: "Tom Dooley" is not a country song. It's a folk song. In 1958, we had great songs like "My Baby's Gone" by the Louvin Brothers, "Pick Me Up on Your Way Down" by Charlie Walker, "Life to Go" by Stonewall Jackson, "City Lights" by Ray Price, "Just Married" by Marty Robbins, and "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" by Johnny Cash. Did any of these songs get the Grammy? NO. Instead, the voters awarded "best country song" to a song that never made the country charts. Is it any wonder these people were later fooled by Milli Vanilli?

Album of the Year, 1960. Bob Newhart is, without question, a comedic genius, and The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart is one of the greatest comedy albums ever made by any comedian in any era. But "album of the year?" If a comedy album was the best thing released that year, 1960 must have been a terrible year for music.

Album of the Year, 1962. See above; however, this time the winning comedy album was Vaughn Meader's riotous impersonation of John Kennedy in The First Family. A funny album, without question; however, 1962 was the year Ray Charles' Modern Sounds in Country Music was released, so it is impossible to correctly give the Meader album the title of "album of the year."

Best Rock and Roll Recording, 1963. This went to the April Stevens/Nino Tempo song "Deep Purple." "Rock and roll?" If they say so.

Best Contemporary ("R&R") Performance, 1965. Wikipedia says this was a "rock and roll" award. So why the winners in the group and male awards, respectively, the Statler Brothers (for "Flowers on the Wall") and Roger Miller (for "King of the Road")? Was this the best "anti-Beatles" vote NARAS could muster? Both songs are classics; however, both songs are also country, and that's where the awards should have been handed out. Of course, that year, Roger Miller had already cleaned up in the country category, winning every award thanks to the fact that the "Best Country Performance - Female" Grammy went to "Queen of the House," the Jody Miller (no relation to Roger) answer to "King of the Road."

Song of the Year, 1968. This was the year of the Simon and Garfunkel classic "Mrs. Robinson." While that song did win "Record of the Year," the Song of the Year (a songwriter's award) went to Bobby Russell for the smarmy "Little Green Apples."

Best Country Performance, Duo or Group, 1969. The first Grammy Waylon Jennings ever won was for his rendition of "MacArthur Park" (yes, that "MacArthur Park"). Producer Danny Davis (of the Nashville Brass fame, also a Grammy winner in 1969) said that Jennings brandished a gun during the recording of this song, although Jennings denied it. One could hardly blame Waylon, however, were the story true.

Best New Artist, 1972. America won over the Eagles. The Eagles had the last laugh, with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and three generations of fans.

Best Album Notes, 1972. This award went to Tom T. Hall for the liner notes to Tom T. Hall's Greatest Hits. If those were the "best" liner notes of the year, then the other four nominees must have been written in invisible ink!

Record of the Year, 1974. "I Honestly Love You?" In the same year of Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City" or Paul McCartney's "Band on the Run?" "I Honestly Love You" was probably not the best song on that 45, let alone "record of the year!"

Best Country Song, Duo or Group, 1974. This was probably done for trivia purposes: "who is the only R&B group to win a country Grammy?" The song "Fairytale" is an outstanding song (Elvis later did a superlative version of this), but the Pointer Sisters' song is not country. Putting a steel guitar on a song does not make it "country," anymore than the mandolin on R.E.M.'s "You Are the Everything" makes that song "bluegrass."

Best New Artist, 1976. This could be where the infamous "best new artist curse" began. The winner that year? Starland Vocal Band, the one-hit wonders behind "Afternoon Delight."

Songs of the Year, 1977. 1977 saw some of the greatest music ever released in rock and roll, highlighted by Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and the Eagles' Hotel California. So, to spite that great music, the voters gave a tie and TWO Grammy awards in this category -- one to "Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star is Born)" and one to "You Light Up My Life."

Best New Artist, 1979. One-hit wonders A Taste of Honey won out over future Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Elvis Costello. Thankfully, Costello got the last laugh.

Album of the Year, 1983. The year that saw Murmur by R.E.M., War by U2, and I Can't Stand Still by Don Henley (all future Grammy winners) saw them all lose -- to Toto IV. Toto, a band of session musicians who started recording their own albums in 1978 while working with Boz Scaggs, played on better albums in 1983 than this one.

Best Country Song, 1984. "Sympathy awards" are just WRONG. In 1972, Arlo Gurthrie recorded a Steve Goodman song about a train called "City of New Orleans." It received no accolades. IN 1984, Willie Nelson butchered the daylights out of the song, and that recording received a Grammy. The difference? Goodman died of leukemia in 1984.

Record of the Year and Song of the Year, 1985. "Song of the Year" is a songwriter's award, supposedly given to the best-written song. Listen to the lyrics of winning song "We Are the World." Better than two-thirds of this song is the endless repetition of the chorus. The purpose behind the song (raising money for starving people in Africa) is admirable, but give it humanitarian honors, not "song of the year" awards!

Best Heavy Metal Performance, 1989. The first year heavy metal was acknowledged as a category to receive an award, and the voters gave the Grammy to the very un-heavy metal FM rock stalwarts Jethro Tull.

Best Contemporary Folk Album, 2003. Yet another pathetic case of sympathy awards. In 2002, Warren Zevon announced that he had mesothelioma and set to work on a farewell album. That album, The Wind, was released ten days before Zevon's death in September 2003. The Grammy voters, who completely ignored Zevon throughout his career, decided to give Zevon two contradictory awards: best rock performance (for "Disorder in the House," his duet with Bruce Springsteen) and best FOLK album. So, which is it? And why couldn't Zevon's work be recognized while he was alive to enjoy those awards?

Sometimes one cannot help but feel the Grammys are as outdated as the record player depicted on the statue. Nevertheless, good luck to all the nominees.