Talk about a major statement about the state of the music industry in 1959. When the Grammy Awards debuted on May 4, 1959–not one artist was nominated for dominating Rock n’ Roll–not even Elvis Presley. While the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences had just formed two years earlier — it was rumored that many top members of the Academy were apprehensive about what Rock n’ Roll was doing to music industry. It may even be argued by some that the Recording Academy began primarily as a response to the rise of Rock n’Roll and the fear that the quality of songs and the artists who dominated them would be lost. in those days it is called Pop. Paranoia and fear was as evident as the fear of communism when those biases still persisted in some circles of show business in the post-McCarthy universe.
Clearly, the Recording Academy has succeeded in living out its mission statement to remind the faithful American people. of classy, high quality music that was still being made in the industry. Perhaps he would have done this if the show had aired on TV. It didn’t get on TV for another 12 years (ABC started airing it in 1971 before CBS had it later) — and even then it was only considered some rock bands that were necessary… like that little group called Even the Weekend. In 1959, though, all the winners can probably be a rundown of the most legendary jazz and easy-listening pop artists of all time.
Ironically, they were all overshadowed by an international song sung in Italian… which the Grammys today relegate to the “international” category presented only in the pre-ceremony.
Pop Goes the Jazz, Country… and Musical Show categories…
The central category for “Pop” in this first ceremony – while previously ridiculed (at least in the world of Pop and Jazz) the country category is at least recognized. Jazz artists at least country music liked (the sad “stories” they loved), so you can pass peace to these ceremonies you would like It was agreed, however, that the Kingston Trio won for the classic song “Tom Dooley” under the … a> performance Why don’t they just admit and say that the country stood for the best popular performance? A huge load of legendary country artists were obviously excluded that year, which is probably why Country started its own Academy of Country Music later.
In the Jazz category – one woman and one man who probably best represented the genre in the traditional light won: Ella Fitzgerald for individual performance and Count Basie for group. Of course, jazz was advancing years before dawn with various progressive artists and combos at this time. If the burden of snobbery wasn’t so high–someone like Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans or Dave Brubeck would have won. At least Jazz has received loads of respect at the Grammy’s in the decades since – including the 2008 50th anniversary ceremony at the time of this writing.
Recordings of Broadway (or the “Musicals” category) have been a major part of the Grammar Awards for a while – and today they’re stuck in a very minor category. At this first ceremony, “Music of the Man” was presented as the best original Broadway album, which could still get votes today due to the legion of fans. And of these categories, the best soundtrack album from a movie has been consolidated–which Andre Previn won for his adaptation of “Gigi”.
What is more interesting is the Pop category itself. Today, when we begin to hear Jazz creeping into the Top 40 in detail – the first Grammy ceremony, I thought it was a joke that Ella Fitzgerald won not only in the Jazz category – but also in one of the subcategories in Pop. . She won Best Pop Female Vocal Performance for the album “The Duke Ellington Songbook”. Count Basie also passed for the shortlisted “Best Performance by a Dance Band” in the Pop category.
The other winners were the Pop throwback to the Big Band era, which seemed to indicate that the Big Band swingers were trying to take some sort of musical revolution back to the music charts…or at least feel that they were still relevant. changing the musical universe immensely. Other winners in the Big Pop were Louis Prime and Billy Major. And let’s not forget Perry Como’s win for Best Male Vocal Performance at the height of his popularity thanks to a bunch of novelty hits that will go hand in hand with those Rock charts.
Speaking of new – this was a big year for Ross Bagdasaria and his “ChipmunkSong” which won under the “Comedy Album” and “Children< /a> White” categories receive more prominence than they do now.
R&B victors? A joke! And then one honoree that sounds a little like Rock n’ Roll…
If you thought nothing worse with the skewering of the Country, and takes a twist in other categories – the Academy had to go and place R&B; on the list– only as a cover so they didn’t have to really recognize the legendary R&B; artists one year after another. You’ll probably wince when I tell you that I worshiped Campos for his instrumental hit “Tequila,” which was actually closer to Rock n’ Roll than it was to R&B; But then those two categories could change a little.
It can be argued that the Grammys have neglected these categories for several years and probably spawned all other plantation award shows for particular music categories. The Grammys are finally trying to bring all the genres together on an equal footing in recent years.
In fact, the only winner in these inaugural ceremonies that sounded remotely like Rock n’ Roll was Henry Mancini’s “Petri Gunn” for Best Arrangement and Best Album of the Year. They couldn’t have done a better album of the year anyway – and, ironically, millions of rock guitarists have been learning to play Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” for decades.
While Frank Sinatra dominated the Grammy Awards for the second time in 1960 (and several times until 1966) – the Grammys finally honored one artist who succeeded him on the rock charts: Bobby Darin. But the second ceremony still did not honor Rock n’Roll. Darin won his “Mack Knife” for his classic.
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After all, he went to the first Grammy Awards and awarded Record and Song of the Year to “Volare” – sung by an Italian singer previously unknown in the US: Dominic Modugno.
As some of the lines of “Fly” said, who could put this first ceremony in context:
Let us leave aside confusion and all deception
Similarly bird feathers, you will find rainbows together…
