Grammy Awards

On a Grammy Awards when some popular genres of music represented themselves with swords and blood, the smashing of folding chairs, and a literal on-stage dumpster fire (and when classical and jazz seemed to not exist), country and roots music offered the world some moving examples of obligation, homage and collaboration. Between Joni Mitchell’s triumphant, first-ever Grammy performance and a Luke Combs/Tracy Chapman duet that stirred hearts on social media, this year’s ceremony, from a Los Angeles arena named for imaginary money, made the simplest songs look like the source of lasting value.

Bonnie Raitt and Brandi Carlile, arguably American roots music’s reigning matriarch and its top female star respectively, had a golden night on Sunday, winning three Grammy Awards each. Carlile showed her artistic range in the awards categories and on the national CBS broadcast from Los Angeles as the famous folk singer won Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song (over Ozzy Osbourne in both cases) for the blazing “Broken Horses.”

Nashville-based breakout solo artist Allison Russell finds herself in a good place going into the 2022 Grammy Awards with three nominations, including Americana Album of the Year. Outside Child was released in late May on Fantasy Records and received immediate acclaim for its insightful and healing reflections on horrible abuse she suffered in her youth. Its song “Nightflyer” has been tagged for two possible Grammys, as American Roots Song and American Roots Performance.

Nearly a year after he died from Covid-19 and just over a year after he was granted a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, the late John Prine hovered…

Grammy season is upon us, albeit delayed about six weeks as the Recording Academy gets its arms around producing an awards event that honors the music…

Tanya Tucker, the rowdy outlaw country star of the 1970s and 80s, capped off a remarkable comeback year on Sunday winning her first-ever Grammy Awards…

Yola, the English country/soul powerhouse singer and songwriter who was widely noticed via the Americana Music Associations in the United Kingdom and the…

We’ve now been to the movie and we know how it ends. Two powerful women of country music, snubbed in recent years by the radio format their heroines…

The 60th Grammy Awards leaned on Nashville for solemnity and substance on Sunday night, with prominent Music City country and roots artists anchoring the…