Grammys Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Viewing the EGOT shows

history

The Emmy Award nominations were announced on July 17. The awards will be given out in September. It got me thinking about my history of viewing the EGOT shows.

There are many other award shows, such as the Golden Globes and the Country Music Awards, but these are the Big Four.

Emmys

“The 1st Emmy Awards, retroactively known as the 1st Primetime Emmy Awards after the debut of the counterpart Daytime Emmy Awards, were presented at the Hollywood Athletic Club in Los Angeles on Tuesday, January 25, 1949.” However, the first three Emmy ceremonies were primarily given to shows produced or aired in Los Angeles and only broadcast there.

“Starting with the 4th Annual Emmy Awards, nominations were considered on a national television network basis.” There’s a complicated history involving the East Coast versus West Coast branches of the Academy.

From the 1970s to the early 2000s, I watched the Emmys regularly because there were shows I watched that I rooted for, mostly on the on-air networks, from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Hill Street Blues. “Cable programs first became eligible for the Primetime Emmys in 1988. Original online-only streaming television programs then became eligible in 2013.”

Changing environment

Also: “Networks shell out big bucks to get those winged ladies sitting in their offices. TV Guide reports that an average Emmy campaign costs between $150,000 and $500,000. In 1993, HBO reportedly spent $1 million on its campaigns, an investment that paid off when the network took home more awards than most broadcast networks for the first time.

“In 2013, Netflix’s ‘House of Cards’ was the first streaming service series to win an Emmy. Hulu’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ was the first to win an Emmy for outstanding drama in 2017, and in 2018, Amazon’s ‘The Marvelous Ms. Maisel’ was the first to do so in comedy.”

I look at the current nominees. I’ve seen some of the shows in the talk series, variety specials, and game shows. (Three of the Outstanding Variety Special (live) are the Grammys, Oscars, and Tonys.) But aside from Abbott Elementary, I’ve seen very few others, so I’m no longer inclined to watch that awards show.

Grammys

“The second Annual Grammys Awards, held on November 29, 1959, were the first to be televised, but not live. The ceremony was broadcast on NBC as a taped special called NBC Sunday Showcase and hosted by Meredith Willson.”

Finally, the Grammys were broadcast live in 1971, and I watched them religiously. I specifically recall Paul Simon winning for Still Crazy After All These Years and thanking Stevie Wonder for not putting out an album.

Then, in the early 2000s, I stopped watching it because I didn’t know the musicians. But as my daughter started listening to music on her own, I restarted watching, precisely because I didn’t know the musicians.

Oscars

On March 19, 1953, “The Oscars presentation was first televised. The NBC TV and radio network carried the 25th Oscars ceremonies live from Hollywood, with Bob Hope as master of ceremonies, and from the NBC International Theatre in New York, with Fredric March making the presentations.”

It was the only one of the four I’ve always watched. When I was a kid, movie stars were almost like royalty, even if I’d never seen their movies. Starting in the 1970s, I watched because I had rooting interests. As late as 1995, I would listen to the radio at 8:37 a.m. Eastern time to catch the announcements of the major nominations. Now, I record it and watch the show at leisure; this is true of most television I watch.

Tonys

“The 21st Annual Tony Awards ceremony was broadcast on March 26, 1967, from the Shubert Theatre in New York City on the ABC Television network. This was the Awards ceremony’s inaugural broadcast on U.S. network television.”

But I don’t remember just when I started watching the Tonys. Perhaps it was in the 1980s when I caught the Kennedy Center Honors. They’re both prestige shows with low ratings that CBS broadcasts year after year.

In 2005, I wrote about them in the first six weeks of this blog. “I watch the Tony Awards because it is generally all I know of the shows on Broadway. I mean, there is usually ONE show I’ve heard of…” Nowadays, I know a lot more about the shows, even if I haven’t seen them.

When the musicals and plays tour and appear in Schenectady’s Proctors Theatre or occasionally other venues, I have a sense of the storyline. Also, “I like to discover that a number of actors better known from other venues are on the boards.”

Here’s my love letter to the Tonys from 2011.

February rambling: obituary pirates

strong men always fall

**Posted by Jessica Wilson to Star Trek Wholesome Posting**

He Died in a Tragic Accident. Why Did the Internet Say He Was Murdered? Within a day of the death of Matthew Sachman, 19, on New York City subway tracks, so-called obituary pirates had flooded search results with false information.

Judge clears names of 2 men convicted in Times Square murder after they spent years in prison and The Juror Who Found Herself Guilty. I’m always pained by these stories of innocent people being in jail for decades before being exonerated.

Gazan Lives Matter

Cory Doctorow: How I Got Scammed

Sam Waterston to Leave ‘Law and Order’ After 20 Seasons

50 Best ‘Law & Order: SVU’ Guest Stars, Ranked

Anti-Racism Resources

I gave blood at the Albany High School on January 31. It was my 178th time. My time: 5 minutes, 17 seconds. Booyah!

Kelly goes marbles

Mel-O-Toons: Cheap cartoons for weekday enjoyment

Now I Know: When New York Choked the Artichoke Trade and When Milwaukee Went to War Over Bridges and Math and the Missing Planet and Why Did This Rabbit Drive a Car?

NOT ME: A SCOTTISH commercial cleaning firm has announced its acquisition of an English rival, adding a further 100 staff to its growing UK team. Founded in 1988 by its Chairman Roger Green, Spotless now operates over 1,700 contracts across the UK, providing a full range of cleaning services for blue chip companies, retail outlets, industrial leaders, and premier commercial premises.

Health

Chuck Miller: The surgeries aren’t done yet; Panic at the hospital; Waiting on an NPO; This blog post was almost written from beyond the grave. Get better, Chuck!

About Biden’s Age and Memory

King Charles Diagnosed With Cancer, Buckingham Palace Say. The Royal Line of British Succession

Seiji Ozawa, Captivating Conductor, Is Dead at 88. He led the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 29 years, toured widely, and helped dispel prejudices about East Asian classical musicians. I saw him on television several times, at least once in person, probably at Tanglewood.

Chita Rivera, revered and pioneering Tony-winning dancer and singer, dies at 91

Carl Weathers, Apollo Creed in “Rocky,” dies at 76

Amelia Earhart’s long-lost plane was possibly spotted in the Pacific by an exploration team

The retribution presidency

2024: What Kind of Society Will America Be?

***

djt Calls for ‘All Willing States’ to Deploy National Guard Troops to Texas. Kareem: “This is not a drill: Donald Trump has become the most destructive force to American democracy. To support him after all that’s happened, after all he’s said and done, is to denounce America and everything it stands for. That’s not hyperbole or liberal posturing. It’s merely acknowledging the facts.”

***

From Maggie Haberman, New York Times: “A vindictive Trump second term is now a frequent point of discussion. But [John] Bolton already got a close-up look at Trump’s nature — and how his anger can boil over. He spent 17 months in the administration and left in 2019.

“The new edition of Bolton’s book focuses on several examples, especially the case of Ellen Knight, a National Security Council official who cleared Bolton’s original edition for publication and was then dismissed from the [National Security Council].

“Knight told a federal judge that senior White House lawyers pressured her to falsely claim that Bolton’s book contained classified information. She was reinstated under President Biden.”

***

djt says he’d let Russia do ‘whatever the hell they want’ to NATO countries that don’t pay enough. Republicans say it was just fine.

Heather Cox Richardson: “What I’m saying is… if former president Donald Trump or a Trump-like figure… is elected president or takes the presidency in 2024, we will lose American democracy for our lifetimes. Not forever, because strong men always fall. It’s the nature of authoritarian movements.”[She’s more optimistic than I.]

***

Federal Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Claim of Absolute Immunity. The ruling answered a question that an appeals court had never addressed: Can former presidents escape being held accountable by the criminal justice system for things they did while in office?

MUSIC

Where has Tracy Chapman been? Tracy Chapman – Fast Car

The Genius Of Stevie Wonder

The War and Treaty: Lover’s Game

1712 Overture – PDQ Bach

Karma Chameleon – Culture Club

Victoria Monét: On My Mama

Coverville 1475: The Harry Styles Cover Story

Jelly Roll: Son Of A Sinner

J. Eric Smith’s Favorite Songs by Favorite Artists: Buggy Jive and D.O.A.

Laufey – From The Start

Gracie Abrams: Difficult

Watching the Oscars and the Grammys

movies and music

Because of scheduling dictated in part by COVID, the Oscars and the Grammys were on successive weekends. I watched them both in 30-minute chunks while riding the stationary bicycle. So not in real time; I’m too busy for that.

There was a point in the mid-nineties when I would listen to the radio at 8:37 a.m./5:37 a.m. Pacific Time, to hear the announcement of the Oscar nominations in the major categories. I’d then scribble them down frantically and quite illegibly. Of course, in a few years, I discovered I could find them on the Internet by 9 a.m. But it was exhilarating at the time.

Last century, I usually DID watch the Oscars live to the very end, or until I got too tired. I would record the program on my DVD or DVR, get up in the morning, and view it, making sure not to see/hear the news. If I don’t know the outcome, it’s new to me!

After I got to The Slap, about which everyone has an opinion, the show rolled on until Will Smith’s acceptance speech for Best Actor. And it took me two days to actually watch it. To my surprise, I was REALLY angry about this rambling half-apology – no playing-off music there.

Yay, CODA, 3 for 3!

Music

I’ve decided to watch the Grammys the last two years, in part as an archeological dig. Hey, I’ve at least I’ve HEARD OF the nominees for Record, Album, and Song of the Year. OK, I don’t know Daniel Caesar or Giveon, who were featured on Justin Bieber’s track Peaches, the live performance of which was the most bleeped of the show.

I know who Anderson Paak is because he appeared as a performer on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah in December 2018; yes, I looked it up. He’s now part of Silk Sonic with Bruno Mars. Mars’ song with Mick Ronson, Uptown Funk, was so ubiquitous in 2015 that even I had heard it quite often.

H.E.R. I know because she was on that Grammy tribute to Prince in 2020, and she’s a fine guitarist.

I actually own THREE of the Album of the Year nominees. The winner, We Are, is the second album by Jon Batiste that I own. The TV special of Tony Bennett’s 95th birthday concert with lady Gaga I found touching, so I got it . The other – don’t laugh – is Sour by Olivia Rodrigo, which I pretty much blame on my daughter playing it incessantly.

For Best New Artist, Olivia Rodrigo was the winner. I didn’t know Arooj Aftab, Jimmie Allen, Baby Keem, Arlo Parks, or Saweetie. FINNEAS is Billie Eilish’s brother and sometimes collaborator. Hasn’t Glass Animals been around for half a decade or more?

As for Japanese Breakfast, I actually heard of the book Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner on The Daily Show and CBS Sunday Morning. Oh, she has a band too?

Every year, Arthur links to these end-of-year video compilations. I asked him, which one is The Kid LAROI? So he wrote a post about him.

There are other artists I did recognize in some categories, such as The Black Pumas (saw on Sam Bee’s show). But most of the nominees I knew were relative dinosaurs like Foo Fighters and Paul McCartney.

Etc.

My, I HATED both of In Memorium segments because I couldn’t always read the names, as the cameras panned out to show the performers. It was particularly egregious at the Oscars. I liked the Sondheim medley at the Grammys, though.

WRGB, Channel 6 in Schenectady, the CBS affiliate, inserted a package of local commercials during the Grammy broadcast. Carrie Underwood was already singing. This is not the first time WRGB has muffed things like this.

I find myself more drawn to music than the movies these days. In no small part, it’s because movies, when I see them on TV or a computer, don’t seem… theatrical.

By contrast, what Batiste said in his acceptance speech is true. “It’s like a song or an album is made and it’s almost like it has a radar to find the person when they need it the most.”

I got that vibe as the Brothers Osborne closed out the Grammys with Dead Man’s Curve, as members of the audience, regardless of their musical genre were clearly grooving to the tune.

Freedom – Jon Batiste
Leave The Door Open – Silk Sonic
I Get A Kick Out Of You – Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga

I may try this again next year.