Courtesy of Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot's post-Grammy wrap-up
Mavis Staples won her first ever Grammy Award for best Americana album (“You Are Not Alone”) and sang the praises of her late father Pops Staples. “You laid the foundation,” Staples said, “and I am still working on the building.” Other winners with Chicago connections included Buddy Guy (best contemporary blues album) and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which upped its lifetime Grammy haul to 62 with victories for best classical album and best classical performance (Verdi Requiem).
Neil Young won his first ever Grammy for music (he had won previously for best recording package). His nod for best rock song (“Angry World”) was greeted with typically wry humor by the straw-haired rocker. “I’m not Mavis,” he said, “but I’m close.”
5 comments:
that mavis staples album is fantastic. kudos to Tweedy and Mavis for putting it together.
it is strange how an album that isnt good enough to be "best alternative album" is good enough to be best album? doesnt make sense right? not that it matters, but it just points out what a waste of time these awards are.
i recommend going out and listening to that mavis staples album, really good.
FUN WITH REAL CHATS: (these comments have not been edited, only the names have been changed).
me: not too often dylan performs on prime time tv, so they had me hooked
he really is a cartoon character..and i dont hold it against him at all, because i know he is doing it on purpose..but he is way way way into that whole theme time radio hour dj persona
Sent at 10:29 AM on Monday
you: yea, but that's cool. if thats hwo he wants to live out his twilight years, so be it.
he has become the great raconteur of our times
me: thats why i really dont hold it against him...he gets a life time pass to do whatever he wants...ebcause i know that in about 20 years, ill be studying those theme time programs and treating them like they are liner notes to before the flood...he's just a few steps ahead
you: yup
he is the studs terkel of our time
Sent at 10:34 AM on Monday
me: but just for flavor, he played a country fried maggies farm backed by the Avette brothers and mumford and sons....and he strolls out there dressed like the back of John Wesling Harding..with this old timey radio hand microphone attached to a long wire,...and the whole time he's rambling through the lyrics of maggie's farm...reinventing the melody as if he doesnt even know how it goes...all the while holding this strange thing in his hand that looks like a hair dryer, or ray gun, or something...and then finally after teh song is over, and teh band is kind of wrapping up, he starts blowing a harmonica into waht we learned was one of those harmonica microphones ala john popper...except no big harmonica solo, just a fuckin long C G C....really dude...you needed to shlep out this prop for that...
and that is dylan....
you: i think you need to post that on the weight
Sent at 10:38 AM on Monday
me: like performing at the beacon behind a key board...with a guitar all strung and sitting in a guitar stand to his left....and throughout the entire set...the guitar just sat there...never to be played...surely he'll pick it up for an acoustic miniset right? no....surely hell pick it up for the set closer right? no....oh i see, of course he will come out for the encore and play the guitar...why else would it be sitting there....and Nope not tonight...sorry folks good night...this had been dylan plays keyboard and a mind fuck for everyo0ne else...
MORE FUN WITH REAL CHATS.....continued.
(same rules apply)
you: awesome
dude. what are we doing.
why aren't we the next mumford and sons
we've been into this shit for years
me: i have a theory...
you: before the hipster exploitation
next thing you know they'll be playing Live 1975 at the commodore while the kids are eating their burgers and talking about their first time seeing the last waltz. last week.
me: why are fumford and sons and the avette brothers famous?> dude because they are hella good looking...not to sound gay, but i didnt see the torn bucktoothed and ratty felice brothers up there last night....its still a game of sex and mirrors man...
but it is weird how this americana thing is becoming hipster...
this was our bag, we fished this out of the closet back in 2000...we were a decade ahead of this crowd. I saw Levon at the fuckin Rodeo bar, when his voice was shot, full of cancer damn it....to a crowd of 150
i shook the mans hand...
Sent at 10:48 AM on Monday
you: dude. i know. that is why i'm so frustrated. all these poser hipster kids that live in my hood think they invented this shit or at a minimum that they discovered it long before everyone else. let me tell them something, when they were listening to Kanye and wearing oversized sunglasses in the NYU dorms, i was wearing western snap shirts, beard and channeling my inner richard manuel. shit. they don't even know who richard manuel is because he's not on Pitchfork. and now , all these hipsters exploited the popularity of it -- formed bands like Mumford and sons, avett bros, etc.
and now "looking" like richard manuel has become the cool thing
ehhh
dude. marshmellow overcoat. the honkies. that could have been us.
me: your right. your absolutely right...even our trips to sheriff uncle bob predated this nonsense...ive been wanting to join/start a roots band since high school...i called it folk rock then...but i knew what it should sound like...i should pull out those old 4 track recordings...
you: OF COURSE! good calll
we were drinking buckets of reingold before it became the "hip" beeer to drink watching sherrif bob amongst a crowed of 9 people.
me: ha
it is true...
i cant argue with that
you: now drinking reingold has become "ironic"
bleh
along w/ the ubiquitious PBR -- which we were gulping down at Doc Holidays circa 2005. Tecate, now reingold and Genny light
Sent at 10:56 AM on Monday
me: i think the joke is on us though..ebcause somewhere, tehre is a 45 year old who thinks we're hipster posers...and add to it, a 70 year old who thinks the 45 year old is a poser...and then on top....pete seeger is sitting up in bedford, ny somewhere, in the house he built with his own two hands, overlooking the mighty hudson river...plucking the 5 string banjo laughing at all of us because he actually hopped freight trains with woody guthrie....by the way...i was at doc hollidays in 1998...while you were still holding your fraternitys winter greek god competition...
you: dude. maybe. but at least i'm not from the 5 towns. AY OH!
me: ha, cant help that...its true...
you: but really. you are right
the joke is on us you know why?
me: because A) we never made money on any of this stuff, and B) we never got any hot chicks because of it either
good grief. I feel like homeland security just tapped into one of my private convos. awkward.
that being said, this is clearly the future of The Weight -- Real Chats. love it -- we need a radio show or podcast...
mumford and sons and the avett brothers were up there because they had grammy nominated albums and/or songs (actually the avett brothers may not have been nominated but had an explosive year, exposure-wise).
while i agree in many genres of music it's still a popularity contest, i wouldn't necessarily say that good looks got those bands to the stage. first of all, richard manuel didn't invent beards and bluejeans, so everything becomes derivative very quickly. the avett brothers have been around for 11 years.
i kind of agree that americana is becoming hipster, maybe partly because with few exceptions, alternative rock or early 90's-inspired bands are so shitty nowadays.
i think it's also an exploding genre because in a tech-saturated, xeroxed-experience country, strings and mandolins and train-hopping troubadors are very nostalgic and evoke part of our country's romanticized past for people who weren't even alive when it was originally happening.
musicians that came long before dylan or morrison probably lambasted them for borrowed originality or undeserved popularity, they just didn't have blogs to express their disappointment with musical sea changes.
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