Five Years After Linda Chorney, The Grammy Awards Still Can’t Get Americana Right
It was the ultimate embarrassment for the Grammy Awards, and it was all at the expense of the Americana category. A relatively unknown, quirky—and depending who you speak to—questionably talented songwriter and performer from New Jersey named Linda Chorney upstaged the rest of the Americana industry in 2011 by earning a nomination in the Best Americana Album category for her record Emotional Jukebox right beside stalwarts of the industry like Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, Lucinda Williams, and Ry Cooder.
Not that Linda Chorney didn’t deserve to be considered right beside the other contenders for the Best Americana Album. One would hope that anyone with an outstanding musical effort could at least garner consideration for their work in the appropriate Grammy category. It’s just that Linda Chorney hadn’t even registered a single Nielsen SoundScan sale at the time of the nomination, and virtually nobody knew about her or her album Emotional Jukebox beyond the Grammy selection committee. The nomination was a coup of the highest order and sent the Americana industry and Grammy Awards reeling.
How did Linda Chorney do it without any sales, any public name recognition, or any accolades either creative or commercial to speak of? She did it by launching a name recognition campaign right before the nomination process to put herself on the radar of Grammy voters. Along with doing interviews for big publications like Variety and Daily Kos, Chorney used the directory on the Grammy Awards’ Grammy 365 website (now called Grammy Pro) to tirelessly befriend and schmooze voting members until this unknown outsider became a consummate insider cozying up to the people who would eventually decide the nominees.
Linda Chorney and Emotional Jukebox ultimately lost to Levon Helm for Best Americana Album, but Chorney had accomplished her goal of getting her name out there via the Grammy’s nomination process, which was ironically sent into hyper drive by the controversy that proceeded her nomination. She later wrote a book about the experience called “Who The F*** Is Linda Chorney,” plans a feature film on the subject, and can tout herself as a “Grammy nominee” till kingdom come.
Another important side note about the Linda Chorney nomination is it also likely resulted in the first high-profile snubbing of Americana stalwart Jason Isbell. His 2011 album Here We Rest is recognized as the point where the songwriter began his big ascent in Americana, and is seen as the record Chorney likely deposed with her nomination.
Jason Isbell would again be the victim of the Grammy Awards’ seemingly skewed system for picking nominees in 2013 when his universally-acclaimed and commercial breakout record Southeastern didn’t receive a nomination either. Of course the thing about nominations for awards is they’re inherently subjective. But Jason Isbell seemed like such an incredible runaway in Americana music in 2013, to not even grant him a nomination seemed like just as big, if not a bigger oversight than granting Linda Chorney one two years before.
After the Linda Chorney fiasco, new rules were enacted to make sure a similar event wouldn’t happen again. But those rules didn’t prevent the obvious snubbing of Jason Isbell.
This year many of the artists, labels, managers, fans, and even many of the individuals involved in the Grammy nomination process are feeling just as let down, and are scratching their heads on how certain efforts got overlooked, while others got pushed to the forefront. And though nobody seems to agree on why the outcomes in Americana continue to be skewed, or what a viable solution is, most everyone seems to be in agreement there’s a problem, even if they’re not comfortable speaking on record due to the Grammy’s secretive nomination process, and not wanting to be publicly critical of the efforts of certain performers.
Up for Best Americana Album in 2017 are:
True Sadness, the Avett Brothers
This Is Where I Live, William Bell
The Cedar Creek Sessions, Kris Kristofferson
The Bird & the Rifle, Lori McKenna
Kid Sister, the Time Jumpers
Okay, that’s not a bad list of nominees. There’s no Linda Chorney in there, and though the definition of what “Americana” is can be a topic of hot discussion, it’s hard to say none of these artists belong. But were these really the best albums released in Americana? Again, in many ways this is a subjective question, but both Kris Kristofferson’s The Cedar Creek Sessions and the Time Jumpers’ Kid Sister were cover records. Not that doing a record of covers should immediately disqualify your from consideration, but where did Kris Kristofferson’s The Cedar Creek Sessions register on sales charts, radio play, end-of-year lists, groundswell of fan support, or even a minimal amount of media coverage upon its release?
In fact The Cedar Creek Sessions seemed to have been virtually ignored by the Americana industry in 2016, partly due to poor promotion. That’s no offense to Kristofferson who is clearly a country and songwriting legend. But comparing an album of re-recorded hits cut live over a long weekend with an album of new, original material from another artist seems unfair to potential nominees, especially since the Kristofferson album didn’t really have any sort of impact in the culture in a way that can be measured quite objectively through charts, sales, and end-of-year lists and polls from critics and fans. Where did The Cedar Creek Sessions show up in the Top 100 of Americana airplay albums in 2016? It didn’t. Where did it register on high-profile end-of-year lists? It was a virtual no show. Again, no offense to Kristofferson or his effort, but a case can be made that dozens, maybe over 100 other albums were more qualified due to sales, airplay, or critical acclaim than The Cedar Creek Sessions to receive a Grammy nomination in Americana.
So how did The Cedar Creek Sessions get nominated, along with The Time Jumpers, whose record Kid Sister suffered a similar fate, though it’s release was at least a little bit noticed by the public? There’s one major theory, and it’s the same theory that would explain how Rosanne Cash swept the Grammy Awards’ Americana categories in 2014, even though Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music was the record everyone was talking about heading into the ceremony (Metamodern Sounds did receive a nomination for Best Americana Album).
The problem is that the people both deciding the nominees and the eventual winners are not purely Americana people. Most of them are Grammy contributors from the country realm and the Nashville establishment who only know Americana from the outside looking in. So when they see the list of potential nominees, their eyes gravitate to who they know as opposed to who they know as being the best in a given year.

Many individuals in the mainstream country music industry are not going to know that younger artists of Americana such as Parker Millsap, Courtney Marie Andrews and Dori Freeman, all of whom found incredible consensus behind their music in 2016. They may even overlook artists like Lucinda Williams who also released an album, who may be better known in the mainstream than some younger candidates, but are still going to be overlooked compared to legends like Kris Kristofferson.
Even the Time Jumpers, though not a band with a huge footprint, they have their name bandied about in Nashville regularly due to their affiliation with Vince Gill and their weekly gigs. The Americana category, which is voted on by big mainstream country voters, gets ground down to a name recognition contest as opposed to experienced and knowledgeable people within the Americana industry making these critical decisions about nominees and winners.
Meanwhile where is Margo Price, who had a massive year that should have at least landed her a nomination in Americana, if not country? Of course it always comes down to subjectivity, but it seems like the Americana category is regularly filled with a few albums that clearly don’t belong, while others that clearly do are left on the sidelines.
Even the Linda Chorney phenomenon was the result of name recognition, even though she wasn’t well-known outside of the Grammy nomination committee. Not knowing who really any of the nominees were in Americana allowed Chorney to be able to sweep in, play the name recognition game, and walk away with a nomination.
And the issue does not just begin and end in the Best Americana Album category. Up and down the American Roots categories, which also include Folk and Bluegrass, there are strange anomalies for the 2017 nominees. Both Sierra Hull’s Weighted Mind and Sarah Jarosz’s Undercurrent were recognized in the Best Folk Album category when both artists and albums are clearly bluegrass. Hull is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music’s bluegrass program, and Jarosz is a graduate from a similar program at the New England Conservatory. Both also released excellent albums that did receive critical acclaim, airplay, and commercial acceptance, and are hard to argue against nominating for a Grammy. But why are they slated in folk when more appropriate records in that particular category got left off?
What is a solution to attempt to straighten out the Americana and roots categories in the annual Grammy nominations? That’s a hard question to answer since the process is so secretive, and the people who decide are unpublicized. From an outside perspective, you can’t identify the flaws in the system because you’re not exactly sure what the system is. Even some who are part of the Grammy process aren’t exactly sure of the full in’s and out’s, and are just as frustrated as the artists, fans, labels, and industry representatives at the annual results, knowing they don’t accurately represent the roots genres.
Though some seem to be concerned about the amount of label heads and other industry individuals on the secret committees and voter rolls that display a conflict of interest in voting and regularly push candidates from their own company in hoping to influence sales with a nomination or a win, others seem to think there are plenty of safeguards in place to make sure that doesn’t occur.
Where there seems to be more universal agreement is that the Americana and American Roots categories need to be voted upon by people who actually have their nose in the music and their finger on the pulse, and can be better arbiters of what is rising and falling within the Americana scene to make sure nominees and winners better represent the music to the greater population. The voting contingent for Americana needs to be more narrow to only include people who are intimate and hands on in Americana. There also appears to be concern that too many of the voters in Americana are grandfathered in, meaning individuals who may have been aware of Americana many years ago, but no longer are in a position to make critical decisions about the Americana artists of today.
Ultimately, the reason the Grammy Awards have an Americana category is to promote the genre’s best and brightest not just for Americana fans, but to the rest of the industry, while also creating an archive for future generations to look back and discover what the best music was in Americana in a given year. But if the system is not working, the opposite case can occur. Music fans who’ve heard about this burgeoning Americana movement—one that just received its own Billboard chart and continues to launch artists that are becoming relevant in the mainstream—can pull up a list of nominees and end up listening to an album of covers as opposed to an original album from an artist who is setting the pace for creativity and resonance in a given year, and it could give a poor representation that can set the entire industry back.
It goes without saying that music is inherently subjective, and no set of nominees is ever going to make everyone happy. However in the case of Americana, you are annually fielding lists of nominees with efforts that are almost universally recognized as not belonging, while other efforts universally recognized as being nearly requirements for earning distinction in the Americana category are nowhere to be found. And this isn’t just the estimation of leering fans, but certain people within the voting process.
A Grammy nomination is an incredible honor for an artist or band, and as the most revered awards show apparatus in American music, it is important to get this process right so that Americana and American Roots can prosper via the Grammy process as opposed to becoming an annual embarrassment for both the American Roots industry, and the Grammy Awards themselves.
January 6, 2017 @ 9:34 am
Yeah, as I’ve said I think Americana needs to divorce itself a little from country. As to Margo Price, your team selects which grammy category to enter your stuff in, but you can only choose one for each individual thing. Her team entered her album in Americana as opposed to country. I think she’d have been better off going into country, which really seemed to be into rewarding women this year.
January 6, 2017 @ 9:46 am
Yeah, pretty bad isbell didn t win for southeastern. A trend I see with all awards is overlooking the new independent the year they really break and then catching them the next year when their work while deserving wasn’t as ground breaking or didn t have the same impact. Happened to isbell, sturgill, and denzel Washington, lol. But basically seems like the voters are always behind the times.
If I could pick, it would be Parker Milsap for sure for best americana. Margo Price probably should have gotten nominated anywhere Lori McKenna did, but I personally don’t like her music much.
I wish they would make a change, Stapleton is the only one to get recogniZed the same year. If Sturgill wins best album, maybe the universe will balance itself out.
Parker Milsap is the $#!+……….
January 6, 2017 @ 10:59 am
Minor side question: in the article, you state “Along with doing interviews for big publications like Variety and Daily Kos“. I can understand how doing an interview with Variety would be helpful to a would-be Grammy nominee. But Daily Kos? Aside from having doubts about how big Daily Kos is, it’s a political website. I don’t understand how that parlays into Grammy nominations.
Perhaps I don’t want to understand…
January 6, 2017 @ 12:16 pm
I think the point of the interviews was to create an impression that Linda Chorney’s footprint was bigger than it actually was. If anyone questioned her legitimacy as an artist, she could point to articles in major periodicals as proof.
On a certain level, you have to give Linda creidt for her ingenuity to pull off what she did. And she is a musician who writes songs, and has a career. It’s not that she’s some con artist. It’s just she upstaged the industry and cut in line.
January 8, 2017 @ 7:19 pm
You say Chorney’s from New Jersey, right? I lived there a long time. Of course she cut in line. That’s what Jersey people do.
January 6, 2017 @ 11:15 am
Never gonna make everyone happy..
I actually give the grammy’s credit more than most.
I think they do a pretty good job for the most part.
With the sheer volume of material that comes out yearly its tough to balance the aesthetics of music along with all the other elements like song writing, production, recording, etc.
January 7, 2017 @ 9:33 am
I agree Stringbuzz. They do seem to look past the charts more often than you’d think they would even with the deluge of mainstream country and pop stuff
January 6, 2017 @ 1:09 pm
“how did Linda Chorney do it”
because Chorney understood better how the Grammy “system” worked. she took the red pill.
there’s so much data now that everything appears to be trackable. if you want to make awards based on consumption data — a popularity contest — it should be fairly easy to arrange. just crunch the numbers of hits, downloads, and subscriptions. the most popular song/person/whatever wins.
but critics don’t like that. they want to be filters and arbiters of quality. they know better than “popularity.” their antennae are finer, their agendas more virtuous, and they care more. undoubtedly their knowledge and experience is larger, but technology has democratized production, and it’s well on its way toward democratizing consumption as well. surely we can see the day when every person on earth has a personal satellite channel to broadcast whatever they want, and we all will have a way of subscribing to those channels and linking subscription to automatic debits on our bank accounts.
in that scenario, the critic is definitively obsolete. the critic’s job instead will be to organize and frame the epic chaos of 9 billion satellite channels. “genre” is one way, but so might be “new braunfels,” “kiev,” “jimmy bryant,” age, or “new producer, time-stamped.” consumers will be able to sort in dozens of ways to find and support, say, musicians. this is already being done to one degree or another.
there will always be a place in that kind of world for eloquent appreciations, essays that frame like-minded artists, top 10 lists, and so forth. but the critic will have to accept the complete loss of personal control. those days, in my opinion, are over. for better and/or worse.
you know what I miss? liner notes.
January 6, 2017 @ 1:43 pm
If you made the grammy’s about what consumers bought, for this grammy year, Carrie would win for country, with Blake second, and then Eric Church (since Joey and Rory didn’t enter as country). None of them were even nominated in album, and only Carrie was nominated at all. And Luke would have a few grammy’s.
Of course everyone would in the fall then in order to give themselves the best chance at racking up numbers (in this case Carrie and Eric were fall releases, Blake spring).
January 6, 2017 @ 2:03 pm
right, so the wiki page about the Grammy describes the selection process
1. media companies registered with NARAS and individual members of NARAS submit nominations and materials
2. “more than 150 experts” from “the recording industry” review entries for category fit
3. lists of eligible entries are sent to Voting Members (?) who nominate artists in the generals and no more than 9 specific categories
4. the 5 recordings that earn the most votes in their categories become nominees — though in some specific categories, special committees define the nominee lists
5. Voting Members then fill out their ballots, voting in generals and in no more than 9 specific categories
6. votes are tallied by Deloitte
7. announcemen
wiki says “members are required to vote based upon quality alone, and not to be influenced by sales” etc
seems to me we need to get Trig et al into the NARAS universe, if he isn’t already, and to be one of the 150 experts — once entries get to Voting Members, the process is out of anyone’s particular hand
January 7, 2017 @ 10:31 am
When artists such as Blake start selling albums for 99 cents six weeks after they come out, they deserve a marketing award, not a Grammy…Sales volume is a very skewed number these days.
January 7, 2017 @ 10:52 am
Just to clarify, nobody is saying you should directly tie Grammy nominations to sales. However, sales is one of many ways to measure public sentiment, appeal, and impact. So even though you may not immediately give Luke Bryan a Grammy just because he has the most sales, you can point to how an artist literally has zero sales, and should probably not be qualified to receive a nomination.
Ultimately, it is all subjective. But there are way to take some objectivity to either qualify or disqualify certain projects from the start.
January 7, 2017 @ 11:05 am
Agree, the reality is grammy’s, sales, awards, blogs, are all just different people’s subjective opinion anyways.
January 6, 2017 @ 8:23 pm
Chorney’s album has liner notes. If you got the physical CD form her website. It was a throwback passion project. Never intended to be a commercial success.
Google Linda Chorney TEDx and it will give you a backseat on her ride. The Book so much more detail and fun, as I am sure the feature film will be.
“who the F$%# is Linda Chorney?” A Grammy Nominated Recording ARTIST! And a damed good one no matter the genre.
We need more independent discovery, it was a historic music moment.
January 6, 2017 @ 2:52 pm
I remember the Chorney controversy very well. What was so strange from my perspective as an active Americana/roots music fan is that one of the nominees was someone that I had never even heard of AT ALL. You couldn’t find a single mention of her on the No Depression website prior to the nomination. I checked. Meanwhile, someone like Austin Lucas, whose A New Home in the Old World was my favorite of 2011 (thanks, SCM), but who was pretty obscure even with respect to the No Depression crowd, was mentioned in a good number of entries on the site. And the thing is, if somehow Austin’s album got a nomination, I don’t think there would have been much of a controversy, because I’m confident that the album would have resonated with a good number of people if they sought the music out. They would have recognized him as part of their roots music world. I checked out most of the songs on Chorney’s album and thought they were OK, for the most part. Not all that rootsy, though. Adult contemporary classic rock sounding, I’d say.
I checked the ND 2011 favorite albums list to refresh my memory. Along with Isbell, albums by Dave Alvin, Zoe Muth and Eilen Jewell did quite well in the voting, finishing in the top 10 or very close to it. All national touring acts with a good amount of good will in the roots music community. I don’t believe Chorney was a national touring act. As far as I remember from reading interviews, she played mainly in the New York area and maybe some ski resorts out west. So yeah, there was definitely a feeling of “cutting the line.” And Trigger’s right. It was just a different type of name recognition that resulted in her getting the nomination.
January 7, 2017 @ 9:39 am
Just to continue a little…
I remember being disappointed that the Americana Grammy that year went to Levon. Now, I love Levon. I really do. However, he won that year for the album release of “Ramble at the Ryman.” It was a live performance first aired on PBS in 2009. I bought the DVD. It’s a great concert. But it wasn’t new music and it was a performance from a couple of years earlier. As I recall, it had some stuff from his two solo albums (both of which I love), some Band covers, and some other roots standards. I was rooting for Lucinda to win for Blessed, which I thought was a very strong effort after a couple of middling albums before that.
January 7, 2017 @ 10:53 am
Yes, good point. I wanted to broach this subject in the article but it was already getting too long. I think this was another case where the voters were voting for the name they knew as opposed to the project that name was on the front of.
January 6, 2017 @ 5:16 pm
The William Bell album is tremendous. It would be fantastic if he won a Grammy. His song “You Don’t Miss Your Water” from 1961 was the first great Southern soul single. There’s nothing more Americana than that.
January 6, 2017 @ 9:15 pm
Not that she needs me to stand up for her or anything, but I would just like to point out that the Roseanne Cash album in question, The River & The Thread, had a sold-out theatre tour to its credit, the first half of each show being the album played in its entirety. There were also a couple of singles off the record that received decent airplay on Americana stations. Also also, it was her first album after the comeback that was The List.
I think you’re a hell of a writer, Trigger, but this is roughly the same argument you’ll write an article decrying from Beyonce fans if Simpson somehow beats her for the Best Album Grammy…
January 7, 2017 @ 11:01 am
I meant no disrespect to Rosanne Cash’s “The River & The Thread” in my comments. The album received a glowing review here, and I think it deserved to win a Grammy, or even two. Did it deserve to win all three Grammy Awards in the Americana and American Roots categories? That seemed a little excessive, and I think you could make the case that the groundswell and impact of Sturgill’s “Metamodern Sounds” could or should have resulted in him winning Americana Album, which would still have left Rosanne Cash with two Grammy Awards for the effort.
But all of that is subjective. What I was attempting to illustrate is Rosanne Cash is a name mainstream country music insiders who vote on the Americana awards are going to be more familiar with, while names like Sturgill Simpson, or even Jason Isbell may not be ones they recognize. They probably recognize them now, but back then, these were no names outside of the Americana bubble, and that’s why they got overlooked, just like Margo Price and Parker Millsap got overlooked this year. That is why we need people whose perspective is within the Americana bubble to make sure these decisions are right.
August 20, 2017 @ 11:00 pm
You certainly meant disrespect to me. My album earned the nod, because members voted for it. It’s a damn good album. It was my 6th, and I’ve been touring for 30 years. So you can kiss my earned grammy nominated ass. And don’t forget to see the movie!
August 20, 2017 @ 11:40 pm
You left this comment 7 1/2 months after this article was published, and at 2 in the morning.
January 6, 2017 @ 9:40 pm
Really strange that Sierra Hull has a folk nomination. Didn’t she just win an IBMA award? I love her, but that is weird. Mmmm. I agree that these categories and noms need to be looked at.
January 7, 2017 @ 9:06 am
if you went to Berklee or Eastman, are you a “folk” musician? I’d say no. you’re actually a classical musician.
January 7, 2017 @ 9:19 am
I’d say you’re a classical musician if you play classical music.
January 7, 2017 @ 11:44 am
I’m not using classical to describe a genre. a folk musician is musically illiterate. a trained musician who takes folk music and turns it into art music is a classical musician.
January 8, 2017 @ 9:09 pm
Mmm- you bring up a good point. When I think folk I think Joan Baez and Dylan, for example. Not anyone Conservatory trained. Maybe they don’t know anout Sierra’s training, that she went to a Conservatory. Sierra is amazing, but I’m not digging these weird category changes 1 bit.
January 7, 2017 @ 10:18 am
Berklee is not a classical conservatory. It was founded as a jazz school, and gradually incorporated “popular” music styles into its curriculum.
January 7, 2017 @ 11:07 am
And they also now have a bluegrass department. Sierra Hull was discovered by Rounder Records—a bluegrass label—while performing at the International Bluegrass Music Association conference. She’s a bluegrass artist, and “Weighted Mind” is a bluegrass project.
I just think they have more bluegrass projects to nominate this year than they had slots, so they allowed them to spill over to folk. But how fair is that to pure folk musicians?
January 8, 2017 @ 11:48 am
an Aside from main topic…..Going to a University, or collegiate music school to learn how to play bluegrass is goofy.
This is not a good sign for bluegrass.
Same thing happened to jazz.
It went from the bar room, to classroom.
January 8, 2017 @ 9:14 pm
Again I love Sierra Hull, but I agree. What about Folk musicians? Or are they just getting sucked into Americana? And what about the fact that Bluegrass has strict rules about Bluegrass? And what does a folk grammy mean to someone who has trained in Bluegrass? Will this Grammy even mean anything to Bluegrass musicians?
January 16, 2017 @ 5:49 pm
Would “Weighted Mind” really be considered bluegrass? Her older albums definitely were, but it’s seems like kind of a stretch to call the new one bluegrass. I agree it’s probably not the best fit in the folk category either as it’s hard to classify in any specific genre. It deserves a nomination for sure, but I’m not sure what category would be the best. If it had been nominated in the bluegrass category, the bluegrass purists would probably be unhappy.
Also, it seems to me like the Sarah Jarosz album is actually a better fit in Folk than it would be in bluegrass. Jarosz has never really been very bluegrass, although her first three albums had a stronger influence from it. Undercurrent, as with Hull and Weighted Mind, is a bit of a departure from those albums.
January 16, 2017 @ 6:50 pm
I think the question you have to ask here is not just if Sarah Jarosz and and Sierra Hull could be considered folk. You have to consider the folk artists who did not get nominated because Sarah and Sierra did, and if it would have been more appropriate to nominate a more true folk record. Perhaps there wasn’t a record in 2016 that was better than these two selections. But I think it’s a fair question to ask given their backgrounds.
January 7, 2017 @ 6:14 am
It’s not just Americana. Why are David Bowie and Iggy Pop nominated in Best Alternative Rock Album while Panic! At The Disco and Weezer are up for best Rock Album? Why is Beyonce up for Best Rock Performance? These may all well be deserving nominees but the catgorization seems odd.
More generally I will say it is good to see that there are 11 Categories of American Roots and Country, while only 5 Categories in Rock/Alternative Rock meaning that theoretically up to 55 people can get recognition (obviously some artists may get more than one). In all I think a recognition that there is generally more/better art in this area so I’m glad we can actually have the (still worthwhile) debate on who goes in which categories. Lots of good nominees and lots of well deserved publicity for these people.
January 7, 2017 @ 8:45 am
One thing to keep in mind is that artists/labels choose where to enter songs/albums. So Bowie’s label chose alternate while weezer chose rock (and yes they do try to use strategy for where they’re likely to get noms).
BeyoncĂ©’s rock song features an established rock artist (though it’s still caused controversy). If she’d included Dixie Chicks on her daddy’s lesson Grammy submission I’d think the country comt would have approved it (so count your blessings).
January 7, 2017 @ 7:53 am
Seems like when Grammys get it right it’s really great. Johnny Cash winning for Hurt as an example. But there are entire years where it’s a head scratching mess, like right now. Remember when Jethro Tull won for best Heavy Metal album ?! Yeah, I fear it’s gonna be one of those years again. Good comments all, I agree with most.
January 7, 2017 @ 8:50 am
Well it’s not just the Grammy’s, the Oscars also have some serious oversights Ford Francis Coppola losing best director for Godfather I – though they did get to correct this for Godfather II, Dances With Wolves over Goodfellas? Forrest Gump over either of Shawshank Redemption or Pulp Fiction?. never awarding an Oscar to Stanley Kubrick for any of Dr Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange or Barry Lyndon not any Oscar to Alfred Hitchkock.
You can’t win the all and in some cases I see the point – i.e I can disagree with but respect The French Connection over A Clockwork Orange, but Oliver! over 2001? Elie Kazan for On The Waterfront over Rear Window – OK – but Best Director for The Apartment over Psycho?
January 7, 2017 @ 11:18 am
But I think all of these movies you list are still really stellar flicks. Nobody is going to argue that “Forrest Gump” isn’t a great movie that should at least be in the conversation for “Best Picture.” It just happened to be a stacked year and someone had to get screwed. Sometimes that happens and it’s understandable. What’s not understandable is when you have a low-budget movie of questionable quality that literally didn’t sell a single ticket knocking “Shawshank Redemption” completely out of the nomination process just because someone ran a name recognition campaign directly to voters. That would be the equivalent of what Linda Chorney did. Or if “Shawshank Redemption” wasn’t nominated at all, when happened with Isbell’s “Southeastern.”
January 7, 2017 @ 8:35 pm
Trigger, let me correct you on the Time Jumpers record. It is not a cover record. Yes, there are a couple covers on there, but there is more original material than covers
January 8, 2017 @ 2:36 pm
Also I think Grammy voters need to be required to listen to the music they are voting just as Academy voters should have to watch all the films they vote. I mean it seem pretty basic yet THEY DO NOT do this! What the?! How can you vote on something you have not seen or heard that to me is just bloody stupid. Which then of course means you need people listening who have the chops and understand the genre they are voting on.
I AM SURE Americana and country are not the only genres getting screwed over. Hip-hop probably is just as bad with recognizing the new and the good over names and trying to sell their brands.
But as you know this is not new. Jethro Tull winning that Heavy Metal award over Metallic is probably the greatest travesty.
But I am surprised the did not nominate Sturgiill for best new artist or Margo Price for that matter. LOL! So often the best new artist category is filled people who have one or two albums behind or have been working the trenches for years them just not on major labels.
January 9, 2017 @ 4:31 pm
When the nominees were announced I got the impression that the Kristofferson inclusion was something of a sympathy/legacy vote. The man’s getting up there in years, he’s had some health troubles recently and The Cedar Creek Sessions was a set of his most famous and timeless musical contributions. It seemed to me like the Recording Academy saw this as a chance to honor his whole career. On the other hand, they DID give him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, so that assessment may not be the most prescient. But aside from a vote that leans more on Kristofferson’s past accomplishments than the actual album, I can’t square why it would be included. Not that it was bad — I give it a solid 8/10. A fun listen through and through, but not at all essential. And that, it would seem, is the problem.