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      Best and Worst Moments From the 2022 Grammys

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      Young artists brought dramatic performances, Doja Cat had an emotional moment at the microphone and Volodymyr Zelensky recorded a serious plea from Ukraine.The 64th annual Grammy Awards promised a return to (relative) normalcy following a scaled-down 2021 ceremony that largely took place outdoors. In Las Vegas for the first time, and with the pop spectacle dialed back up, the show’s most impactful moments were often its least flashy: a sober plea for help from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine; Doja Cat’s teary moment at the microphone; performances on rooftops that put a spotlight on a different crop of artists. (High-octane live moments from Billie Eilish and H.E.R. made a big impact, too.) Here are the show’s highlights and lowlights as we saw them.Best First-Love Kiss-Offs: Olivia Rodrigo and Billie EilishOlivia Rodrigo sang her hit “Drivers License.”Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTwo spot on performances that were too raw to feel petty, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” and Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever” — a couple of last year’s most potent and dramatic breakup songs — injected some much-needed feeling into the first half of the show. (Condolences to the young men these songs were allegedly written about.) Although the ceremony, as usual, couldn’t quite decide on its target demographic, it was the youth — these young women, especially — who carried the mantle of relevance, but also of performance, with strong enough live vocals for any pop skeptics among the CBS faithful.Rodrigo failed to go full Eilish 2020, winning only one of her nominations in the Big Four categories, best new artist, plus best pop vocal album and best pop solo performance. But hopefully the long shots of her during Eilish’s onstage rock explosion were more about their songs’ emotional kinship than trying to force a fake rivalry. Rodrigo, 19, and Eilish, 20, should probably get used to this stage; the Grammys are beyond lucky to have them both. JOE COSCARELLIBest Reality Check: Transmission From UkraineIn a recorded segment, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, gave an emotional plea for support in his country’s war against Russia.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Oscars had a moment of silence for Ukraine; the Grammys had a videotaped speech from Volodymyr Zelensky, the country’s president, who did not mince his words. “The war. What is more opposite to music? The silence of ruined cities and killed people,” he began. It is impossible to balance the indulgence of an awards show with the horrors of war, but Zelensky was strategic, calling on pop for its ability to transmit information: “Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today to tell our story,” he urged. John Legend followed him with a hymnlike new song, “Free,” joined by a poet, Lyuba Yakimchuk, a singer, Mika Newton, and a bandura (zither) player, Siuzanna Iglidan, from Ukraine. It was a heartfelt, dignified gesture. JON PARELESMost Humanizing Bathroom Break: Doja CatSZA and Doja Cat shared a moment at the microphone accepting best pop duo/group performance.Rich Fury/Getty ImagesFor an evening otherwise light on genuine chaos, Doja Cat and SZA’s win for best pop duo/group performance was a welcome jolt of messiness. First, a lone SZA slowly hobbled up to the stage on crutches (“I fell out of bed before I came here,” she explained later) before spotting Doja hustling up to the stage and saying, “Girl, you went to the bathroom for like five minutes, are you serious?” Doja seemed rattled and winded enough that the story checked out, and as she ascended the stage to accept her first Grammy, she told the world, “I have never taken such a fast piss in my whole life,” with the comic timing of a seasoned stand-up. After collecting herself and smoothing out her dress, though, pop’s favorite troll suddenly got uncharacteristically emotional. “I like to downplay a lot of [expletive],” she said through tears, “but this is a big deal.” For an artist who often revels in fantasy, irony and otherworldly artifice, it was an endearingly down-to-earth moment. LINDSAY ZOLADZWorst Handling of the Most Popular Genre: Rap’s Spotty Presence (Again)Nas looked back at some of his classics in a Grammys performance.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressNas, who is 48, nodded at his classics: “I Can,” “Made You Look,” “One Mic” — sure. Baby Keem, Kendrick Lamar’s cousin and protégé, won an award for a pretty weird song — cool. Jack Harlow rapped well and censored himself artfully during his “Industry Baby” verse with Lil Nas X — OK, nice. Still, rap couldn’t help but feel like an afterthought at the ceremony, despite having separated itself over and over as the lifeblood of the music industry in the streaming era. Few of the genre’s rising stars, or their heroes, were present, let alone featured, while rock was referenced repeatedly. The winner of two rap awards in the preshow, Kanye West’s absence, necessary as it may have been, was glaring. And even a gesture that could generously be seen as inclusionary — dubbing Virgil Abloh, the artistic director of Louis Vuitton men’s wear who died last year, a “Hip Hop Fashion Designer” — was widely received online as dismissive or minimizing. The distrust runs deep, and the healing has yet to begin. COSCARELLIRead More on the 2022 Grammy AwardsThe Irresistible Jon Batiste: The jazz pianist is an inheritor more than an innovator, but he puts the past to use in service of fun.A Controversial Award: Some people questioned the decision to bestow the Grammy for best comedy album to Louis C.K., who has admitted to sexual misconduct.Old, but New: Despite nods to Gen Z, this year’s show favored history-minded performers like Silk Sonic, H.E.R. and Lady Gaga.The Fashion: An exuberant anything-goes attitude was a reminder of why red carpets are fun in the first place.Zelensky’s Speech: Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, addressed the audience in a prerecorded video. Here’s what he said.Best Carnivalesque Spirit: Jon Batiste and Lil Nas XLil Nas X played with reactions to his music in a medley that also featured Jack Harlow.Rich Fury/Getty Images For The Recording AcademyNot every Grammy spectacle works out for the best. But two over-the-top song-and-dance numbers this year made their points both visually and musically. Instead of trying to mimic the CGI extravaganza of his video for “Montero (Call Me by Your Name),” Lil Nas X — a social media mastermind — flashed internet reactions to it, surrounded himself with menacing, black-clad drummers, then went bare-midriff to dance in front of a gleaming bust of his own head, big enough for a carnival float. He and the ensemble switched to glittery marching-band uniforms for his duet with Jack Harlow, “Industry Baby” — a high-kicking, cheerleading victory parade.Jon Batiste brought the candy-colored palette and long-limbed, high-stepping moves of his “Freedom” video to the Grammy stage, but in real time and even more delirious, surrounding himself with dancers of wildly assorted shapes, sizes and cultural signifiers. Batiste was by turns a piano virtuoso, a vaudevillian, a preacher and an instigator; he led his forces into the audience and danced his way onto Billie Eilish’s table, where she enthusiastically joined him in singing “Freedom!” PARELESWorst Overcorrection: Trevor Noah’s Anti-Oscar NicetiesThe host Trevor Noah worked hard to keep the tone of the banter light.Rich Fury/Getty Images For The Recording AcademyLast week’s Oscars left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths, and even before The Slap Heard Round the World, there was already some chatter that the show’s jokes at the expense of nominees had been a little too acidic. In light of all the controversy, it wasn’t surprising the Grammys wanted to present themselves as a kind of anti-Oscars, and the host Trevor Noah wasted no time, proclaiming in his opening monologue, “We’re going to be dancing, we’re going to be singing, we’re going to be keeping people’s names out of our mouths” — about as polite a reference to Will Smith’s Oscars outburst as a person could muster. But as the show went on, Noah’s bland, gee-whiz tone felt more and more like an unfortunate overcorrection, blunting the edges of his jokes such that they hardly had an impact at all. In introducing Jared Leto, Noah even breezed right by the lowest hanging fruit in the 2022 joke book: Making fun of the accents in “House of Gucci”! No one was asking him to take meanspirited swipes, but a well-placed zinger here or there would have given the show some needed spice. ZOLADZBest Moment for the Stans: BTS’s V Flirts With Olivia RodrigoOlivia Rodrigo with V of BTS.Emma Mcintyre/Getty Images For The Recording AcademySometimes the Grammys give us rare moments of wonder that could only be dreamed up in the universe of fan fiction. Consider the opening of BTS’s “Butter” performance: As the James Bond-themed presentation started, the camera panned to BTS’s V (Kim Taehyung) and Olivia Rodrigo, where the pair were seated next to each other in the audience, chatting. For a whole 18 seconds, V leaned over and whispered what we can only assume were sweet nothings into Rodrigo’s ear. Jaws dropped; eyelashes batted. It was perhaps the most flirty moment in BTS history. I ship it. ISABELIA HERRERAMost Refreshing Comeback: Big, Bold FashionMegan Thee Stallion on the red carpet.Maria Alejandra Cardona/ReutersMaybe it was the move to Las Vegas, maybe it was the pent-up desire to dress up after two years of distanced and/or postponed awards, but the Grammys red carpet was alight with over-the-top, exuberant fashion. Megan Thee Stallion seemed to be channeling an entire big cat enclosure in her one-shouldered, slit-to-the-waist Cavalli; Lil Nas X, a sci-fi warrior angel in pearl-encrusted Balmain; and St. Vincent, the most extravagant boudoir in organza ruffled Gucci. Even Lady Gaga, whose entrance look was awfully classic silver screen elegance, changed into a mint green satin strapless number to perform — with possibly the biggest bow in existence on her behind. Meanwhile, the best bling wasn’t just bling for bling’s sake: It was bling with meaning. Jon Batiste set the tone with a silver, gold and black harlequin sequin suit whose colors were an ode to his hometown New Orleans, and Brandi Carlile said her “40-pound” bejeweled Boss tux was a homage to Elton John. Though in the end, one of the most striking outfits of the whole night was the least fancy: Billie Eilish, performing in a shirt featuring Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters drummer who died in late March. It was a fashion statement of the most effective kind. VANESSA FRIEDMANWorst Arrangement: Justin Bieber’s ‘Peaches’Justin Bieber began his performances of “Peaches” with an extended riff at the piano.Rich Fury/Getty ImagesI’m not even mad at the pants. But a staid and silly extended piano intro, a sloppy pseudo-jam session and shoddy bleeping undermined Justin Bieber’s “Peaches” performance — and his ongoing quest to be considered a serious R&B singer. On a night where Silk Sonic and Jon Batiste cleaned up with studied professionalism, the junior varsity-ness of Bieber and company’s showing didn’t feel subversive, it just fell flat. COSCARELLIBest Sidelined Performances: The Preshow and the RoofMon Laferte shone in a performance on the preshow ceremony.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty ImagesDoubtless with an eye on the show’s weak ratings, the Grammys — which used to make time for performances of jazz, classical music and other not-so-commercial genres — have focused in recent times on hits, even as its 80-plus categories recognize niches galore. But there are still music lovers alongside the Grammy metrics team, and the internet is their safe space and consolation prize. The pre-prime-time awards, where nearly all the categories get handed out in a brisk web-only ceremony, regularly feature superb performances and this year was no exception: Alison Russell recasting her “Nightflyer” as passionate string-band chamber music, Ledisi presenting a regally tormented version — in French, then English — of “Ne Me Quitte Pas,” Jimmie Allen suffusing country with filial pride in “Down Home” and Mon Laferte working herself up to gale-force fury in “La Mujer.” The prime-time show also allowed itself glimmers of music from beyond the pop charts, sandwiching some ads with snippets of outdoor performances as exuberant as anything on the main stage: salsa from the Cuban singer Aymee Nuviola, worship music from Maverick City Music and labyrinthine progressive bluegrass from Billy Strings. Sooner or later, the show promised, they’ll be on the Grammy website. PARELESBest Theater Kid Energy: Lady GagaLady Gaga delivered big gestures and bigger notes in a performance of songs from her album with Tony Bennett.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersIt’s no secret that the Grammys have been having trouble booking A-listers these past few years, so when you can guarantee a household name like Lady Gaga, you better give her the best seat in the house and keep a camera on her all night. Gaga seemed eager as ever to hold court, posing for pics with BTS, rocking out to the Brothers Osborne, and even holding SZA’s train to help her get onstage without tripping over her crutches. But her most memorable moment had to be her gloriously theatrical and somehow-also-touching tribute to her ailing duet partner Tony Bennett. Vamping her way through jazzy renditions of “Love for Sale” and “Do I Love You,” Gaga once again proved she has the range and (with apologies to an impressive Rachel Zegler) somehow out-theater-kidded the show’s Sondheim tribute. ZOLADZBest Arm Choreography: J BalvinJ Balvin’s tightly choreographed number was a highlight.Rich Fury/Getty ImagesJ Balvin isn’t known for his vocal presence. So it was surprising that the Colombian star chose to open his Grammys performance with “Qué Más Pues?,” his lukewarm pop-reggaeton collaboration with the Argentine singer Maria Becerra. José always has something up his sleeve, though: After a minute and a half duet with Becerra, the lights came down and Balvin ascended a lighted staircase in an all-crimson ensemble, flanked by masked, seated dancers in neon bleachers. As he started up his Skrillex-produced EDM jaunt “In da Getto,” the dancers, illuminated by an electric blue glow, broke out coordinated arm choreography. The movements were tight, jagged and slick: think synchronized swimming, but edgier and with less water. Both well-conceived and executed, it was a refreshing reprieve from the cartoonish visuals and leopard-print buzz-cuts Balvin is known for. HERRERABest Young Awards Show Staple: H.E.R.H.E.R., Travis Barker and Lenny Kravitz teamed up for a performance of “Are You Gonna Go My Way.”Rich Fury/Getty Images For The Recording AcademyThe 24-year-old songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist H.E.R. (Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson) has found a regular place at awards shows. That’s good, because she always has something to say, with both a message in her lyrics and a musicianly presence. She flaunts her skills as a singer and player, her combination of historical knowledge and up-to-the-minute awareness. Her latest Grammys appearance was typically informed and flamboyant. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis — from the Time and from Janet Jackson albums — flanked her on keytar and bass as she sang “Damage,” a song about being taken for granted. Then H.E.R. moved on to a drum kit, slamming out cross-rhythms, before shifting to what used to be called a Grammy Moment: a younger musician joining in on an oldie. This year, she stepped up alongside Lenny Kravitz for his 1993 hit, “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” both singing and strapping on a guitar, presenting herself not as a disciple but an equal. PARELESWorst Argument That Cancel Culture Is Real: Louis C.K. Winning Best Comedy AlbumGrammy voters could choose among six nominees in the best comedy album category, including Chelsea Handler, Lewis Black and Nate Bargatze, but somehow enough of them voted for the guy who admitted to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. I wish I had a joke for that, but it’s just depressing. ZOLADZ More

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      Louis C.K.’s Grammy Victory Leads to Backlash

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      Some comedians are questioning how the Recording Academy saw fit to bestow an award to someone who had admitted to sexual misconduct.“How was your last couple years?” the comedian Louis C.K. says to the audience on the first track to his album “Sincerely Louis CK.” “How was 2018 and 2019 for you guys? Anybody else get in global amounts of trouble?”Louis C.K. did, after he admitted, in 2017, to masturbating in front of women. Several said in interviews that he had done so without their consent; in a statement acknowledging the incidents, he claimed he had always asked first, but later realized that was insufficient since there were power differentials at play. For a short time he disappeared from public view, as a movie he directed and starred in was shelved and other deals dissolved in the early days of the #MeToo movement.But Louis C.K. returned to stand-up, first at comedy clubs and then at bigger venues, which often sold out. And on Sunday night he received a sign of support from the entertainment industry: “Sincerely Louis CK” — his first album since the scandal — won the Grammy for best comedy album.The album opens with the chants and wild applause of an audience.The response to his Grammy was less joyous. As his name trended on Twitter, many comedians, comedy fans and others wondered how the Recording Academy saw fit to bestow an award to someone with an admitted history of sexual misconduct.“Every woman who has been harassed and abused in the comedy business, I hear you and see you and I am so, so angry,” the podcast host Jesse Thorn, who interviews comedians, wrote, followed by several expletives.Female comics shared their own responses. Jen Kirkman posted a segment from her latest album, “OK, Gen-X,” in which she recounts her own encounter with Louis C.K. She had avoided talking about in detail previously, she explained in the bit, because of negative and threatening blowback. “I’ll forward you the rape threats I get after this,” she said.On Sunday, Kirkman reposted some messages from supporters of Louis C.K. who responded to her, often hatefully and in terms that diminished the experiences of assault survivors.The Australian performer Felicity Ward offered a lengthy list of mostly female comics “who’ve never sexually assaulted anyone. Follow, see, buy their stuff.”And the comedian Mona Shaikh wrote in The Hollywood Reporter that the award sent a troubling message. “The comedy establishment sends a dog whistle to sexual predators, forgiving their abusive actions as long as they offer a superficial apology (often drafted by their publicists) and go underground for a year or so,” she wrote. “After that, they can emerge and revive their careers.”Last fall, after the nomination of Louis C.K. and others like Marilyn Manson — who is facing an investigation over multiple sexual assault allegations — drew public ire, Harvey Mason Jr., the chief executive of the Recording Academy, defended the right to nominate anybody as long as they met the organization’s eligibility rules.“We won’t look back at people’s history, we won’t look at their criminal record, we won’t look at anything other than the legality within our rules of, is this recording for this work eligible based on date and other criteria,” he told the trade publication The Wrap. (Marilyn Manson was later removed from the nominations list as a songwriter on Kanye West’s track “Jail,” but remained eligible as one of West’s collaborators on “Donda,” which was up for album of the year.)Rather than weighing in on who could be nominated, Mason said the Grammys would instead draw a line around who was invited to the ceremony, held this year in Las Vegas. The comedy award was one of dozens presented in a ceremony that was held before the prime-time broadcast and was shown online only. Louis C.K. did not attend. Representatives for the Recording Academy did not return requests for comment.On the album, amid bits about religion, aging and sex, Louis C.K. addresses his misconduct a few times, mostly jokingly. “Man, I was in a lot of trouble,” he says in the opening. “Wait till they see those pictures of me in blackface. That’s going to make it a lot worse. Because there’s a lot of those, there’s thousands of pictures of me in blackface. I can’t stop doing it. I just — I like it. I like how it feels.”This trophy is the third Grammy for Louis C.K. in the comedy album category.The Recording Academy does not release details of how its more than 11,000 eligible members vote. Members are limited in the number of categories they may cast a vote in, as the academy tries to encourage them to vote in their various areas of expertise. The nominations process was tweaked for this year’s awards after complaints of secret agendas and uneven playing fields, and boycotts by major artists like the Weeknd.In recent years, the Recording Academy has also been roiled by accusations that it did not include or acknowledge enough women or people of color, and the organization has pledged to do better. But a report last month from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California found that the number of women credited on pop songs has remained largely unchanged for a decade, and that a Grammy-led effort to hire more female producers and engineers did almost nothing.The comedy category has changed names and focus somewhat over the years as recorded comedy shifted from musical numbers to spoken word. Bill Cosby won the prize a record seven times; in 2012, one of his albums was also named to a Grammys Hall of Fame. In the 64-year history of the Grammys, women have been nominated more than 40 times for comedy but only five have won awards outright: Elaine May (as part of a duo with Mike Nichols); Lily Tomlin; Whoopi Goldberg; Kathy Griffin; and, in 2021, Tiffany Haddish. More

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      Roland White, a Shaper of Bluegrass and Country-Rock, Dies at 83

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      A mandolin player and singer, he made his mark with the Country Boys (later renamed the Kentucky Colonels), and his influence extended into the rock of the ’60s.NASHVILLE — Roland White, a mandolin player and singer who helped shape major developments in bluegrass and country-rock over a seven-decade career, died here on Friday. He was 83.His death, in a hospital after a recent heart attack, was confirmed by his wife, Diane Bouska.Mr. White was admired for his rich tone and rhythmic imagination as a mandolinist, as well as for his warm, expressive vocals, which were equally suited to the lead and harmony parts in an arrangement. His openness to ideas and approaches outside the bounds of traditional bluegrass was also among the hallmarks of his music.He first made his mark in the late 1950s with the Country Boys (later renamed the Kentucky Colonels), the West Coast bluegrass band that originally included his younger brothers Eric and Clarence on tenor banjo and guitar. Inspired by the virtuoso flatpicker Doc Watson, Clarence reimagined the role of the guitar in bluegrass, transforming it from a strictly rhythmic vehicle to a more expansive instrument on which lead and rhythm could be played simultaneously.“Appalachian Swing!,” the Kentucky Colonels’ all-instrumental album from 1964, was among the most influential bluegrass collections of the 1960s. In terms of repertoire and technique, the record — which, along with Roland and Clarence White, featured Billy Ray Latham on banjo, Roger Bush on bass, Bobby Slone on fiddle and LeRoy Mack on dobro — was a touchstone for the musically adventurous bands of the 1970s and beyond whose music came to be known as “newgrass.”The album’s reach extended to country-rock bands like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, who incorporated bluegrass instrumentation and sensibilities into their music. The album’s enduring relevance is also due in large part to Mr. White’s innovative mandolin work, as well as to his leadership with the project.“I don’t think it was my playing that had so much influence as just the fact that I was playing in the style and pulled things together for us to play, learn and be a band,” Mr. White said in a 2010 interview with the website Mandolin Cafe.“I didn’t show anybody what to play on their instrument, and really nobody else did, either,” he added. “Bits of things might have been shown to us by someone here and there, but almost all of it was by ear and observing.”Despite the band’s impact on West Coast folk and bluegrass, the Kentucky Colonels struggled to gain a foothold commercially amid the increasingly rock-dominated West Coast music scene of the 1960s.The group disbanded in 1966, with Mr. White moving to Nashville and, in 1967, becoming the lead singer and guitarist for Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, with whom he made recordings like “Sally Goodin” and “Walls of Time.” (His brother Clarence found work as a studio musician and later joined the Byrds as lead guitarist.)After about two years with Mr. Monroe, Mr. White took a job as mandolinist with the Nashville Grass, the band of another bluegrass patriarch, Lester Flatt.Mr. White around 2000. He began his career in the 1950s playing country music at dances and other social functions with his siblings.Stephen A. Ide/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesMr. White remained with Mr. Flatt until 1973, when he and his brothers reunited to form the New Kentucky Colonels with the banjo player and singer Herb Pedersen. The reunion ended tragically when Clarence White was killed by a drunken driver while loading equipment outside a club in Palmdale, Calif.Roland Joseph LeBlanc was born on April 23, 1938, in Madawaska, Maine, the first of five children of Eric and Mildred Cyr LeBlanc. His father, a carpenter, played guitar, tenor banjo and harmonica; his mother was a homemaker. Of French Canadian descent — young Roland spoke French at home until he was in the second grade — Mr. White’s father stopped using the original family name in favor of its anglicized equivalent, White, sometime after Roland was born.The family moved to Southern California in 1954, and the three brothers, with their sister Joanne occasionally joining them on bass, began playing country music at dances and other social functions. They moved to Burbank in 1957; shortly after that, the brothers won a talent contest sponsored by the Pasadena radio station KXLA.They also attracted the attention of the guitarist Joe Maphis, who helped get them bookings on “Town Hall Party” and other musical variety shows of the day.By this time a quintet, the group appeared on the sitcom “The Andy Griffith Show” shortly before Mr. White was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961. They recorded their first album, “The New Sound of Bluegrass America,” in 1962, at which point they changed their name to the Kentucky Colonels at the suggestion of the guitarist Merle Travis. (Mr. White was still stationed in Germany at this point; his brother Eric had previously left the group to get married.)After his brother Clarence’s death in 1973, Mr. White joined the Country Gazette, a musically omnivorous Los Angeles-based bluegrass band that also included Mr. Pedersen, the fiddler Byron Berline and the banjoist Alan Munde. Mr. White toured and recorded with the group while also releasing an acclaimed solo album, “I Wasn’t Born to Rock’n Roll,” in 1976.He left the Country Gazette in 1987 to join the Nashville Bluegrass Band, with whom he recorded Grammy-winning albums in 1993 and 1995. In 2000, he formed the Roland White Band; the group’s debut album, “Jelly on My Tofu,” was nominated for a Grammy.A prolific mandolin teacher, Mr. White published numerous instructional books and videos with Ms. Bouska, who, in addition to singing and playing guitar in the Roland White Band, was a co-producer of their records.Mr. White was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Hall of Fame in 2018. The Kentucky Colonels received the same honor a year later.In addition to Ms. Bouska, he is survived by a daughter, Roline Hodge, and a son, Lawrence LeBlanc, both from a previous marriage; two grandchildren; a great-granddaughter; and a sister, Rose Marie Johnson.As influential as the album “Appalachian Swing!” proved to be, of equal impact on the West Coast folk scene of the 1960s were the club dates that Mr. White and the Kentucky Colonels played at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles.The Byrds were particularly impressed, adapting the bluegrass instrumentation and technique they gleaned from those shows — they even enlisted Clarence White to play guitar on landmark albums like “Younger Than Yesterday” (1967) and “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” (1968).“Playing the Ash Grove opened the way for us to play to a totally new audience — a folk audience that we had known nothing about,” Mr. White said in an interview with the website The Bluegrass Situation. “They dressed differently from the country-western audience (they were college students, professors, beatniks, doctors and lawyers) and they paid close attention to the music.” More

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      The 2022 Grammys: Let’s Discuss

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherWhat exactly are the Grammys, at this point? A ceremony that honors the best in popular music? Sometimes, but not often. A concert that explores the connections between generations of styles and songs? On a good day, maybe. A party thrown by the stars and behind-the-scenes movers of yesteryear that young stars aren’t quite sure if they want to be invited to, or embraced by? Yes, that’s it.Which means that this year, like every year, the Grammy Awards put on display the tensions between a Recording Academy that insists it is open-eared to young performers while largely bestowing awards on those who hew to old-fashioned ideas of musicianship and songcraft.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the usefulness of the Grammy Awards, and the musicians — Silk Sonic, H.E.R., Billie Eilish — who manage to thrive in the middle of the ceremony’s spiritual tug of war.Guests:Jon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticWesley Morris, The New York Times’s critic at largeLindsay Zoladz, who writes about pop music for The New York TimesConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      The Psychic Contortions of the Black Billionaire

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      Listen to This ArticleAudio Recording by AudmTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.The story is so good it hurts to hear. In an era of stupefying inequality, one of the most famous members of the upper class is a former drug dealer from a notorious public-housing project. He switched the product and rode CD sales to a new ZIP code. He went from nobody to somebody to a fixture in public consciousness who hangs out with a former president. If you’ve been rapping along with Jay-Z since “Reasonable Doubt,” or maybe even his feature on the early Jaz-O single “Hawaiian Sophie,” you’d be forgiven for seeing that star scream across the sky and thinking his song was right: There’s nothing you can’t do.But when the force of his flow isn’t in your ears, what he did seems impossible once again. He is not just rich; he is, according to Forbes, a billionaire. Rappers aren’t supposed to make that much money. For starters, part of the job is knowing how to spend it, and Jay-Z has done plenty of that. But also, rappers, like athletes, tend to have short careers — the genre reinvents itself too quickly for elder statesmen to hang on. And it is a cutthroat business. Get rich or die trying is the injunction for this heady mix of the mostly male, mostly Black, cocksure young musicians rehearsing punch lines in the nation’s ghettos, where making it very well might be a matter of survival. It is a dreamer’s music, by necessity. But more than four decades into the genre’s reign, there are levels now. Some artists get paid. Others acquire capital.This is an uncomfortable situation. According to a recent survey conducted by the Federal Reserve, the median family wealth for Black households is $24,100. (The median white household has nearly eight times that.) Somewhere in that data set are eight Black American billionaires, at least according to the Forbes list. Whether your politics lead you to believe that these eight are inspirations or a problem, the last several centuries of history might lead you to ask how it is even possible they exist. Four of them — Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z, Tyler Perry and Kanye West — made their names as entertainers. (There’s also Rihanna, who is a resident of the U.S. but not a citizen.) Rapper, as an occupation, appears more frequently on this short list than an Ivy League education does.Photo illustration by Ryan HaskinsIt is a strange fact of this country’s economic system that the most common way for Black people to become obscenely wealthy is to first become obscenely famous. Among other things, this means that much of their net worth is tied to the value of their public personas in ways that do not hold true for other billionaires. Whatever you think of Stephen A. Schwarzman, Miriam Adelson or even Bill Gates, their wealth is untethered to their Q Scores. Of course there are outliers. Elon Musk does relish playing to the crowd as the enfant terrible of auto manufacturing, generating an insulating admiration from his fans, but Kanye and Jay-Z are truly in a bind.For as long as it has existed, rap was, or was supposed to be, the crafted but splenetic outpouring of the dispossessed. At the same time, it has been about a life that most of its listeners cannot lead, but it held on, however tenuously, to its lower-class roots. Jay-Z always rapped as if he had the planet in his palm, even when it was really just a few blocks in Brooklyn. Over the years, he really did gain the whole world. And now a globally popular form of working-class youth music has, as its most powerful representatives, a pair of billionaires in their 40s and 50s. It has not been an easy balance to strike.Entertainers occupy a curious position where the lines between worker and owner sometimes blur. Rappers are signed to labels and then often open their own. Some of these labels collapse, often in a wave of recriminations about shady business practices. The contracts can control artists’ entire output, leaving them almost entirely dependent on the label to actually make something of their labor. Maximize revenue, cut labor costs. That, more than all the drug dealing said to take place, is the business world that produces many of these rappers. And they have, as often as not, leaned into this ethos. When they promise you that they’re reciting what they know, it is not really a reference to some social truth ripped from the depths of poor, Black neighborhoods. What they know is capital: What it is to have none, what it is to get a taste, what it takes to try to make peace with winding up on the other side of that divide.From the beginning, Jay-Z was a businessman. His debut album was released on the auspiciously named Roc-A-Fella Records, which he founded with two friends, Kareem Burke and Damon Dash. It made sense to have a piece of the action, because he helped popularize Mafioso rap, which took the bleak air of street-corner hustling and gave it the baroque mystique of gangster films. If there had not been a Black James Cagney or Francis Ford Coppola, there was at least a Shawn Carter. But the business world is brutal, inside and outside the law.At its peak in the ’00s, Roc-A-Fella featured a stacked cast: Just Blaze on production; the Philadelphia icons Beanie Sigel, Peedi Crakk and Freeway; the sprawling Dipset crew in Harlem; a young producer from Chicago named Kanye West. When Cam’ron appeared on the show “Rap City” in an oversize pink T-shirt, counting off a large pile of bills while freestyling that he’d “seen all islands, Cayman to Rikers,” it seemed unfathomable that the Roc era would ever end. But in a few years, Def Jam bought out the label’s founding partners and appointed Jay as the umbrella corporation’s president. Fights over shelved albums, loyalty, blocked promotions and due credit broke up what had looked like a street family.This led to a peculiar situation in which boardroom drama spilled out in the form of diss tracks by Def Jam artists aimed at their employer’s lead executive. Roc-A-Fella eventually folded. But still, to this day, Jay-Z owes much of his image as a business magnate to the dynastic sheen his labelmates gave “the Roc,” not to mention the marketers, graphic designers and interns that made them icons of New York street swagger.Jay diversified his portfolio in the years after that. He has a stake in Oatly, two separate highly valued liquor companies — Armand de Brignac Champagne and D’Ussé Cognac — several homes, the streaming platform Tidal, a club near Madison Square and an expansive art collection. If on his debut he spoke a little beyond his means when he said he was “well connected,” he has made it true. It is hard to think of a door he cannot open. Even as he has outgrown what made him Jay-Z, that project remains central to his business. He is the best rapper alive, the entrepreneur who made it out of the projects, the kingpin. The albums remind you why the Cognac is worth so much money.‘What’s better than one billionaire? Two. Especially if they from the same hue as you.’This situation is not unique. In the entertainment world, people must become corporations if they want to become truly wealthy. High-profile singers, athletes, actors and so on often make their real money from endorsement deals rather than their day jobs. What separates the billionaires from their peers is that they turned endorsements into equity. Michael Jordan gets a percentage of Nike’s Jordan brand revenue. Kanye, who owns the Yeezy brand outright, has major deals with Adidas and Gap. Winfrey and Perry have sprawling media concerns. Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty is a subsidiary of the LVMH luxury conglomerate.Many of these businesses could keep running without their famed figureheads, but the sheen would dissipate somewhat. Dell does not sell its computers by trading on the fact that it and its founder share a name. But without Kanye’s imprimatur, it’s hard to imagine Yeezy’s moon-boot look becoming a default sneaker silhouette. Fenty, by contrast, seems to have capitalized on a real gap in the market by broadening the available shades for foundation and concealer. Still, the entertainer-billionaire is as much the product as the shoe or concealer up for sale. From the outside looking in, this seems like a shaky foundation for a fortune so vast. Stars lose their luster all the time. It’s part of their appeal.On “The Story of O.J.,” from his latest album, “4:44,” Jay-Z raps about the psychic drama of successful Black Americans. In the animated video, his character tells his therapist that he failed to invest in Dumbo real estate early and missed out on a 1,250 percent return. Later he explains that art he bought for $1 million appreciated in value and is now worth 8. The song weaves back and forth between an examination of racial stereotypes and a guidebook to gaining freedom through asset ownership.You could hear Jay-Z, over time, growing more comfortable with his newfound status. On “The Black Album,” he rapped, “I can’t help the poor if I’m one of them, so I got rich and gave back, to me that’s the win-win.” It’s a defensive sentiment. The poor do help one another; there is often no other choice. That song is called “Moment of Clarity” — but nothing seems very clear at all. All the old signifiers, the ones linking public prominence and political progress, are slipping. They have to be reasserted from the top down. “What’s better than one billionaire? Two. Especially if they from the same hue as you,” Jay-Z rhymed on “4:44.” The ghetto’s music is starting to sound like prosperity gospel. Rap is relatable because the fan embodies the rapper. The “you” is rarely the listener, rather an invitation to adopt a new “I.” That “I” might get high, duck, dive, sling, get shot at and shoot back. But who is this “I” who accumulates such an immense sum of money, he starts to see things from the other side while insisting we’re still the same? The hue tells me nothing about what you’ve become.For once, through drive and circumstance, a few Black artists actually stand to be the main beneficiaries of the popularity of Black culture. On paper that might be progress. But two things remain clear: Black art sells, and wealth collects. Money pools in rooms that remain hard to get into. Years ago, Forbes magazine organized a meeting between Jay-Z and Warren Buffett, treating the rapper like the heir apparent. They both spoke about the role of chance. Buffett talked at length about being white, male and born in the U.S. at the right time. It was the discourse of what we would now call “privilege,” which feels like an understatement when talking about one of the wealthiest men alive. When Jay-Z spoke, he told a story about a nearly inseparable friend of his who was arrested during a sting operation. Jay-Z happened to be out of the country for an early recording date. His friend was incarcerated for over a decade. That’s luck, the vicious kind that fortunes are made of.Blair McClendon is a writer, an editor and a filmmaker in New York. His writing has appeared in n+1, The New Republic and The New Yorker. More

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      How ‘Unofficial Bridgerton Musical’ Beat Broadway at the Grammys

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      With their award for “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical,” two musical theater newcomers won against veterans like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Schwartz.When the lyricist-composer duo behind “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical” stepped onstage Sunday to accept their Grammy for best musical theater album, the list of people they wanted to thank did not start with a record label or producer, but with their social media followers.“We want to thank everyone on the internet who has watched us create this album from the ground up,” said Abigail Barlow, who sings for over a dozen different characters on the album. “We share this with you.”Last year, Barlow had watched the first season of Netflix’s saucy period drama about the elite marriage market of Regency England, along with millions of others searching for escapist entertainment during the pandemic. A 22-year-old aspiring pop singer with a sizable TikTok following, she posted a song that she wrote with a simple but, she thought, promising premise: “What if ‘Bridgerton’ was a musical?”As the spark of an idea started to build, she sought help from a collaborator, Emily Bear, a 19-year-old composer and musician who had been introduced to the world as a 6-year-old piano prodigy but was hoping to prove herself as more than just a former spectacle for daytime talk shows.The pair started building what would ultimately amount to a 15-song album that includes an amorous duet between the show’s leading couple, a comedic solo for the show’s nonconformist tomboy and an opening number that they wrote with a lavishly dressed Broadway ensemble flitting around the stage in their heads.Bear produced and orchestrated the album herself, using her computer and an electronic keyboard to create the sound of a full symphony orchestra.More Coverage from the 2022 Grammy AwardsThe Irresistible Jon Batiste: The jazz pianist is an inheritor more than an innovator, but he puts the past to use in service of fun.Old, but New: Despite nods to Gen Z, this year’s show favored history-minded performers like Silk Sonic, H.E.R. and Lady Gaga.The Fashion: An exuberant anything-goes attitude was a reminder of why red carpets are fun in the first place.Zelensky’s Speech: Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, addressed the audience in a prerecorded video. Here’s what he said.On Sunday, with about six years of musical-theater writing experience between the two of them, the Gen Z songwriting duo beat out a list of powerhouse Grammy nominees that included Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cinderella”; Conor McPherson’s “Girl From the North Country,” built around Bob Dylan songs; and a Stephen Schwartz musical.“It’s hard to comprehend fully — like, we did this from our bedrooms,” Barlow said in an interview on Monday.“In my head, there was no way this was going to happen,” Bear added. “We just wanted to put out the album for the people that followed the whole process of it.”And there were a lot of those people, weighing in from every corner of the theater-loving internet. Barlow and Bear would livestream their songwriting sessions from Los Angeles, inviting fans to weigh in. Followers shared ideas for staging and choreography, Playbill designs, viral videos of them singing half of a duet and even a pitch to be the show’s intimacy coordinator.Phoebe Dynevor and Regé-Jean Page in Season 1 of “Bridgerton” on Netflix.Liam Daniel/NetflixThe TikTok videos gained approval from Julia Quinn, the author of the “Bridgerton” books that inspired the TV series; the cast members of the show; and Netflix, which gave Barlow and Bear’s lawyers the green light for them to make their songs into an album, the duo said.The original videos remain on TikTok, and the independently produced album is on Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services, but the musical has yet to actually be staged. (This is far from the norm for the musical theater album category, which has typically gone to big-name Broadway musicals such as “Hamilton,” “Jersey Boys” and “The Lion King.”)Speaking on a video call from their hotel rooms in Las Vegas, where the Grammys were held, Barlow, now 23, and Bear, 20, discussed their album’s unanticipated success, their practice of collaborating creatively with fans and where their careers are headed (starting with a Broadway-bound musical that they can’t yet discuss). Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.Abigail, what was it about “Bridgerton” that made you want to turn it into a musical?BARLOW The opening scene is so theatrical. I could just see each part of the stage lighting up in my brain. And then I kept writing down lines of dialogue that sounded like song titles. The phrase “ocean away” was the first one that made me run to my piano.Where were you each at before this came into your lives?BARLOW We were both really depressed. It is hard to break into the music industry, and I was ready to give up. I was applying for record-label receptionist jobs and crying to my parents because they had been helping to support me in Los Angeles and they were like, “You need to get a real job. We can’t help you anymore.” It was a really hard decision to try to chase after it just one more time.BEAR We were like, “Did we pick the wrong career?” I feel like we were putting out great music but no one was listening to us, no one was taking us seriously.Then, all of a sudden, you’re creating a musical that’s getting a ton of public engagement and videos that are getting millions of likes on TikTok. That’s one form of approval, but how does it feel getting this form of institutional approval from the Grammys?BEAR The powerful executives follow what the people want. Of course it feels good when someone who brushed you off for the same exact music you were writing two years ago now wants to buy it. But it’s more than that. We want to make way for all of the other incredible female — and not even just female — composers who love their craft.Some artists might bristle at your strategy of inviting in fan feedback as you create the work, leaving it open to significant influence from the audience in the middle of the creative process.BARLOW I’ve been livestreaming while singing and songwriting for an audience since I was a teenager. It’s like a muscle; the more you do it, the better you get at it. Emily has classic training and is incredibly educated in her craft. I am not, so it was just sort of my process to gain an audience’s perspective on what they thought and how I could improve.BEAR If you think about it, it was like we were workshopping instantly. We were getting live feedback in real time for people that would be coming to the show or buying the album.Do you think you’ll continue that way of doing things now that you have this institutional approval?BARLOW We’d love to, but we have some exciting projects after “Bridgerton” gave us a foot in the door and we still have to keep it hush-hush.BEAR Which is totally against our M.O., and it’s a little frustrating because, as we’re writing this music, we want to share it with everyone. What’s better P.R. for a project than getting people on board early? By the time it comes out, they know the music, they feel invested, they were there when it happened.And you did “Bridgerton” without a record label?BARLOW In the beginning when it first started to blow up we had a few conversations with labels, but none of it felt right. We knew that we wanted to capitalize on the moment, and we knew that the faster we released it the better.BEAR We would have gotten an orchestra and a cast, and that would have taken a lot of time and a lot of money. And why sign a label deal and not own all of our masters and publishing? We were like, eh, let’s just put it out ourselves. And I remember the night the album came out and we just saw it climbing the charts. We had fans who were constantly bugging us to release the album, so we knew we would have listeners, but I didn’t quite expect that much.How likely is it that the musical gets staged?BEAR It’s a bit out of our court because we don’t own the I.P. We feel like it would fit perfectly onstage. We see it so clearly. Netflix, you know where to find us. More

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      Anne Parsons, Who Revived the Detroit Symphony, Dies at 64

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      She shepherded the orchestra through a bitter six-month strike and then worked to ensure that it flourished after what many considered a near-death moment.Anne Parsons, who as president and chief executive revitalized the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in the aftermath of a bitter strike, using education and technology to attract new audiences, died on March 28 in Detroit. She was 64.Her husband, Donald Dietz, said the cause was complications of lung cancer.Ms. Parsons, who led the Detroit Symphony from 2004 until December 2021, shepherded the orchestra through a six-month strike that began in 2010, one of its most challenging periods. She worked to ensure that the orchestra emerged from what many considered a near-death moment, reassuring donors and civic leaders as tensions between musicians and management escalated.Determined to avoid another labor dispute and eager to make the orchestra a pillar of Detroit’s civic revival, she spent the next decade rebuilding the ensemble, investing in live-streaming technology, expanding community programs and luring unconventional stars like Kid Rock to perform. At a time when many American orchestras were struggling amid declining ticket sales, the Detroit Symphony, digitally connected and agile, became a model modern ensemble.“They hit a financial wall and went through a very brutal strike,” said Mark Volpe, who was president and chief executive of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 23 years. “Instead of conceding and leaving like others have done in that context, she had the stomach, the persistence, the tenacity and, frankly, the vision to do something very special.”Ms. Parsons in an undated photo. She initially pursued a career in finance but found herself drawn to the arts.Detroit Symphony OrchestraAnne Hyatt Parsons was born on Nov. 4, 1957, in Schenectady, N.Y., to Jane (Walter) Parsons, a schoolteacher, and Gerald Parsons, who worked in finance.She initially pursued a career in finance to please her father, working as a bank teller during her summers at Smith College.But Ms. Parsons, who began studying the flute as a child, found herself drawn to the arts. She became manager of the student orchestra at Smith, helping to keep it together during a time of discord about its role on campus.She graduated from Smith in 1980 with a degree in English, promising her father that she would return to banking if, within one year, her career in the arts did not work out. Before long she had begun to ascend in the arts industry.Ms. Parsons was among the first class of fellows chosen by the American Symphony Orchestra League (now known as the League of American Orchestras). As a young employee at the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, she was an aide to the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, who was the music director at the time.She went on to hold a variety of prestigious posts, including orchestra manager of the Boston Symphony from 1983 to 1991; general manager of the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles from 1991 to 1998; and general manager of New York City Ballet from 1998 to 2004.When she arrived in Detroit in the summer of 2004, she faced immediate challenges, including a sharp decline in ticket sales and dwindling support from corporations. She worked to overhaul the orchestra’s offerings, and in 2008, in a coup, she lured Leonard Slatkin, then the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, to take the podium in Detroit.As Detroit’s economy worsened amid the Great Recession and the orchestra’s financial picture grew bleaker, tensions at the orchestra deepened. A strike erupted in October 2010 after the orchestra, citing the difficult economic environment, proposed steep reductions in pay and benefits. The musicians said the cuts would destroy the ensemble’s high caliber, and they led a spirited campaign to oppose them.Ms. Parsons with Kenneth Thompkins, the principal trombonist, and other members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2021.Detroit Symphony OrchestraMs. Parsons maintained a tough stance throughout the ordeal. “The board was telling her, ‘You’re going to be the bad guy,’” Mr. Slatkin said in an interview. “But that’s the role, that’s the job. And there were days when I don’t know how she managed it. It became very, very vicious. But she stuck it out and kept a positive attitude the whole time.”After six months of heated talks, a deal was reached. In the end, the players accepted large salary reductions but preserved their health insurance and pensions.In the aftermath of the strike, Ms. Parsons set out to find ways to elevate the orchestra’s profile and bring in more revenue. She began a streaming service, one of the first orchestras to do so, and organized tours abroad, including to China and Japan. Vowing to make the Detroit Symphony the “most accessible orchestra on the planet,” she also oversaw efforts to expand music education in the city, bringing orchestra players into public schools that served large numbers of poor families. And she increased the orchestra’s presence in the suburbs, where many of its patrons live, holding concerts in churches, high schools and community centers.Donations rose, and ticket sales began to bounce back. After running deficits for years, the orchestra reported operating surpluses from 2013 to 2021.“What I really felt was this incredible responsibility to find a way forward regardless of the challenge that was facing us,” Ms. Parsons told The Detroit News last year. “The alternative for an institution as storied as the D.S.O. was unacceptable to me.”Even some of the musicians who clashed with Ms. Parsons during the strike said she had been vital to the orchestra’s turnaround.“After the strike, she said: ‘We’re never going to do that again. We have to maintain the artistic quality of the organization,’” said Haden McKay, a former cellist in the orchestra who served on the negotiating committee during the strike. “It was a stake in the ground. It put the institution on good footing, both financially and psychologically.”Ms. Parsons called her move to Detroit with her family the “best decision we ever made.” In 2021, the city named a street just south of Orchestra Hall in her honor.In addition to her husband, a photographer, Ms. Parsons is survived by a brother, Lance Parsons, and a daughter, Cara Dietz.Ms. Parsons learned she had lung cancer in 2018, but despite her illness she kept a busy schedule. She stepped down two months after returning from an extended medical leave.“She wanted to be able to say she’d given everything she could give,” Mr. Dietz said. “And that’s what she said to me after she couldn’t do it anymore. She said, ‘I have nothing else to give.’”Ms. Parsons said last year that her illness had brought into focus the “fragility of our world.”“We just take for granted that we’re going to be healthy and one day we’re not,” she said in an interview last year with Crain’s Detroit Business. “We take for granted someone is going to be a strong leader. When that doesn’t happen, it causes you to wake up every day and be grateful for the positive things.” More

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      2022 Grammys: Jon Batiste and Silk Sonic Win Top Awards

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      The 64th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night featured major wins by Silk Sonic, Jon Batiste and Olivia Rodrigo, elaborate performances from a music industry struggling to emerge from the pandemic and an impassioned plea for help from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.The show, broadcast from Las Vegas, opened with Silk Sonic, the retro soul-funk project of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, playing “777,” about the high-rolling, Sin City side of Las Vegas. Moments later, the group won song of the year for “Leave the Door Open,” a throwback to smooth early ’70s soul.“Leave the Door Open” also won record of the year, as well as best R&B song. Silk Sonic also tied Jazmine Sullivan for best R&B performance.“We are really trying to remain humble at this point,” said Anderson .Paak, born Brandon Paak Anderson, while accepting record of the year. “But in the industry we call that a clean sweep.” (The record of the year prize is for a single recording, while song of the year recognizes songwriters.)Silk Sonic and Batiste’s wins kept Rodrigo — a 19-year-old Disney television star who burst on the music scene with smashing success and critical respect — from making her own sweep of the four top categories. But she did take best new artist.“This is my biggest dream come true,” Rodrigo said as she accepted that prize. She also took home best pop vocal album for “Sour” and pop solo performance for “Drivers License,” which she performed on a set like a suburban street, her voice swelling to emotional peaks and then breaking as it fell.Olivia Rodrigo performed “Drivers License,” which won best pop vocal performance. The 19-year-old also won best new artist.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersJon Batiste, the bandleader of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” took album of the year for “We Are,” which had virtually no commercial impact but was supported strongly by the membership of the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammys. Batiste was up a total of 11 awards, more than any other artist, and won five.“I believe this to my core,” Batiste said, taking album of the year. “There is no best musician, best artist, best dancer, best actor. The creative arts are subjective and they reach people at a point in their lives when they need it most.”Read More on the 2022 Grammy AwardsThe Irresistible Jon Batiste: The jazz pianist is an inheritor more than an innovator, but he puts the past to use in service of fun.A Controversial Award: Some people questioned the decision to bestow the Grammy for best comedy album to Louis C.K., who has admitted to sexual misconduct.Old, but New: Despite nods to Gen Z, this year’s show favored history-minded performers like Silk Sonic, H.E.R. and Lady Gaga.The Fashion: An exuberant anything-goes attitude was a reminder of why red carpets are fun in the first place.Zelensky’s Speech: Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, addressed the audience in a prerecorded video. Here’s what he said.The Grammys ceremony, initially planned for Jan. 31 in Los Angeles, had been delayed nine weeks by the Omicron variant, and moved to Las Vegas for the first time. “Better late than never,” the host, Trevor Noah, said as the CBS telecast opened at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.“We’re in Vegas,” he said. “Look at this. You know, people are doing shots. I mean, last year, people were doing shots, but it was more Moderna and Pfizer.”In a prerecorded message, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine appealed for support amid Russia’s invasion of his country.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPresident Zelensky had pressed the producers of the Academy Awards to speak last week, but was turned down. Invited to speak at the Grammys, he made an impassioned plea for his country, saying in a hoarse voice that Ukrainian musicians “wear body armor instead of tuxedos” and urging American music fans to “tell the truth about the war” on social media and “support us in any way you can.”John Legend then led a somber performance of his song “Free,” featuring Ukrainian artists like the singer Mika Newton and the poet Lyuba Yakimchuk.The night was also a complementary balance of vital young stars — Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Lil Nas X — giving powerful, fizzy performances that showed them fully in command of their art, and older acts being lauded for decades of work. Tony Bennett, the 95-year-old lion of the American songbook, won best traditional pop vocal album for the 14th time for “Love for Sale,” his Cole Porter project with Lady Gaga, who sang solo from that album. (Bennett, who has Alzheimer’s disease and has retired from performing, did not attend the ceremony, but briefly introduced Lady Gaga by video.)Women delivered some of the most memorable messages. Sullivan, who won best R&B album for “Heaux Tales,” said her project “ended up being a safe space for Black women to tell our stories, for us to learn from each other, laugh with each other and not be exploited at the same time.”Doja Cat, a spitfire rapper and internet provocateur, won pop duo/group performance for her hit “Kiss Me More,” featuring SZA. Taking the stage, she joked about racing back from the restroom just in time. Then she teared up. “It’s a big deal,” she said.Lil Nas X, the rapper, singer and meme master, performed a high-concept medley of his songs “Dead Right Now,” “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” and “Industry Baby,” featuring Jack Harlow, interspersed with a montage of overheated media commentators. In other performances, the K-pop stars BTS began their song “Butter” looking like “Oceans 11” characters, and the Latin pop superstar J Balvin sang with Maria Becerra.There were several nods to the controversy that marred last week’s Academy Awards, when the actor Will Smith slapped the comedian Chris Rock onstage. During a nontelevised ceremony before the telecast, one presenter, Nate Bargatze, introduced the classical field while wearing a thick helmet. “This is what comedians at awards shows have to wear now,” Bargatze said.And early on in the telecast Noah promised that “we’re going to be dancing, we’re going to be singing, we’re going to be keeping people’s names out of our mouths,” alluding to Smith’s expletive-filled demand that Rock stop talking about his wife.Jon Batiste won five Grammys, including album of the year for “We Are.”Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty ImagesA series of complications in recent days had challenged Grammy producers as the show came together. Kanye West was barred from performing and Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters, which had been scheduled to play, died while on tour. Two members of BTS, the K-pop phenomenon, announced that they had tested positive for the coronavirus, leaving fans to guess whether their performance would go on.As the multibillion-dollar touring industry tries to return to full capacity, some of music’s biggest stars gathered for a celebration of the art — and business — of performance. In a series of segments, behind-the-scenes crew members introduced those stars, telling of the hard work and close bonds that develop on the road. Nicole Massey, the production manager for Billie Eilish, introduced the woman she called “the best 20-year-old boss in the world.”Foo Fighters won all three awards they were nominated for: rock performance (“Making a Fire”), rock song (“Waiting on a War”) and rock album (“Medicine at Midnight”). Voting by Recording Academy members ended in January, long before Hawkins’s death.Chris Stapleton won three country awards: solo performance (“You Should Probably Leave”), country album (“Starting Over”) and country song (“Cold,” with Dave Cobb, J.T. Cure and Derek Mixon). The jazz keyboardist Chick Corea, who died last year, won two.Joni Mitchell won best historical album for her “Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967),” sharing the award with Patrick Mulligan, her fellow compilation producer. In a rare televised appearance, Mitchell gave a brief introduction for a performance by Brandi Carlile, whom she called “my brilliant friend and ambassador.”The 64th Grammy ceremony honored music released during a 13-month period, from Sept. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021. Winners were chosen by more than 11,000 voting members of the Recording Academy, who qualify by gaining recommendations from fellow music professionals.Speeches from early winners highlighted personal triumphs, social ills and the power of music to serve as a balm in troubled times.Accepting the award for best country duo/group performance, T.J. Osborne, of the group Brothers Osborne, said their song “Younger Me” was written about his coming out as gay — a risk given Nashville’s largely conservative music business.“I never thought that I’d be able to do this professionally because of my sexuality,” he said, “and I certainly never thought I would be here on this stage accepting a Grammy after having done something I felt like was going to be life-changing, potentially in a very negative way.”The comedian Louis C.K., who has admitted to sexual misconduct, won for best comedy album (“Sincerely Louis C.K.”).The first award of the day, for best musical theater album — a prize that in the past has gone to Broadway smashes like “Hamilton” and “The Book of Mormon” — went to “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical,” a D.I.Y. project by Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow, who created the music as fans, while spurred on by comments from viewers online who watched them work.“A year ago, when I asked the internet, what if ‘Bridgerton’ was a musical,” said Barlow, “I could not have imagined I would be holding a Grammy in my hands.” More