Grammy Awards

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      Millions Danced Joyfully to Her Song. She Drew on Her Pain to Write It.

      by

      Nomcebo Zikode, the South African singer of the pandemic hit “Jerusalema” that inspired a global dance challenge, wrote the chorus while battling her own depression.It starts with a clap, and then the feet tap along to the beat: four times on each side, followed by a quick jump. As the melody rises, dancers dip low and twirl.It’s a dance easy enough for anyone to learn, and people all around the world have done so, with everyone from an urban dance crew in Angola to Franciscan nuns in Europe showing off their moves on social media.The “Jerusalema” dance, named for the South African hit song that inspired it, provided a moment of global joy during the lockdowns of the pandemic, a welcome distraction from the isolation and collective grief.But it was the chorus, a lamentation over a heavy bass beat, that was balm to millions. Sung in a low alto in isiZulu, one of the official languages of South Africa, audiences didn’t need to understand the song to be moved by it.The singer Nomcebo Nkwanyana, who goes by Nomcebo Zikode professionally, drew on her own intense pain when she wrote it.“Jerusalem is my home,” she sang. “Guard me. Walk with me. Do not leave me here.”After more than decade as an overlooked backing vocalist, and with her faith in music faltering, Ms. Zikode, 37, was in a dark place in 2019 when she wrote those words.Her manager, who is also her husband, insisted she write the lyrics to help her crowd out the voices in her head that were telling her to give up on music, and herself.Ms. Zikode, 37, was in a dark place when she wrote lyrics that would uplift millions.Alexia Webster for The New York Times“As if there’s a voice that says you must kill yourself,” she said, describing her depression at the time. “I remember talking to myself saying, ‘no, I can’t kill myself. I’ve got my kids to raise. I can’t, I can’t do that.’”She didn’t listen to the recording of the song until a day after it was made. As the bass began to reverberate through her car, everything went dark, she said, and she almost lost control of the vehicle. She pulled over, tears streaming down her face.“Even if you don’t believe it, this is my story,” she said. “I heard the voice saying to me, ‘Nomcebo, this is going to be a big song all over the world.’”And that prognostication soon proved true.In February 2020, a group of dancers in Angola uploaded a video showing off their choreography to the song, and challenging others to outdo them. As lockdowns were enforced just weeks later, the song was shared around the world.The global success of “Jerusalema” has taken Ms. Zikode on tour to Europe, the Caribbean and the United States. It also led to her being featured on the song “Bayethe,” which would win the Grammy award for Best Global Music Performance earlier this year.But while “Jerusalema” has brought her global renown, she has had to fight to earn any financial reward from it and to be recognized as part of its creative force.She sued her record label, and a settlement in December called for her to receive a percentage of the song’s royalties and to be allowed to audit the books of the label, Open Mic Productions, that owns the song.At least as important, the agreement also states that Ms. Zikode must be cited as the song’s “primary artist” alongside Kgaogelo Moagi, more commonly known as Master KG, the producer behind the instrumental track on “Jerusalema.”But even this victory in South Africa’s male-dominated music industry comes with significant caveats: For one, Master KG is receiving a higher percentage of royalties. And Ms. Zikode said she has yet to see payment. “I’m still waiting for my money,” she said.Open Mic did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but in a statement put out after her Grammy win, the label said: “She is a very talented artist and we welcome this agreement as a progressive resolution.”The global success of “Jerusalema” has taken Ms. Zikode on tour to Europe, the Caribbean and the United States.Alexia Webster for The New York TimesStruggles with money are nothing new to her.The youngest of four children born in a polygamous marriage, Ms. Zikode’s father died when she was young and her mother, the third wife, was left destitute. Desperate, her mother let a church outside Hammarsdale, a small town in South Africa’s eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal, take her daughter in for four years.There, she slept on bunk beds among rows of other children. She sewed her own clothes and helped to clean the dormitories. The church choir was a solace, but she sorely missed home until she was able to return in the 10th grade.Her mother sold maize or bartered what vegetables she could grow for secondhand clothes. The neighbors who would ask the young Ms. Zikode to sing for them would feed her and take her in for a few nights as her mother struggled.When she was old enough, Ms. Zikode learned to braid other people’s hair to earn some money, but remembers self-consciously pressing her elbows to her side, for fear that her customers would smell that she could not afford deodorant.But what she really wanted was to sing, and she got her break at an open-call audition. She spent years singing backup for gospel stars, sharing crowded apartments with other backing vocalists. When gigs dried up, she took computer classes as a career backup plan.Ms Zikode’s first major South African hit came in 2017 when she sang vocals on the song “Emazulwini” for a well-known house music producer and D.J., Frederick Ganyani Tshabalala. But what had seemed like a long-awaited break turned into a letdown when DJ Ganyani, as he is known, did all he could, she said, to prevent her from performing the song live on her own.“They try by all means to suppress the singers,” Ms. Zikode said of the D.J.s and producers who hold most of the power in South Africa’s music industry.DJ Ganyani did not respond to requests for comment.Hoping a record label would better protect her rights, Ms. Zikode signed with Open Mic, but once the deal was inked, the label went quiet, she said, and she was left hustling to record her debut album.Feeling abandoned by the record company, her husband and manager, Selwyn Fraser, sent messages to other artists, masquerading as his wife on Instagram and Twitter, trying to get bigger names to work with her.This outreach campaign connected Ms. Zikode with Master KG and resulted in “Jerusalema.”It’s not only the song that has made her a household name in South Africa, but also her very public fight for her royalties and recognition, in the courts and on social media, said Kgopolo Mphela, a South African entertainment commentator.“She’s coming across as the hero, or the underdog, taking on Goliath,” Mr. Mphela said.For all her struggles with reaping the monetary benefits of “Jerusalema,” Ms. Zikode’s musical career has made her financially comfortable and she now has a music publishing deal with a division of Sony Music.Her 17-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son want for nothing, she said. She and her husband renovated their home, adding an in-house studio.Ms. Zikode can also bask in the accolades that have come with her Grammy win for “Bayethe.”Ms. Zikode won a Grammy for “Bayethe,” which she performed with two other South Africans, the flutist Wouter Kellerman and the performer-producer Zakes Bantwini.Alexia Webster for The New York TimesOn a chilly April night in Johannesburg, in the Grammy’s afterglow, Ms. Zikode stepped out of a borrowed Bentley at an event to celebrate South Africans who have achieved international success.As she walked the red carpet, determined to own the moment, she granted every interview request, whether from the national broadcaster or a TikTok influencer. Later that night, she accepted two checks, one for herself and one for a charity she founded that helps impoverished young women.When she took the stage to perform the song that made her famous, she hiked up her gown to dance the “Jerusalema.” More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Top Grammy Categories Are Returning to 8 Nominees, From 10

      by

      The event is also moving two competitions into its “general” field, adding three awards, and setting a new threshold for collaborators in album of the year.Two years ago, the Grammy Awards abruptly increased the number of nominees permitted in its top categories, going to 10 slots on the ballot, from eight. Now, it is going back.The Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammys, said on Friday that the number of nominees would once again be set at eight in the four top categories — album, record and song of the year, and best new artist — for the 66th annual awards, scheduled to be presented in early 2024.Among other tweaks to the awards rules is the addition of two categories to the all-genre “general” field: producer of the year, nonclassical, and songwriter of the year, nonclassical, a new prize introduced at the most recent ceremony, in February. This change — the first addition to the general field since 1959 — would allow all the academy’s voting members to cast votes in those categories.The move to 10 nominees, decided by the board just one day before nominations were announced in 2021, made the always-surprising Grammy process even more unpredictable. Some voters complained privately that broadening the field lowered the mandate for winners too far, allowing — theoretically, at least — one artist to prevail with little more than 10 percent of the vote.Harvey Mason Jr., the chief executive of the academy, said in an interview this week that the organization had not heard any such complaints, but he acknowledged that similar questions were on the minds of board members when they voted last month to change the rules.“Does the vote get split? Is 10 too many? Does it minimize the nomination?” Mason said. “All these conversations were happening in trying to find what is the best number.”At the Grammy ceremony in February, Harry Styles won album of the year for “Harry’s House,” beating out releases by Beyoncé, Adele, Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny.The change announced Friday is the third of its kind in five years. In 2018, the academy increased the ballot from five to eight; three years later, it went from eight to 10.In another shift, the Grammys are setting a new eligibility threshold for collaborators on album of the year. In recent years, the Grammys have required that contributors like songwriters, engineers and guest performers appear on at least 33 percent of an album’s playing time, but for the 2022 awards, that bar was reduced to zero — a change that in some cases resulted in more than 100 names appearing in the nomination.That threshold has now been raised to 20 percent, which should cull many songwriters and other contributors who appear on just one or two tracks on a typical album.Among other changes, the academy is introducing three awards for next year: best African music performance, best pop dance recording and best alternative jazz album.Those additions bring the total for the 66th ceremony to 94 categories, a number that has been growing rapidly. As recently as three years ago, the Grammys had 84.In another change that raised some eyebrows in the music industry, the Grammys shifted the eligibility period for the 2024 awards twice recently, first announcing an 11-month window and then adding two weeks two it, resulting in an unusual eligibility period of 11 and a half months, covering Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 15, 2023. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      The North to Shore Festival Comes to New Jersey

      by

      A new arts festival featuring local and marquee-name talent is coming to the Garden State.Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, along with the first lady, Tammy Murphy, had a vision: A new performance festival in their home state that could rival South by Southwest in Texas or Bonnaroo in Tennessee. And they had a plan to distinguish it.“Austin and Nashville are great towns,” the governor said, referring to two famous arts hubs that are connected to notable festivals. “But if you stop to consider the cultural priorities of the states that govern them, you say, ‘Wait a minute.’ You’re hoodwinked if you get taken by the coolness.”A festival in New Jersey, they argued, would be produced in a state whose values align with issues like gun safety and reproductive rights, a bragging right difficult to come by in the south. But what organizers are really touting with the event, which is being produced for the first time this summer, is the mix of homegrown talent and national acts (Halsey, Santana, Jazmine Sullivan) performing across three different cities, from the state’s largest city to the coast.The North to Shore Festival will roam from Atlantic City to Asbury Park to Newark throughout the month. Its inaugural run will feature more than 220 acts — including music, comedy, dance and film — in 115 venues. “When you combine all the talent we have in New Jersey with the fact that our values are on the right side of history, we thought, there’s no reason we couldn’t give this a shot,” Mr. Murphy said.In May, the festival doubled in size, in part because of a commitment to local talent. Grants of up to $5,000 were handed out to 58 New Jersey-based artists.“What I love about it is that it’s a combination of the biggest names in entertainment and comedy and film,” said John Schreiber, president and chief executive of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, which is producing the festival, “but it’s also a chance to turn up the volume on the local folks I call the local heroes — the artists, the creators, the presenters, the producers — who work in these cities 365 days a year.”One example of this kind of artistic convergence is “You Got VERRRSED: NJ Poets vs. New York Poets,” which will take place in Newark on June 24, the day after Marisa Monte, a Grammy Award winner, performs there.In each host city, venues stretch beyond the familiar. Newark, for example, will host “Jersey Club 101,” a combination dance lesson and party, at Ariya Plaza Hall, a local dance club known for hosting private events and the occasional concert, on June 24.On June 9 in Atlantic City, a brewery, The Seed: A Living Beer Project, will host a multidisciplinary event, “From Earth to Cup,” with live music, pottery making and samples of its craft beers. The following afternoon at Sovereign Avenue Field, a popular skatepark, local hardcore and punk bands will play free shows in the “Back Sov Bullies Concert.”While Asbury Park’s famous rock club, the Stone Pony, will see its share of action — with Eric B. & Rakim, Brian Fallon, Demi Lovato and the B-52’s all scheduled to perform — stages at the lesser-known Watermark, down the street, will also be in heavy rotation and can expect to see more traffic than usual.Alexander Simone and his seven-piece band, the Whodat? Live Crew, will play there on June 14. Mr. Simone, 34, who is from the area and the grandson of Nina Simone, won a grant to take part in North to Shore with the band, which leans toward funk and R&B, after being nominated by local fans. The recognition confirmed something he already knew: “I am definitely one of the most known bands in this community,” he said.Now he hopes that other parts of the country will pay more attention to his music. “Artists are coming this way, to Jersey, and bringing people with them the way South by Southwest brings people to Texas,” he said. “They’re coming to see what we have to offer on this end.”Billboards along the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike are promoting the festival. Mr. Schreiber said he expects more than 350,000 people to attend. The overall windfall for New Jersey’s economy, he added, could be $100 million. “We’re betting the economic impact in all three of these communities will far outweigh any of the investment we have to make,” Mr. Murphy said.Amanda Towers, a founder of the Seed, a Living Beer Project, which will host a multidisciplinary event with music, pottery and beer in Atlantic City.Jennifer Pottheiser for The New York TimesNatalie Merchant, accompanied by New York City’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s, will perform in Newark on June 25. “I think it’s really ambitious and impressive,” she said of the idea behind the festival.But her decision to participate did not have much to do with performing in a liberal-leaning state, Ms. Merchant said. “I tend to not penalize my fans in states with political conditions like abortion restrictions.” Instead, “I talk about them onstage.”The North to Shore Festival will take place June 4-11 in Atlantic City, June 14-18 in Asbury Park and June 21-25 in Newark. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Theater

      What Is an EGOT? A Detailed History of Its Origins and Winners.

      by

      Many people were introduced to the idea of an EGOT — winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony — through “30 Rock.” But it’s an actor from the 1980s who deserves the credit.Common would be the first to admit that he has an EGO — that is, an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award and an Oscar — making him just a Tony Award shy from securing the coveted EGOT, the achievement of winning all four major entertainment awards.Eighteen other people have done so, and the “Frozen” songwriter Robert Lopez is the only person to do it twice. The most recent addition was the actress Viola Davis, who earned a Grammy in February for the audiobook of her memoir, making her one of six women to have an EGOT.Now Common has a shot at joining this rather uncommon club. The Tony nominations will be announced on Tuesday, and he is eligible in the featured actor in a play category after making his Broadway debut in “Between Riverside and Crazy.”But where did the EGOT acronym come from, and what does it really take to earn the accolade?Why did we start talking about EGOTs?Many people who first heard of an EGOT assume it originated on the hit NBC sitcom “30 Rock,” which began airing in 2006. But it turns out the term dates back to 1984, when only three people had achieved EGOT-hood: the composer Richard Rodgers and the actresses Helen Hayes and Rita Moreno.It’s actually Philip Michael Thomas, Don Johnson’s partner on the police drama “Miami Vice,” who deserves the naming credit. The accomplishment was previously known as a “grand slam,” a term used for similar achievements in golf and tennis.Thomas has told reporters that his dream was to win an Emmy for his work on “Miami Vice,” a Grammy for his record albums, an Oscar for a play he wanted to adapt as a film, and a Tony for some musicals he had written.Thomas, who later claimed the acronym also stood for his career mantra — “Energy, Growth, Opportunity and Talent” — even wore a medallion with “EGOT” engraved on it. But he was never nominated for any of the awards he dreamed of winning.How did EGOT enter the popular lexicon?Despite Thomas’s efforts, it took a couple of decades before “EGOT” became a thing. Then Kay Cannon, a writer and producer on “30 Rock,” decided to incorporate the rare feat into a satirical story line that began in 2009. “You’d hear this red carpet commentary,” Cannon told The New York Times recently, “that they were one award away from EGOT-ing.”At the time, even some luminaries didn’t know about the distinction. The comedian Whoopi Goldberg first learned she had achieved EGOT status when she guest-starred on one of the four “30 Rock” episodes in which the character Tracy Jordan, played by Tracy Morgan, bought Thomas’s necklace and started strategizing to achieve his own EGOT. (“A good goal for a talented crazy person,” he says in the show.)“I watched ‘30 Rock’ and loved the concept,” Lopez said. “One doesn’t really ever think of themselves as a candidate for achieving something so ridiculous, but I realized that maybe I could do it one day.” Lopez got his wish in 2014, winning an Oscar for the song “Let It Go” from the Disney animated hit “Frozen.”The composer Andrew Lloyd Webber was more old school. “I wasn’t thinking, ‘If I get this Emmy, I’d be an EGOT,’” Lloyd Webber said about achieving the feat in 2018 for “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert.” The lyricist Tim Rice and the singer John Legend, who played the title role, reached EGOT status at the same time.“It hadn’t really crossed my mind,” Lloyd Webber said. “I’m much more conscious of it now.”So, what is the best strategy for winning an EGOT?The not-so-quiet secret is that when you’re close to an EGOT, it is possible to game the system.Lloyd Webber said he was recently asked by a fellow artist — someone famous, he won’t say who — how to add a Tony to an awards collection that already included a Grammy and an Emmy. “I said, ‘Well, one way you could do that is become a producer, put some money into a few shows,’” he said. “Every show seems to have 20 producers these days.”That strategy worked for the singer and actress Jennifer Hudson, who achieved an EGOT in 2022 with her Tony win as a producer of “A Strange Loop.”Lloyd Webber thinks getting an Oscar is the most difficult. A Grammy is the easiest, he said, simply because there are more available categories: “You could be the best banjo player in Latin America.”And if Davis’s clinching Grammy win — in the best audio book, narration and storytelling category — revealed anything, it’s that nonmusical methods can be just as effective. “Do a comedy album or narrate your own audio book,” Cannon said. “Write a book, narrate that and then adapt it to the stage.”After considering her own track record (“I’m 0-for-4 right now”), Cannon said she thought her best bet could be a Broadway adaptation of “Pitch Perfect,” the 2012 musical comedy film that she co-wrote.Does it help to have an EGOT as your goal?Probably not. The renowned composer Alan Menken had already won 11 Grammys, eight Oscars and one Tony when his representatives realized he just needed an Emmy to complete the EGOT. “To be honest, it wasn’t something that was really on my wish list until it was brought up, and brought up, and brought up,” he said. “But you can’t will something like that into existence.”So about six years ago, Menken wrote a song about wanting to achieve an EGOT, soliciting assistance from comedy writers like Judd Apatow. The idea was that it would start off sounding sincere, and then would get more and more desperate with each section. Ultimately, he discarded the song (“It wasn’t any good, I can promise you”) and instead secured an Emmy for the animated series “Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure.”What is the value of an EGOT?An EGOT is a flattering distinction that ultimately means nothing, said Menken, who described it as a “random assortment of honors.”“Just do what you do, as well as you can, and don’t think about it,” he added. “If you get awards, great.”There is no organizing body that awards EGOTs, and no ceremony at which a trophy is handed out. But there are hazy areas of eligibility, such as lifetime achievement awards. There are also EGOT enhancements, like the PEGOT, for either a Peabody Award or a Pulitzer Prize. Some say the G should instead represent a Golden Globe, or that the EGOT should become an EGGOT.Menken is proud of the fact that he also has a REGOT — the four traditional awards, plus a Razzie, also known as a Golden Raspberry Award. The ignoble prize was for worst original song from the film “Newsies,” the same project for which he won a Tony. “The Razzie puts everything in perspective, frankly,” he said.At least with the Razzies, there is a ceremony and a physical award. Cannon thinks there should be a similar ceremony for EGOTs, if only a mock version. After all, even “Saturday Night Live” commemorates the occasion when someone hosts the show for a fifth time. “You become a member of the Five-Timers Club, they give you a jacket.”Who’s not throwing away their shot?Over the years, artists have become more comfortable expressing their EGOT dreams. In a segment for the 2015 BET Hip Hop Awards, the composer and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda rattled off his scorecard: “Got a Grammy, got a Tony, got an Emmy,” he rapped, adding, “Somebody show me the way to the Oscars.”Miranda’s dream could come true next awards season: He has written new songs for the live-action “The Little Mermaid” movie, which will be released in late May.Menken, Miranda’s collaborator on the three new “Little Mermaid” songs, mused about whether he should take his name off them to give Miranda a better shot. “I have eight Oscars,” he said. “They’re probably going to go, ‘Alan, man, no.’ So I feel guilty.”Lopez agreed that Manuel deserves it, but he’s also rooting for someone else: Kristen Anderson-Lopez, his collaborator and wife. She just needs a Tony to secure the EGOT. An added benefit, he said, is that it would bring “more peace to my household.”Wait, so who exactly is in the EGOT club?These are the 18 people who have won EGOTs, along with the year and award that secured the achievement:Mel Brooks (2001, Tony)Viola Davis (2023, Grammy)John Gielgud (1991, Emmy)Whoopi Goldberg (2002, Tony)Marvin Hamlisch (1995, Emmy)Helen Hayes (1977, Grammy)Audrey Hepburn (1994, Grammy)Jennifer Hudson (2022, Tony)John Legend (2018, Emmy)Andrew Lloyd Webber (2018, Emmy)Robert Lopez (2014, Oscar)Alan Menken (2020, Emmy)Rita Moreno (1977, Emmy)Mike Nichols (2001, Emmy)Tim Rice (2018, Emmy)Richard Rodgers (1962, Emmy)Scott Rudin (2012, Grammy)Jonathan Tunick (1997, Tony) More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      April Stevens Dies at 93; Her ‘Deep Purple’ Became a Surprise Hit

      by

      Her unusual version of the standard, which she recorded with her brother, Nino Tempo, reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart in 1963 and won a Grammy.April Stevens, whose rushed recording of “Deep Purple” with her brother, Nino Tempo, became a chart-topping single in 1963 and won a Grammy Award, died on April 17 at her home in Scottsdale, Ariz. She was 93.The death was confirmed by her stepson Gary Perman.The Stevens-Tempo version of “Deep Purple” — a jazz standard that had been a hit for Bing Crosby — featured the siblings harmonizing over a mellow arrangement accented with a harmonica. Ms. Stevens had the idea to record the song, originally written for piano by Peter DeRose, with lyrics added by Mitchell Parish; Mr. Tempo came up with the arrangement; and Glen Campbell played on the record as a session musician.In one section, Ms. Stevens recited the lyrics and Mr. Tempo sang them back in falsetto. They went, in part:“When a deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls/ and the stars begin to twinkle in the night/ In the mist of a memory you wander back to me/ breathing my name with a sigh.”The siblings had stumbled on the spoken-word idea after Mr. Tempo had failed to memorize the lyrics in time for a rehearsal, so Ms. Stevens fed them to him during that session. A friend loved the effect, Mr. Tempo said in a phone interview, and “we knew we had backed into something magical.”They recorded “Deep Purple” in just 14 minutes, at the tail end of a session with Ahmet Ertegun, the Atlantic Records co-founder who had signed them to his Atco Records imprint. Mr. Tempo, who was not a harmonica player, picked up the instrument and tried a few licks.But the final result felt sloppy, Mr. Tempo said, and after executives at the label listened to the song, Mr. Ertegun told him that his partners “think it’s the worst record you’ve ever made.”In response, the siblings said that if Mr. Ertegun did not release “Deep Purple,” they would want to be released from their contract — they hoped to sign with the music producer Phil Spector. Mr. Ertegun relented. The song came out in September 1963 and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart the week of Nov. 16.The song did not stay on top for long: About a week later, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and most of the country’s attention was drawn far from the Top 40.But “Deep Purple” went on to sell more than a million copies, and the siblings won a Grammy for best rock ’n’ roll recording of the year.The duo of April Stevens and Nino Tempo released several more records that made the charts, but they never again reached No. 1; their brand of jazz-inflected pop music soon gave way to the rock ’n’ roll of the British invasion, with the Beatles first topping the Billboard charts in 1964.Carol Vincenette LoTempio was born in Niagara Falls, N.Y., on April 29, 1929, to Samuel and Anna (Donia) LoTempio, both descended from Italian immigrants from Sicily. Her mother was a homemaker, her father a grocer.Her brother, born Anthony Bart LoTempio, was musically gifted and sang onstage with Benny Goodman before he was 10 years old. The family moved to Los Angeles to develop his music career, where Carol attended Belmont High School.Before they became a brother-and-sister act, the siblings each established solo musical careers — he as a jazz saxophonist who played with artists like Bobby Darin, and she as a singer who recorded popular versions of songs like Cole Porter’s “I’m in Love Again.”Ms. LoTempio took the name April Stevens before releasing several records during the 1950s, including “Teach Me Tiger,” a sultry number with lyrics like “Take my lips, they belong to you.” Though some listeners found the song offensive, it reached a modest No. 86 on the Billboard chart in 1959. (In 1983, NASA used the song to awaken astronauts on a shuttle mission and invited Ms. Stevens to watch the landing.)The siblings appeared on “American Bandstand” and shared a stage with the Righteous Brothers and the Beach Boys among other gigs in the United States, Europe and Australia.Their other charting singles included versions of the standards “Whispering” (No. 11) and “Stardust” (No. 32), both in 1964. Both made use of their spoken-and-sung lyrics device.Ms. Stevens married William Perman in 1985; he survives her. In addition to her brother and stepson Gary, she is survived by another stepson, Robert Perman; two stepdaughters, Laura LeMoine and Lisa Price; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.With bookings drying up, the siblings stopped performing together as the 1970s gave way to the ’80s. Mr. Tempo later recorded and performed as a jazz saxophonist, but Ms. Stevens never returned to singing.They had left an imprint, though. Not long before the Stevens-Tempo act dissolved, another brother and sister duo, Donny and Marie Osmond, recorded their own duet of “Deep Purple.” Complete with harmonica riffs and the same spoken and sung lyrics, it reached No. 14 on the Billboard chart in 1976. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      Grammys 2023: Hip-Hop Wins, Beyoncé Wins (Sort of)

      by

      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThe major awards at this year’s Grammys were split: Harry Styles won album of the year, Lizzo took record of the year and Bonnie Raitt received song of the year. Beyoncé, nominated in each of those categories, won none of them.Which is to say another year, another set of Grammy shrugs for Beyoncé, who despite the ongoing snubs in major categories, is now the most awarded artist in Grammy history, with a total of 32 wins.Whether Grammy respect has meaning was an ongoing theme Sunday night, underscoring Beyoncé’s wins and losses, as well as the elaborate hip-hop history segment that ran through 50 years of the genre in 15 minutes, bringing many rap legends to the Grammy stage for the first time ever.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the Grammys finally reckoning with hip-hop’s long legacy and impact, the show’s ongoing tug of war with Beyoncé and the ways it might remain relevant in the future.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterJon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticLindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic 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

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in Music

      Best and Worst Moments From the 2023 Grammys

      by

      Questlove assembled a crash course in hip-hop history, Beyoncé made her priorities known and Kim Petras spoke from the heart at the 65th annual awards.The big news at the 65th annual Grammy Awards: Beyoncé broke the record for most wins in the event’s history. But her four victories didn’t come in the major, all-genre categories — album, record and song of the year. (Those went to Harry Styles, Lizzo and Bonnie Raitt.) Beyoncé, who led the night with nine nominations, did not perform; neither did Kendrick Lamar (eight nods) or Adele (seven). So how did the show fill nearly four hours of airtime? With some spectacular performances, bizarre fan moments and powerful speeches. Here are the show’s highlights and lowlights as we saw them.Best Opening Salvo: Bad BunnyBad Bunny earned his spot at the start of the telecast by making the commercial juggernaut of 2022: “Un Verano Sin Ti,” the year’s most streamed album and a Billboard No. 1 album for 13 nonconsecutive weeks. His performance — a medley of “El Apagón” (“The Blackout”), a tribute to Puerto Rican culture amid adversity, and “Después de la Playa” (“After the Beach”), a come-on — was a carnival and a dance party. Over Afro-Caribbean bomba drumming, Bad Bunny paraded through the Crypto.com Arena aisle with a troupe of dancers, some carrying oversized heads of Puerto Rican figures including the songwriters Andy Montañez and Tego Calderón. When he brought his forces onstage, “Después de la Playa” was transformed from electronic pop to a brassy, galloping merengue that left the celebrities upfront no choice but to dance. JON PARELESBest Acceptance: Kim Petras’s Moving Speech About Trans ExistenceIn her speech for best pop duo/group performance, Kim Petras thanked Sophie, a trans artist who died in 2021.Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyMadonna may have oversold Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s relatively tepid performance of “Unholy” when she promised it would provide “controversy.” But Petras’s moving speech when she and Smith won best pop duo/group performance was far more radical. Smith blew Petras a kiss and graciously ceded the microphone because, as Petras then told the audience in a quivering voice, she had just become the first transgender woman to win this category. She thanked the trans artists who paved the way for her, most poignantly Sophie, the wildly creative electronic producer and artist who died two years ago, at 34: “I adore you and your inspiration will forever be in my music.” Petras also thanked her mother, memorably: “I grew up next to a highway in nowhere, Germany,” she said, “and my mother believed me, that I was a girl, and I wouldn’t be here without her and her support.” LINDSAY ZOLADZBest History Lesson: The Hip-Hop 50 TributePerformers from across the rap universe united for a special segment celebrating the genre’s 50th anniversary.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesVarious chroniclers have agreed that 1973 was the dawn of hip-hop, making it a full 50 years old this year — old enough for the Grammys to finally treat it as a genre rather than an annoyance. That half-century point is also an occasion to start constructing a hip-hop canon. Given the constraints of time (12 minutes) and performer availability, Questlove produced a rough draft of a hip-hop chronology that was a cavalcade of dozens of performers onstage, most spitting a memorable line or verse, and a few — like a forthright Queen Latifah and a speed-tongued Busta Rhymes — getting more valuable seconds to show off. From Grandmaster Flash and Run-DMC to GloRilla and Lil Uzi Vert, it was a hip-hop Cliff’s Notes. (Jay-Z, who belongs in that canon, was reserved for a later appearance with DJ Khaled); it was a great way to start a discussion. And in 12 quick-changing minutes, the Grammys have probably multiplied their number of performing hip-hop acts. PARELESWorst Three-peat: Trevor NoahTrevor Noah had some groan-inducing moments as the Grammys host.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersFor a third consecutive year as Grammys host, Trevor Noah brought an arsenal of groan-worthy dad jokes. If his bits felt stale by the end of the first year, they were, dare we say, unholy the third time around. The Recording Academy needs to switch it up in 2024. Is Cardi B booked? Everyone in the audience seemed to know and like the Rock — why not give him a try? On the bright side, it can’t get much worse. ZOLADZBest Fashionably Late Entrance: Beyoncé Smiling and Nodding at Trevor NoahBeyoncé made it to the Grammys after her first televised win of the night, but in time to accept the honor that gave her the record for the show’s most victories ever.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressWhen Noah delivered his cheesy opening remarks, joking about the stars in the room, Beyoncé was nowhere to be found (much to Lizzo’s consternation). Some time later, when Beyoncé won best R&B song, her third of four awards on the night — and first on the televised prime-time show — she still wasn’t in her seat. (The-Dream, one of her fellow writers, spent a few seconds onstage instead.) And when Noah, after blaming Los Angeles traffic, eventually did find Beyoncé at her table, bringing her the trophy she had won, the singer just nodded politely, giving him — and the show that would go on to both celebrate and disrespect her, again — basically nothing. By the time she did step to the microphone for a proper acceptance speech, having taken the all-time Grammy record and also opted not to perform, Beyoncé had made her priorities clear: She posted to Instagram about her Grammy wins before actually showing her face at the Grammys. JOE COSCARELLIMore Coverage of the 2023 GrammysQuestlove’s Hip-Hop Tribute: The Roots drummer and D.J. fit 50 years of rap history into 15 minutes. For once, the awards show gave the genre a fitting spotlight.Welcoming Rebels: The Grammys need to build bridges between generations. That means convincing once-overlooked upstarts to show up as elders, Jon Caramanica writes.Viola Davis’s EGOT: The actress achieved the rare distinction during the Grammys preshow, becoming the 18th person to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.Protest Song: Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye,” which has become the anthem of the protests in Iran, won in a new special merit category recognizing a song for social change.Worst Participation Trophy: The Useless Fan SegmentsSuperfans of the artists nominated for album of the year shared personal stories about their relationship with their idols’ music.CBS/Paramount+Stan service gone wild was on full display during the misleading — and often humiliating — interstitial segments that showed (alleged) superfans of the 10 artists nominated for album of the year spouting P.R. talking points about their faves around a table and in the audience. If the Grammys has an optics problem, it’s that the public does not fully comprehend just who from the industry’s back rooms tends to vote for these peculiar winners, year after year. So acting like an everyday listener’s opinions about Harry Styles’s good looks, Lizzo’s body positivity or Bad Bunny’s domination on streaming services had anything to do with who was going to take home the prize was not only pointless propaganda, it actually hurt the Recording Academy’s cause by further fuzzying how the system works. Hopefully those people got paid. COSCARELLIBest Tribute That Should Never Have Been Necessary: Quavo Remembering TakeoffQuavo paid tribute to his Migos group mate and nephew, Takeoff.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyThe annual in memoriam segment is never short on tear-jerking moments, given the bonds that fans — and fellow musicians — have with their favorite artists. But seeing Quavo perform “Without You,” a tribute to his nephew and Migos group mate Takeoff, who was killed as an innocent bystander to a shooting in November, was almost too much. Seated at first, wearing a “Phantom of the Opera” mask, in the shadow of a microphone stand holding Takeoff’s glistening rocket chain, Quavo eventually stood up, hoisting the necklace skyward. Seeing him up there alone — even backed by the power of the Maverick City Music collective — only drove home how little we’ve seen the two rappers apart, ever. It will take some getting used to. COSCARELLIBest Beyoncé Appreciation: LizzoLizzo made her feelings about Beyoncé known during her acceptance speech for record of the year.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressIn 2017, when Adele’s “25” triumphed over Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” for album of the year, the British musician announced, “I can’t possibly accept this award,” because the “artist of my life is Beyoncé.” The moment was both uncomfortably sincere and charged with larger tensions, namely the Grammys’ dire history of overlooking Black excellence in the major categories. It wasn’t quite Macklemore-apologizing-to-Kendrick awkward, but it was awkward nonetheless. Since then, beating Beyoncé has become a minefield. Lizzo managed to traverse it with elegance and flair, though, when her uplifting “About Damn Time” won record of the year. In a speech full of joy and grace, she thanked Beyoncé while also celebrating herself and enjoying her moment. Through tears, Lizzo recalled skipping school in 5th grade to see a Beyoncé concert, addressing her idol directly: “The way you made me feel, I was like, I wanna make people feel this way with my music.” But — whether inadvertently or winkingly — she did end up paraphrasing Adele, saying to Beyoncé what now seem to be the magic words: “You clearly are the artist of our lives.” ZOLADZBest Agenda Transcendence: Stevie WonderStevie Wonder performed three songs during the prime-time Grammy ceremony.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressAny performance by Stevie Wonder is an occasion, even one that’s overloaded with guests and agendas. Berry Gordy, Motown’s founder, and Smokey Robinson, the songwriter and longtime Motown executive, were the persons of the year at the Grammys’ MusiCares gala this year. So with Grammy logic, Wonder’s segment became a Motown tribute — the first one since all the way back in, well, 2019. Add a dynastic element; Wonder’s first guest, WanMor, is a boy band formed by the sons of Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men. They shared a Temptations hit co-written by Robinson, “The Way You Do the Things You Do.” Robinson himself joined Wonder for a song they wrote together (along with Hank Cosby), “The Tears of a Clown”; then Wonder performed his own “Higher Ground” with the country hitmaker Chris Stapleton, and the music finally took off. Stapleton brought a blues-rock earthiness to his vocal and guitar lines, and Wonder tossed a synthesizer counterpoint at him that made him grin and dig in harder — a real jam. PARELESBest Graceful Shocked Reaction: Bonnie RaittBonnie Raitt told the story of her Grammy-winning track “Just Like That” as she accepted her award for song of the year.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersIt’s no wonder that Bonnie Raitt, who had just joined a memorial for Christine McVie singing “Songbird,” was surprised when the Grammys chose “Just Like That” as song of the year. She is one of the mature singers and songwriters who have been relegated to formats like “Americana” and “Legacy.” But Raitt had learned from the best — notably John Prine — how to tell a sad but uplifting story with a voice and a small band. Some proportion of Grammy voters — enough to lift her into a plurality above Beyoncé and Adele — obviously recognized the combination of passion and terse craftsmanship. PARELESWorst Face-Saving Maneuvers: Televised CategoriesBad Bunny won best música urbana album, an award that is not usually televised on the main Grammys show. Mario Anzuoni/ReutersLike a nervous baseball manager, the Grammys have lately been re-examining their stats — particularly for representation of minorities, women and marginalized groups, who happen to be the loci of innovation in music. It may have seemed odd that some categories usually relegated to the Grammy Premiere Ceremony — where the vast majority of awards are presented as a webcast but not as a prime-time telecast — had arrived on the main Grammy stage. But look what they were. One was música urbana album, way down at Category 43; it gave a prime-time award, finally, to Bad Bunny. (But the main telecast should have had English subtitles when he switched to his more comfortable Spanish.) And the dance/electronic music album category? Congratulations to Beyoncé for breaking the Grammy record for most awards. But in the top categories, where she has belonged for multiple releases, she still hasn’t gotten her due. PARELESWorst Instance of Gravity Holding Him Back: Harry StylesHarry Styles was a big winner at the podium, but gave a lackluster performance on the Grammys stage.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe usually preternaturally spunky Styles was curiously low energy throughout his performance of “As It Was” Sunday night, hardly selling himself as the sort of entertainer who sells out 15 nights at Madison Square Garden. Several singers seemed to be having issues with their in-ear monitors, and Styles visibly adjusted his a few times, but that still doesn’t explain the curious sluggishness of his time onstage. It certainly didn’t help justify his album of the year win to the skeptics, either. ZOLADZ More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      How the Grammys Bring Rebels Into the Fold

      by

      The awards show needs to build bridges between generations. That means convincing once-overlooked upstarts to show up as elders.Around midway through the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night, Madonna came out to introduce a performance by Sam Smith and Kim Petras of their theatrically gothic collaboration, “Unholy.”The track, a robust and cheeky song about infidelity with a playfully erotic video, went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October, making Smith and Petras the first nonbinary and transgender artist, respectively, to top the chart. (On Sunday, “Unholy” also won best pop duo/group performance.)“Here’s what I’ve learned after four decades in music,” Madonna said dryly, riding crop in hand. “If they call you shocking, scandalous, troublesome, problematic, provocative or dangerous, you are definitely onto something.”Madonna would know, of course — the first decade of her career, she was aggressively, provocatively and campily pushing the boundaries of pop feminism, religion and sexuality, becoming one of the signature superstars of the 1980s. The Grammys, naturally, all but ignored her. She didn’t win a trophy for one of her studio albums until “Ray of Light,” in 1999. To this day, she has never claimed a Grammy in one of the major categories.Sam Smith performed “Unholy” after an introduction from Madonna in which she discussed the joys of provocation.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersAnd yet here she was, a revered and often-imitated elder, now fully absorbed into the Grammys ritual of baton passing between icons old and new.The Grammys, more than any of the other major award shows, needs these sorts of intergenerational handoffs to survive. Often it fudges them, by emphasizing and over-celebrating younger artists, like Bruno Mars and H.E.R., who make deeply traditional music.More Coverage of the 2023 GrammysQuestlove’s Hip-Hop Tribute: The Roots drummer and D.J. fit 50 years of rap history into 15 minutes. For once, the awards show gave the genre a fitting spotlight.Welcoming Rebels: The Grammys need to build bridges between generations. That means convincing once-overlooked upstarts to show up as elders, Jon Caramanica writes.Viola Davis’s EGOT: The actress achieved the rare distinction during the Grammys preshow, becoming the 18th person to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.Protest Song: Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye,” which has become the anthem of the protests in Iran, won in a new special merit category recognizing a song for social change.But the story of pop music is far more often about the mainlining and then mainstreaming of frisky outsider ideas into broad palatability. Innovators and interlopers become the establishment. Those who emerged pushing back fiercely against their elders eventually become elders.For the Grammys to last for decades to come — if it even should, but that’s a debate for a different time — it needs to turn rebels into institutionalists.Nowhere was this more clear Sunday night than in the elaborate and rousing hip-hop history revue that anchored the broadcast — a performance that underscored the Grammys’ often-tortured relationship to newness and rebellion, to say nothing of pop music rebels’ often-tortured relationship to the Grammys.Start at the end, when Lil Uzi Vert stomped out onstage, his hair jelled into spikes, rapping his bizarro viral hit “Just Wanna Rock.” This is how hip-hop works now — an idiosyncratic stylist finds fervor online and builds a cult atop it, a mechanism that couldn’t be further from the Grammys stage.Lil Uzi Vert represented rap’s current generation, performing “Just Wanna Rock.”Kevin Winter/Getty Images For The Recording AAnd yet here he was, anchoring a 12-minute feat of logistics and favor-pulling (orchestrated by Questlove) featuring several titans who had previously never touched the Grammy stage. Rakim, never nominated for a Grammy, with a morsel of “Eric B. Is President.” Too Short, never nominated for a Grammy, plowing through “Blow the Whistle.” The Lox, only nominated for featuring on a Kanye West album, performed “We Gonna Make It,” a song reliably certain to ignite a Hot 97 Summer Jam in New York but not usually the purview of an industry gala.Like all historical surveys, it was both impressively broad and woefully incomplete. Jay-Z was in the audience, not onstage. Drake and West didn’t attend (likely for very different reasons). Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj were M.I.A. The lineup also brought to mind boatloads of other legends who could have taken a star turn — Cam’ron, Lil’ Kim, UGK, KRS-One, E-40, Master P, Big Daddy Kane — to say nothing of the countless rappers who died before seeing the genre reach its 50th birthday.Mostly it underscored the uncharitable ways in which hip-hop has been handled by the Grammys, and the long-running resistance of hip-hop’s biggest stars to the show’s butter-finger approach to handling them. At the 1989 Grammys, the first to honor hip-hop with an award, several of the nominated artists boycotted because the category was not being televised. But some of those original boycotters, Salt-N-Pepa and DJ Jazzy Jeff, appeared during this Sunday’s performance, more evidence of time healing all wounds.In recent years, the Grammys have ever so slightly sped up their relationship to pop music’s evolution. Opening the show this year was Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican rapper-singer whose 2022 release “Un Verano Sin Ti” was last year’s most streamed LP. It was also nominated for album of the year, the first Spanish-language album so honored. The memorial segment included a tribute for Takeoff, the Migos rapper, from his group mate Quavo, a saddening indicator of the Grammys’ growing acceptance of hip-hop. And in her acceptance speech for record of the year, Lizzo framed her unabashedly positive and joyful music as an act of rebellion that paid off.And then there is the matter of Beyoncé, now the most decorated artist in Grammy history while still feeling like something of an outsider. Claiming that record didn’t quite overshadow her losses in the three major categories she was nominated in — to Bonnie Raitt (nice), Lizzo (sure, OK) and Harry Styles (errrr … great rings, beautiful rings).Beyoncé took the Grammys stage once, to accept the award for best dance/electronic music album, which gave her the record for most Grammy wins ever.Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesBeyoncé is a shadow traditionalist, but her short-straw-drawing at the Grammys has fashioned for her something of an outsider lore. She did not perform at this year’s event, and hasn’t for some time, a choice that feels pointed. It’s possible to be the most awarded artist in Grammys history, and still be an anti-Grammys rebel.This goes for her husband as well. Jay-Z boycotted the Grammys in 1999, but has shown up from time to time in the years since, largely to support his wife. He’s won 24 Grammys to Beyoncé’s 32.He was nominated five times this year, but more important, he was the key element in the show-closing performance of “God Did,” a signature DJ Khaled-orchestrated posse cut. What’s notable about this song isn’t that it was a hit — it was not — but that it features a dramatically long, boast-filled, conversation-starting Jay-Z verse.Jay-Z rapped the whole thing, all four minutes of it, seated at the center of a Last Supper-style table, flanked on either side by his longtime business associates Emory Jones and Juan Perez. He looked relaxed, unbothered, rapping like a benevolent uncle from whom you’re lucky to hear old war stories.For someone who’s been vocally skeptical about the Grammys over many years, Jay-Z ended the show wholly on his terms, like the final move in a decades-long chess game. An agitator finally ceded the throne.Whether he — or Beyoncé — will ever deign to sit in it again remains to be seen. More