The Lonely Goatherd Blog And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats - Matthew 25:32
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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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All original content on MoreThings.com copyright 2008 Albert Barger or the respective authors
February 14, 2005
Good on Grammy, 2005 No sensible music fan expects much from the Grammys. This point was imprinted heartily into my brain with the infamous 1978 Best New Artist Grammy for A Taste of Honey, and their cheesy little disco hit "Boogie Oogie Oogie," which beat out Elvis Costello and "Alison."
On the other hand, even a stopped watch is right twice a day. If only by accident, the Grammys sometimes get a couple of good choices. Let us accentuate the positive.
They gave record and album of the year to Ray Charles. I'm all in favor of Ray Charles, and he's certainly an inoffensive choice who deserves all kinds of awards for his lifetime of grooviness. However, did he really deserve them for these recordings? His artistic prime was trailing off 40 years ago.
They were dead on the money, though, picking Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose as Country Album of the Year. Good call. Grammy has sometimes in recent years had the redeeming value of naming a real country album, which is to say something that would not ever be played on modern commercial country radio.
Finally, they pleased me very much with the relatively minor award for Best Rock Instrumental, which went to Brian Wilson for "Mrs O'Leary's Cow." This track from the finally completed Smile album represents what he ended up with for the famous "fire suite" from the original Beach Boys sessions. In short, there were more stories of mental distress for Brian relating to this part of the original project than any other. I'm glad to see him get some recognition for following that through.
