Grammy season is underway which means everyone is anticipating the annual award show airing February 5th. This award show began 63 years ago and has been going strong since. While we all gather around in the family room and watch this year, only a few select people know the history of the Grammys. Keep reading and I will provide you with everything you need to know to fully appreciate this pop culture phenomenon!
On May 4th, 1959, the first ever gramophone award for Record of the Year, now known as the Grammy, was awarded to Domenico Modugno for his record, “Volare”. During this award show, he was also awarded Song of the Year for his song, “Volare”. Some of the other winners that year included Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. This February, the Grammys will be hosted by the comedian, Trevor Noah but the first ever Grammy Awards were hosted by the Canadian-American comedian, Mort Sahl. However, you may ask yourself, why was this award show established?
In 1959, the popular award shows, The Academy Awards and The Emmy Awards already existed. However, there was no show that recognized the hard work and capabilities of American singers and songwriters. When the Grammys initially aired, there were only 28 categories of awards. Today, we have 91 categories. While this show initially was created in 1959, it was not until the 13th Grammy Award Show that the show was actually aired on national television. Now you may be wondering, I cannot vote on these awards so who does? The answer to this is the members of the Recording Academy who have continuously paid their yearly dues. These music professionals get to fill out ballots for categories in which they have musical expertise and the four main categories that everyone in the group can fill out. These four categories are Best New Artist, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, and Record of the Year.
On a different note, there have been a number of records that have been set since the beginning of the Grammy era. To start, the artist that has won the most Grammys was Georg Solti, a Hungarian-British conductor, who has won 31 of the 74 awards he was nominated for. While 74 is a large number of nominations, the highest number of nominations in the history of the Grammys is a tie between Jay-Z and Beyonce. Both artists have 88 nominations under their belt. This year, Beyonce has the highest number of nominations for this Grammy session with 9 nominations.
The question now is, will more records be set this year at the Grammys?