|
Dead Win Grammys
02/27/1998 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Bruce Haring
(2/27/98) - Kelsey Grammer wasn't the only dead thing on this year's conservative Grammy broadcast, which was clearly revamped to suit television (or do you think they conveniently moved up the Album Of The Year awards because Bob Dylan turns in early?). Six posthumous prizes were handed out to five diverse recording artists. Four won wide appreciation for their work during their lives: country-pop stylist John Denver, jazz trumpeter Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, conductor Sir Georg Solti and veteran newscaster Charles Kuralt, who was awarded two Grammys. The fifth, guitarist/ composer Michael
Hedges, was honored for his contributions to new age music. For Denver, who won Best Musical Album For Children for his locomotive-themed All Aboard!, the award was laced with irony: Wednesday night's Grammy was the only one ever received by the singer with the wire-rimmed glasses, who had such 1970s hitsas "Rocky Mountain High," "Sunshine On My Shoulders" and "Take Me Home, Country Roads." Denver died in October when his experimental plane crashed into Monterey Bay in California. Cheatham, who was still performing when he died in June at 91, won the Best Jazz Instrumental Solo prize with Nicholas
Payton for a hauntingly sweet rendition of "Stardust." Solti's win, his 31st, set a record. He won the Best Opera Recording trophy for Wagner: Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg. Four months before he died, in September at age 84, Solti gave a rare interview in his London home where his 30 Grammys lined the window sills. Look, I don't want to retire because I would die," he said. "I love work and I love music. This is the point. I do it only because I love it. I really love it." Kuralt, who died on the Fourth of July, also loved the work, especially when his news reporting took him to the offbeat corners of the world. His deep, comforting voice can be heard on the spoken-word album for children Winnie-The-Pooh and the spoken-word album Charles Kuralt's Spring--and he was honored for both Wednesday night. Hedges, known for his unusual two-handed picking style, won the Best New Age Album award for Oracle. Hedges died in an automobile accident in rural Mendocino County, about 100 miles northwest of San Francisco, in late November.
|
