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A version of this story about Greg Philinganes and Joni Mitchell first appeared in the Down to the Wire: Comedy/Variety/Reality/Nonfiction issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

Of the many musical-tribute specials that aired during the past Emmy season, few had the emotional clout of PBS’ “Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song: Joni Mitchell.” For starters, it featured a stellar array of musicians paying tribute to the pioneering singer-songwriter — among them Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper, Angelique Kidjo, James Taylor, Herbie Hancock, Diana Krall, Brandi Carlile and Marcus Mumford performing songs that included “Both Sides Now,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Blue,” “Carey” and “Shine.”

But at the end of the night, it also included the 79-year-old Mitchell herself, eight years after a brain aneurysm that forced her to relearn how to walk and sing, performing an exquisite version of George Gershwin’s “Summertime” in a voice far different...

The vibe surrounding Joni Mitchell being bestowed with the Gershwin Prize in Washington, D.C. earlier this month — as seen in a new PBS special — couldn’t have been more harmonious, from all accounts. And that’s a good thing, because under less loving circumstances, there could have been a turf war over who would get to sing “Both Sides Now,” the song that was Mitchell’s first hit in 1967 and might still stand as her signature song, if someone had to pick one with a gun to their head.

The victor, in this quiet, bloodless battle: the inimitable Annie Lennox, who performed at the tribute to Mitchell just months after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Eurythmics.

The way executive producer Ken Ehrlich tells it, it might not even have been that close a call. “I’ve always been taken by her,...

When an all-star cast of musicians came together to rehearse their salute to Joni Mitchell for a Washington, D.C. tribute concert in February, in honor of her being the latest annual recipient of the Gershwin Prize for songwriting, executive producer Ken Ehrlich had an early epiphany about where Marcus Mumford’s cover of “Carey” should go. “During the rehearsal, it was obvious to me: that was the opening number.”

As you watch the remainder of “Joni Mitchell: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song,” though — as it premieres on PBS tonight, and is available thereafter for streaming on PBS.org and the PBS app — you won’t see Mumford disappearing from the stage for very many extended periods. Mumford has been part of the parties at Mitchell’s home the last couple of years, and participated in the “Joni jam” at the Newport Folk Festival last summer,...

When music executive Steven Abdul Khan Brown was making his way to the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, he was blown away by the beautiful sound he heard as he walked closer to the parish.

One of those voices? A teenage Whitney Houston.

“That’s scary — whoa,” he thought, recalling the moment more than 40 years later in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Why haven’t I ever been here before?”

Khan Brown, also a Newark native who had been working with Kool & the Gang and Phyllis Hyman, was encouraged to check out the talented musicians at New Hope, where Cissy Houston worked as minister of music. Khan Brown met the matriarch and a big-voiced Whitney, who blew him away as soon as she began singing.

“Lord, I’ve died and went to heaven,” Khan Brown recalls of her performance. “I thought my ears were going through something.

Harry Styles and Lizzo split the biggest spoils as Beyoncé made history — but went home empty-handed in the major categories yet again — at the 65th Grammy Awards Sunday night.

Styles won the biggest prize of the night — Album of the Year — for Harry’s House, besting heavy favorites Beyoncé and Adele. Lizzo took home Record of the Year for “Special,” and in the most surprising win of the night, Bonnie Raitt won Song of the Year for “Just Like That.” The winner of the other major category, Best New Artist,...

Joni Mitchell is set to receive the 2023 Library of Congress’ Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, an honor that will be bestowed at a tribute concert due to be filmed in Washington, D.C. on the first day of March, with a television premiere on PBS as that month comes to a close.

No performers have yet been announced for the March 1 live show, which will air on PBS March 31 at 9 p.m. Et. Ken Ehrlich, who served as the Grammys’ executive producer for three decades, will produce the show along with Weta in Washington and the Library of Congress.

“This is a very prestigious award,” Mitchell said in a simple statement. “Thank you for honoring me.”

It will mark the second year in a row that Mitchell has received one of the top honors available to any music artist, after she was feted this past spring as MusiCares’ Person of...

Viewers won’t go wrong watching the two-hour entirety of “Homeward Bound: A Grammy Salute to the Songs of Paul Simon” tonight on CBS. But if you have only about a 10-minute stretch to spare for televised non-holiday music in the days leading up to Christmas, maybe make it the closing act of this special — especially the generational handoff number that has one master, Rhiannon Giddens, movingly joining another. As Giddens and Simon perform “American Tune,” you may feel like you’ve gone off to find America, and actually kinda succeeded in that search, over the course of just one number.

Everything else about the telecast — which was filmed before a live audience at Hollywood’s Pantages back in April (see Variety‘s next-day coverage here) — feels immaculately chosen by producer Ken Ehrlich, if hardly marked by left-field surprises. There are no sops to the youth vote, except for the...

The Grammys aren’t done evolving, according to the ceremony’s executive producer, Ben Winston, who took over the show last year from Ken Ehrlich, the show’s mastermind for over 40 years. Winston and Raj Kapoor, the show’s executive producer and showrunner, joined the latest episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast to delve into behind-the-scenes secrets of this year’s ceremony, address criticisms, and much more.

To hear the whole entire episode, press play above, or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Some highlights follow:

BTS almost...

Brandi Carlile, Brad Paisley, Billy Porter, and more will gather for a tribute concert for Paul Simon. Homeward Bound: A Grammy Salute to the Songs of Paul Simon is set to take place just after the Grammys, April 6, at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles.

It will also feature performances from Little Big Town, Rhiannon Giddens, Dave Matthews, Angélique Kidjo, Shaggy, Irma Thomas, and Trombone Shorty. Simon will perform at the concert as well, while additional performers will be announced at a later date.

Tickets for the concert will...

As the Grammys return as a big-scale live event this year, so is the tradition of filming a tribute to a superstar musician in the days following the awards show, with the 2022 honoree being Paul Simon, who’ll be saluted by an all-star cast at L.A.’s Pantages Theatre.

“Homeward Bound: A Grammy Salute to the Songs of Paul Simon” will be filmed April 6, three days after the Grammys, with a CBS air date to be determined for later in the year. Ken Ehrlich is reprising the role he’s had in the past as the annual salute’s executive producer.

Among the performers booked for the tribute are Brandi Carlile, Dave Matthews, Rhiannon Giddens, Brad Paisley, Angélique Kidjo, Little Big Town, Billy Porter, Trombone Shorty, Shaggy, Take 6 and Irma Thomas.

Other names will be announced closer to the show date, including a handful of performers who will pre-tape...

As Covid-19 wanes in the United States, symptoms like loss of taste and smell are on the outs too. Imminently returning to the “in” list, though: hearing loss.

“This is a fucking rock concert!” yelled Dave Grohl, repeatedly, as a Foo Fighters performance that seemed a third louder than any other act’s capped the Global Citizen-produced Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World May 2. A TV taping for a special to air across networks on May 8, it doubled as the first concert at L.A.’s new SoFi Stadium, and America’s first real stadium show since the pandemic began. Even with the Foos bringing tinnitus back, you could hear the wider reverberations.

“I don’t know how it’ll be looked at three or five years from now,” said Ken Ehrlich, one of the broadcast’s executive producers, the day after filming. “But I can tell you...

SoFi Stadium in Inglewood will play host to an all-star concert that will be broadcast and streamed worldwide as part of a global effort to inspire confidence in Covid-19 vaccines and encourage people to be inoculated, organizers announced today.

Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World will be pre-taped at SoFi Stadium and air May 8 as part of a worldwide event broadcasting on ABC, CBS, Fox, YouTube and on iHeartMedia radio stations. Selena Gomez will host the event, which will include performances by Jennifer Lopez, Eddie Vedder, Foo Fighters, J Balvin and H.E.R.

“I’m honored to be hosting Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World,” said Gomez in a statement. “This is a historic moment to encourage people around the world to take the Covid-19 vaccine when it becomes available to them, call on world leaders to share vaccine doses equitably and to bring people...

After his highly controversial snubs at the 2021 Grammy Awards, singer-songwriter The Weeknd expressed that he will no longer submit his music for consideration, citing the “secret panels” (probably meaning the nomination review committees) as the reason why. However, The Weeknd is far from the first artist to have beef with the Grammys. From not attending the awards to outright dissing the institution and not submitting their work, here are a few artists who also decided to declare a Grammys boycott over the years.

SEEIs Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Drivers License’ already a lock for Grammys in 2022?

Frank Ocean

The acclaimed R&b singer-songwriter made headlines in 2016 for his decision not to submit his album “Blonde” for consideration. This was an unexpected choice given that Ocean was not only a previous Grammy winner, but that “Blonde” was highly acclaimed and would’ve surely gotten love somewhere. Ocean explained his decision to the New York Times,...

The Recording Academy has announced that the 64th Annual Grammy Awards will take place January 31st, 2022.

The show plans to return to the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and will air from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Et on CBS, while simultaneously streaming on Paramount+. It will also be available to watch on-demand on Paramount+.

The return to a January show comes after the Recording Academy decided to bump the 2021 Grammys to March amid high Covid-19 safety concerns. When the decision was made in early January of this year,...

Ben Winston can finally sleep again. Sort of. After producing the Grammys for the first time last Sunday, he crawled into bed around 4 a.m., only to be jumped on by his young daughter, Ruby, two hours later; he also went right back to work in the morning, taping three episodes of The Late Late Show With James Corden in the week since Music’s Biggest Night.

Speaking to Rolling Stone on Zoom, Winston is still tired, but relieved — his inbox has been flooded with praise for the telecast, which...

As a fictional singer-songwriter who once fictionally peed their fictional pants at a fictional Grammys ceremony once sang, via real-life, dry-trousered songwriter Jason Isbell, “Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.” And, like, it really is. The 2021 Grammy broadcast was already poised for reinvention, with producer Ken Ehrlich stepping down following a decades-long tenure. As Covid-19 forced a deeper rethink, and Late Late Show with James Corden’s Ben Winston took over the production, along with longtime BET Awards producer Jesse Collins (who also just worked on...

Reading interviews with the Grammys’ producers ahead of the 2021 telecast, you might have had trouble getting a handle on what, exactly, the show would be like. There was a reason for that: It was a little bit of everything — more so than a typical Grammys telecast, which would normally have the advantage or drawback of being limited to performances that could and would be put on in real time in front of an arena-sized crowd. This year’s Grammys were presented with a panoply of possible alternatives to that approach… and kinda took all the approaches, one at a time.

Would you like your Grammys performances to feel a lot like late-night TV, all cozy and fairly basis, with an intimacy a bigger-scaled show can’t afford? Well, that was the opening set, which had Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Haim and (after the first commercial break) and Black Pumas all...

The Late Late Show exec producer Ben Winston, equally magnetic as on-camera counterpart and pal James Corden, picked one hell of a year to run his first Grammys. Taking over for longtime maestro Ken Ehrlich, who retired from the show with the 2020 telecast, Winston has had to navigate a seven-week delay and the challenge of safely putting 23 acts in one room, albeit a big one, at the L.A. Convention Center. Over Zoom, a week out from the big night, he discussed his ambitious Grammy vision, that Late Late Feb. 25 segment with Prince Harry and how the pandemic is no excuse ...

The Late Late Show exec producer Ben Winston, equally magnetic as on-camera counterpart and pal James Corden, picked one hell of a year to run his first Grammys. Taking over for longtime maestro Ken Ehrlich, who retired from the show with the 2020 telecast, Winston has had to navigate a seven-week delay and the challenge of safely putting 23 acts in one room, albeit a big one, at the L.A. Convention Center. Over Zoom, a week out from the big night, he discussed his ambitious Grammy vision, that Late Late Feb. 25 segment with Prince Harry and how the pandemic is no excuse ...

Sunday’s Grammy Awards telecast is set to open with a performance by Harry Styles, who is nominated for three awards on music’s biggest night.

“You don’t want to miss the top of the show,” Jack Sussman, CBS’ executive VP of specials, music and live events, tells Variety. “It’s going to be music coming at you heavy and hard like you’ve not seen it before. We’ve got Harry Styles, this incredible entertainer, at the top of the show and we’ll just keep coming at you.”

The hope is that the burst of a rousing kick-off to the three and a half hour ceremony will soothe an audience that has been starved for live shows for a year and be a moment of renewal for the artists themselves.

Styles is a contender for best pop solo performance for “Watermelon Sugar,” best pop vocal album for...

With the 2021 Grammy Award ceremony set to be on January 31, 2021, we’re excited to see what’s in store for this year’s show, especially given the current pandemic circumstances. Here are a couple of things I hope to see come next month.

SEELuke James on his Grammy nomination for ‘To Feel Love/d’ and why this album felt like his ’emancipation’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

1. Fewer performances, more awards

Listen, as much as I love those unique Grammy moments every year, do we really need that many performances? The Grammys are still, you know, an awards show, so why not give out more awards during the primetime broadcast instead of presenting almost all of them at the Premiere Ceremony that streams online earlier in the day? Maybe they can limit the performers to general field nominees (which is plenty since there are eight nominees in each of those categories), or maybe do one performance per award.

The Grammy Awards nominations are always a cascade of joy and tears, but this year is exceptional for a number of reasons. After 40 years with Ken Ehrlich at the helm, the show has a new executive producer, “Corden” vet Ben Winston; the Recording Academy has a new (albeit interim) chief, producer-songwriter Harvey Mason, jr.; and, oh yes, they’re trying to figure out how to stage Music’s Biggest Night during a pandemic.

Mason, who never expected to be running the organization, has had an unprecedentedly challenging year and has risen to the occasion, distributing more than $20 million in Covid-19 relief to the music community via the Academy’s charitable MusiCares organization, and has worked hard to diversify the Academy’s staff, membership and its outreach to the music community. He has led with a strong and sympathetic hand in an unimaginably difficult time.

But the subject on many minds Tuesday was the nominations,...

Nominations for the 63rd annual Grammy Awards are set to be revealed Tuesday beginning at noon Et/9 a.m. Pt in a livestream by awards organizer the Recording Academy. Chair and interim Recording Academy president and CEO Harvey Mason Jr. will oversee the announcement of noms in the biggest of 84 total categories.

The hourlong livestream will be available via Grammy.com and the organziation’s Twitter and Facebook pages. You can also watch here on Deadline:

#GRAMMYs nominations are November 24, 2020!

The big announcement will happen during a Twitter hour-long livestream beginning at approximately 9:00 a.m. Pt / 12:00 p.m. Et. https://t.co/jXm96YmJin

— Recording Academy / GRAMMYs (@RecordingAcad) November 20, 2020

Mason Jr. will be joined by past Grammy winners, nominees and hopefuls from remote locations as they unveil the majority of the categories (see the run of show below). Others involved in the noms ceremony: Mexican singer-songwriter Pepe Aguilar,...

Walter C. Miller, a five-time Emmy-winner best known for producing or directing the Grammys, Tonys and CMA Awards in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, died on Friday evening, the Country Music Association confirmed to Variety. He was 94.

“Walter was an absolute television legend,” said CMA chief executive officer Sarah Trahern in a statement. “When you worked with him, you instantly knew you were in the presence of greatness. He brought so much innovation and brilliance to the CMA Awards over the 40 years he worked with the organization.”

Miller also served at the helm of other awards shows, as well, including the Emmys, People’s Choice Awards and Latin Grammys.

Miller was nominated for 19 prime-time Emmy Awards, taking home five trophies between 1972 and 1999 — four of them from directing the Tony Awards. He was also nominated for two daytime Emmys. Miller was a three-time Directors Guild of America winner. In 1993, he won...

Cyndi Lauper has released a new lyric video for her classic hit song “Time After Time” in honor of National Coming Out Day on Sunday, October 11th.

The animated lyric video was created by Malikah Holder, an animator and illustrator from the UK animation house Black Women Animate, and features a montage that celebrates queer love and identity with diverse, inclusive representation.

In addition to the video, Lauper will be launching a National Coming Out Day campaign on TikTok with her non-profit True Colors United, an organization that addresses LGBTQ youth homelessness.

Even before the pandemic, the 2021 Grammy Awards were going to be very different from previous shows.

For the first time in 40 years, the show will not be produced by veteran Ken Ehrlich, who announced in 2019 he’d be stepping aside for longtime James Corden producer Ben Winston. Ehrlich brought such familiar signature touches — thematic medleys with generation-spanning duet partners, understated nods to the social cause of the moment, and a certain old-school showbiz razzmatazz — that it’s hard to imagine the Grammys without him.

More pointedly, the 2020 Grammys took place against an ugly backdrop of mismanagement allegations and longstanding accusations of gender and racial misrepresentation in the awards, the Recording Academy and the industry. This was capped by a blockbuster legal complaint filed against the Academy in January by ousted president/CEO Deborah Dugan, who was placed on leave just days before the show amid strongly worded but vague accusations of “misconduct.

Brandi Carlile, Cyndi Lauper, Cynthia Erivo, Yola and Laurie Anderson will be among the stars paying tribute to honorees like John Prine, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Philip Glass, Chicago and Philip Glass in “Great Performances: Grammy Salute to Music Legends,” set to air Oct. 16 on PBS.

The annual special, now in its fifth year, offers a fuller celebration of the Recording Academy’s lifetime achievement winners, after they are acknowledged earlier in the year in passing at the Grammys. The show is usually recorded before a live audience, but this year’s, of course, will be filmed with the participating stars in remote locations.

Other performers on tap for the show include Chris Isaak, the duo of Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, Sam Moore, Leslie Odom, Jr. and Philip Bailey. Additional honorees include Roberta Flack, Isaac Hayes, mid-20th-century talent agent Frank Walker and the 40-year executive producer of the Grammy Awards telecast,...

The Recording Academy will honor the 2020 Special Merit Award recipients with Great Performances: Grammy Salute to Music Legends, a televised awards ceremony and tribute concert. Hosted by Jimmy Jam, the event will air Friday, October 16th at 9:00 p.m. Et on PBS.

The 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award honorees, as announced earlier this year, are Chicago, Roberta Flack, Isaac Hayes, Iggy Pop, John Prine, Public Enemy and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Trustees Award honors will be given to Ken Ehrlich, Philip Glass and Frank Walker, and George Augspurger will receive the Technical Grammy Award.

To say that interim Recording Academy president/CEO Harvey Mason jr. has had a challenging first few months on the job is an understatement of epic proportions. In January, just days after taking the role on a temporary basis after former president/CEO Deborah Dugan’s controversial ouster, he steered the Recording Academy through the most tumultuous Grammy Awards in its history. In March came the coronavirus pandemic, which saw him and MusiCares chair Steve Boom leading the Academy’s charitable wing to distribute nearly $20 million to members of the music community who had been impacted by the virus. In May, the entire nation erupted into protests after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police, and he led the organization’s efforts in response to it, which included participating in Blackout Tuesday and donating $1 million to Color of Change. He also oversaw the Academy’s board meetings...

In today’s TV News Roundup, Hulu released a trailer for upcoming documentary “We Are Freestyle Love Supreme,” and Cmt added new celebrities to the line-up for its upcoming special celebrating those continuing to work amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Casting

CBS has announced the 12 challengers competing on its upcoming reality series “Tough as Nails,” which aims to celebrate Americans with tough jobs that help keep the country running. The competitors include Linnett Key, a welder from Lecanto, Fla.; Danny Moody, a drywaller from Spokane, Wash.; Melissa Burns, a farmer from Milford Center, Ohio; Lee Marshall, a roofer from St. Louis, Mo.; Kelly “Murph” Murphy, a Marine Corps veteran from Paragon, Ind.; Linda Goodridge, a deputy sheriff from Marion, N.Y.; Luis Yuli, a scaffolder from the Bronx, N.Y.; Michelle S. Kiddy, a gate agent from Alexandria, Ky.; Callie Cattell, a fisherman from Bend, Ore.; Young An, a firefighter from Alexandria,...

CBS and the Recording Academy will stage a two-hour special honoring essential workers and hosted by Harry Connick Jr.

United We Sing: A Grammy Salute To The Unsung Heroes will air on Sunday, June 21 from 8 Pm to 10 Pm on CBS.

The show will see Harry Connick and his filmmaker daughter, Georgia, take a road trip in an Rv from Connecticut to New Orleans to thank and celebrate essential workers, while hearing their stories of public service. The Connicks will salute the contributions with the help of messages from Sandra Bullock, Drew Brees, Queen Latifah, Brad Pitt, Oprah Winfrey and Renée Zellweger, who will deliver surprise messages to America’s unsung heroes.

Additionally, the special will feature performances by Connick, Jon Batiste, Andra Day, John Fogerty, Jamie Foxx, Herbie Hancock, Cyndi Lauper, Little Big Town, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Dave Matthews, Tim McGraw, Rockin Dopsie, Irma Thomas and Trombone Shorty.

The...

“What time is it?” is a question Prince fans have been asking one another, and not just because they’ve got Morris Day on their minds. A re-broadcast of “Let’s Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince” was hastily scheduled for Saturday after the original airing of the special Tuesday won the ratings race for the night, to the surprise of many.

Reaction to the first broadcast was wildly enthusiastic among most viewers. “It seemed to strike a chord with people,” says executive producer Ken Ehrlich, “and more than one person pointed out how refreshing it was to see a live audience, as opposed to one more couch-and-guitar number (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It did well for the network, which always helps.” The show was filmed before the coronavirus pandemic shut-downs, of course, a couple of nights after the Grammys.

Variety picked his brain about...

Sometimes it snows more than once in April. “Let’s Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince” did well enough in the ratings for CBS Tuesday night that the network has scheduled the special for an instant rerun, to air Saturday, April 25 at 8 p.m. Et/Pt.

The two-hour tribute, well received by casual fans as well as the Prince faithful, was the top-rated show on television Tuesday night, scoring 1.0 in the 18-49 demographic (besting the 0.8 for the series finale of “Empire”). In total overall viewers, it brought in an impressive 6.49 million, slightly behind the 7.7 million of its network lead-in, “NCIS.”

The first airing Tuesday arrived on the fourth anniversary of Prince’s death — but as timing goes, an even more important factor may have been how ready viewers were to see some full produced live music after a month’s worth of mostly seeing stars turning in acoustic performances from their living rooms.

Updated: In response to her termination Monday, ousted Recording Academy president/CEO Deborah Dugan’s attorneys have fired back at the organization with a supplemental charge of discrimination that includes multiple new allegations, including what it claims is evidence of an attempts by the Academy — and longtime Grammy Awards executive producer Ken Ehrlich — to influence the nominations process. The document also includes what it claims is new evidence of the Academy’s efforts to retaliate against her, particularly after her bombshell legal complaint of Jan. 21, which the new document supplements.

In the earlier complaint, Dugan, who was placed on leave just days before the Grammy Awards, accuses the organization of multiple instances of misconduct, including improprieties in the Grammy voting procedure; “egregious conflicts of interest, improper self-dealing by Board members… and a ‘boys’ club’ mentality”; “exorbitant” legal fees paid to outside law firms; and that attorney Joel Katz, an Academy...

No tribute to an artist of Prince’s majesty can be perfect, but at first glance the lineup for “Let’s Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince” — which taped Tuesday night and will air on CBS on April 21 — did not make one’s heart skip a beat. While the show’s musical foundation could not have been stronger — Prince’s longtime collaborators Sheila E., Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were musical directors of an ace house band, and the Revolution and The Time performed as well — some of the featured singers seemed like less inspired choices. Chris Martin instead of Maxwell, whose live sets include killer versions of “Nothing Compares 2U” and “Beautiful Ones”? Foo Fighters for their rawk cover of “Darling Nikki” instead of, say, Janelle Monae?

But as Tuesday night’s triumphant show proved, appearances can be deceiving. While not everyone nailed their performances and a couple fell flat,...

Ken Ehrlich, the showrunner of the Grammy Awards for the last 40 years, just wrapped up the show and is running off four hours of sleep when he sits down with Rolling Stone in Los Angeles. “I have gotten all these emails saying I have changed the face of music, and I don’t believe that for a minute,” he says between rehearsals for the Grammys’ Prince tribute.

While Ehrlich has witnessed countless spats and scandals between artists, executives, and other industry figures behind the scenes, it’s rare that he...

Sudden death, scandal, disenfranchised divas, a moved-up airdate… It’s safe to say that Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich faced a few more difficulties than usual in mounting what his final edition of the telecast he’s been at the helm of for 40 years. Some of these he had a year to try to solve. But then his production team only had about six hours before airtime Sunday to figure out how to handle the death of basketball legend Kobe Bryant with the weight it merited.

Ehrlich spoke with Variety Monday about dealing with the Bryant tragedy; how the ongoing Recording Academy imbroglio influenced the tone of the show; getting Ariana Grande on the telecast a year after things went publicly sour between them; how Taylor Swift was only ever penciled in to the lineup; why he chose “I Sing the Body Electric” from “Fame” as the all-star climax; and what...

It could be an entertaining spectacle, if you ignored the crumbling institutions it was built upon and the creeping fear in the air — but enough about life in 21st century America. The Grammys have their own problems, with the show going on in the face of a roiling crisis at its governing body, the Recording Academy, after recently dismissed CEO Deborah Dugan dropped a long list of grave allegations against it, including rampant gender bias and corruption around the awards process. (The Academy denies it all.)

For all of its flaws,...

The Grammys are nothing if not a sensory experience, but what you see and hear on stage hardly tells the full picture. Variety had reporters on the ground and backstage keeping tabs on the actions. Read on for what you didn’t see on TV.

• After completing his red carpet duties, Lewis Capaldi headed to the adjoining Jw Marriott Hotel for a rest before the storm. Along the way, he cheeringly posed for photos with fans.

• The red carpet was mobbed but one of the easiest stars to spot was Billie Eilish, whom Sharon Osbourne, working as on-air talent for CBS, embraced excitedly. They both squealed, naturally.

• Meanwhile, at the premiere ceremony, otherwise known as the pre-telecast, Billie Eilish was absent from the stage for her best pop vocal album grammy, but her family and team also didn’t accept on her behalf, choosing to wait and see if brother/collaborator Finneas wins best producer,...

“It’s been a hell of a week,” said Alicia Keys, moments into her hosting gig on Sunday night’s Grammys telecast. “Damn! It’s a really serious one — real talk.” No kidding. Was this the first 99.9% joke-free Grammys, in the 62-year history of the telecast?

Not that anyone should be complaining about that, exactly … not after the recent Golden Globes show, where you could’ve been offended by Ricky Gervais pooping on the entire proceedings or just affronted by the comic inertia of the interplay forced on all the presenters. None of that for Music’s Greatest Night: Choosing Alicia Keys as host augured for earnestness, even before circumstances dictated an even straighter face for the show. As the scandal at the Recording Academy went beyond nuclear, you could imagine the Grammys’ scriptwriters furiously crossing out any existing quips, for fear of seeming facetious while Rome burns. Then, in...

The 2020 Grammys telecast ran close to four hours long since they were crammed from beginning to end with all-star performances, but which was the highlight of the evening? Scroll down to vote in our poll at the bottom of this post, and check out the complete list of winners here.

SEE2020 Grammys: Full list of winners for the 62nd Grammy Awards

The stellar performances can be sorted into a few different categories. There were the emotional tearjerkers, of which the biggest might have been Demi Lovato‘s deeply personal rendition of “Anyone,” which she performed following her continued struggles with addiction and mental illness. The song was an emotional plea so raw that she almost couldn’t get through it, so broken up that she had to start over after a false start.

Camila Cabello also pulled our heartstrings by serenading her father with her song “First Man,” which paid...

Billie Eilish cleaned up at the 2020 Grammy Awards, winning five of the six awards she was nominated for, including the night’s four biggest prizes.

Eilish’s night began during the prebroadcast ceremony, where her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? picked up Best Pop Vocal Album. She later won Best New Artist, Album of the Year for When We All Fall Asleep, and Record and Song of the Year for “Bad Guy.” On top of all that, her brother/producer, Finneas, picked up two awards himself: Best Engineered Album,...

Updated with complete list of winners: Billie Eilish swept the marquee Record, Album, Song and New Artist categories Sunday at the 62nd annual Grammy Awards, with the 18-year old dominating the ceremony dubbed music’s biggest night.

The live ceremony at Staples Center in Los Angeles was hosted by Alicia Keys the same day as Los Angeles Lakers icon Kobe Bryant, along with his daughter and seven others, were killed in a helicopter crash. He was memorialized throughout the night at the downtown arena where he plied his trade for the Lakers for two decades, including via in a tribute by Keys and Boyz II Men in the opening segment of the show.

Alicia Keys, Boyz II Men Honor Kobe Bryant At Grammy Awards

Eilish, who had six total noms going in, beat loaded fields for Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Best...

Longtime Grammy telecast producer Ken Ehrlich has delivered his Grammy swan song (figuratively and literally), and it couldn’t have happened without … Walt Whitman. To usher out his 40-year era as the guiding light behind some of TV’s greatest musical moments, Ehrlich chose the song “I Sing the Body Electric” from the 1980 movie musical “Fame” and assembled quite the formidable choir to perform it at the January 26 ceremony: Camila Cabello, Cyndi Lauper, Ben Platt, Common and War and Treaty’s Michael and Tanya Trotter will tackle vocals, with musical accompaniment provided by Jack Antonoff (guitar), Gary Clark Jr. (electric guitar), Lang Lang (piano) and The Ricky Minor Band. Reimagining the choreography was a “Fame” original: Debbie Allen.

So where exactly did Whitman, one of America’s first superstar poets, a Bob Dylan of his day, fit in? The song, written for the beloved movie musical by Michael Gore (younger...

John Legend, Meek Mill, DJ Khaled and more took part in the Grammys’ tribute to Nipsey Hussle. The rapper was shot and killed in March 2019 at the age of 33.

Meek Mill opened the tribute by rapping directly to Nipsey, accompanied only by piano. He was quickly joined by Roddy Ricch, currently the bestselling artist in the country, for a performance of “Letter to Nipsey,” before the appearance of DJ Khaled and John Legend for a rendition of “Higher,” a song from Khaled’s latest album, which featured Hussle and Legend.

Just hours after Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash, the Grammy Awards quickly put together a tribute honoring the late NBA legend.

Moments after Lizzo opened this evening’s show, announcing “Tonight is for Kobe” before performing her hits Cuz I Love You and Truth Hurts, host Alicia Keys took the stage.

“Here we are together on Music’s Biggest Night,” Keys said somberly. “But to be honest with you, we’re all feeling crazy sad right now because earlier today, Los Angeles, America and the whole wide world lost a hero, and we’re literally standing in here heartbroken in the house that Kobe Bryant built.”

[Watch the video above]

“Right now Kobe and his daughter Gianna, and all of those that have been tragically lost today are in our spirits. They’re in our hearts. They’re in our prayers. They’re in this building,” Keys continued. “I would like...

The Grammys have made their final performer announcements for the big show on Sunday night, January 26. Click above to see all the celebs who will take part in the 62nd annual event this weekend.

Grammy winner and current four-time nominee Gary Clark Jr. was previously announced as a performer for the telecast, but the Grammys have now revealed that he will be singing “This Land” alongside fellow Grammy winners The Roots. “This Land” earned Clark bids this year for Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Music Video.

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There will also be a special tribute to the late, great Prince performed by four-time Grammy nominee Sheila E and eight-time Grammy winner Usher. And that won’t be the only posthumous tribute. Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Trombone Shorty will perform as part of the show’s “In Memoriam” segment.

The War and Treaty have returned with a pair of new songs. The duo of spouses Michael Trotter and Tanya Blount-Trotter released “Jealousy” and “Hustlin'” on Friday, marking their first music since signing with Rounder Records in mid-2019 and a preview of the follow-up to their Buddy Miller-produced 2018 album The Healing Tide.

While “Jealousy” retains the signature vocal interplay that made the Trotters’ live performances so ecstatic, it ventures into some new stylistic territory. With its four-on-the-floor beat, minor-key electric guitar stabs, and burbling synthesizer, it has the hallmarks of a disco anthem,...

In simpler times, an artist could see album sales spike to over 500,000 in the days after a Grammy Awards broadcast appearance. That was Santana’s experience in 2000. Following a performance on the show and eight Grammy wins, “Supernatural” flew off the shelves — a gold certification from one key look.

Today, that seems downright otherworldly, but that’s not to say there aren’t immediate revenue gains — albeit more modest — from Grammy exposure.

“It’s still one of the bigger promotional moments — or gets — that you can have as a marketer or an artist, but the stakes are different and the goals have shifted pretty drastically,” says Josh Berman, Svp of streaming and digital marketing at Concord, home to the Grammy-nominated Tanya Tucker and Elvis Costello & the Imposters. “You can’t just have that moment happen and expect a windfall of sales or even consumption in the streaming world, especially for...

John Legend, Meek Mill, and DJ Khaled will lead a tribute to the late rapper Nipsey Hussle at the 62nd Grammy Awards.

The performance will also feature gospel star Kirk Franklin and two of Nipsey’s Southern California hip-hop successors: Roddy Ricch and Yg. Along with the tribute, Nipsey Hussle is up for three posthumous awards, including Best Rap/Sung Performance for DJ Khaled’s “Higher,” which also features Legend, and Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for “Racks in the Middle,” featuring Roddy Ricch and Hit-Boy.

“Racks in...