Spotlight – The GRAMMYs

GRAMMY season is upon us! For those of us who love listening to music, the season is just a few short weeks between the announcement of the nominees and the awards show. For those who make the music, the season is months in the making but the road to the nomination is much, much longer than that. Many artists spend weeks, and for some, possibly years, planning, writing, and creating their latest albums. They pour not just their time and energy into these productions, but their hearts and their souls. After months of hard work, performances, and promotion, it’s time to put the final product to the test.

The GRAMMY Awards have a clearly defined timeline. For an album to be eligible for this year’s awards, it had to be released between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022. Entries were then submitted to the Recording Academy for consideration between July 18 and August 31. Once entries were verified as meeting all the criteria, the First Round of voting opened to Academy voters on October 13 and continued to October 23. This round was used to determine the five albums that would appear on the final ballot. The Final Round of voting took place from December 14, 2o22 to January 4, 2023 with the 65th GRAMMY awards set to be announced on Sunday, February 5.

One of the things that I absolutely love about the Children’s Music Community is the incredible amount of love and support that they show one another. There were dozens upon dozens of family music artists who submitted their albums for consideration and even though they may have been disappointed when their names weren’t called, within moments of the announcement of the five albums nominated for this year’s GRAMMY award, social media was flooded with congratulations and support from throughout the family music community. Over the next three weeks Kids Rhythm and Rock will be featuring each of the nominated albums along with brief interviews with the performers. Be on the lookout later this week when I shine a spotlight on Wendy & DB and their GRAMMY-nominated album Into the Little Blue House.  

Best Children’s Album GRAMMY 2023 Nominees

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – the GRAMMY Award Nominations! The 65th annual GRAMMY award nominations were announced today. To be eligible for the award, a children’s album must contain at least 51% playing time of new musical or spoken word recordings that are created and intended specifically for children and released between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022. The depth and variety of children’s music this year was truly incredible. Congratulations to all of the nominees and to all the artists who created such amazing music this year. The GRAMMY Awards will be announced on Sunday, February 5.

Into the Little Blue House performed by Wendy & DB

Los Fabulosos performed by Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band

The Movement performed by Alphabet Rockers

Ready Set Go performed by Divinity Roxx

Space Cadet performed by Justin Roberts

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A week ago the 2021 GRAMMY nominations for Best Children’s Album were announced. To say they were a surprise is putting it mildly. The first thing I noticed was that for the second year in a row, only one woman was nominated (last year Kaitlin McGaw and Alphabet Rockers garnered a nomination for their album The Love). The very next thought that crossed my mind was that every single nominee is white. Every. Single. One. In a year when children’s music was filled with incredible albums by artists such as Pierce Freelon, Elena Moon Park, 123 Andrés, Wendy & DB, SaulPaul, and Flor Bromley it was shocking to realize that not one person of color’s work was recognized by the Recording Academy.

How could this be? In a year filled with protests and conversations about racial injustices and inequalities both out in the streets of our cities and towns but also throughout the children’s music online communities, how could the voting membership have gotten it so wrong? And just who are these voters and what are they voting on? According to Grammy.com, “The Recording Academy is a not-for-profit that represents a diversity of music makers and professionals. Our membership focuses on service, advocacy and recognition of the art and craft of music.” In order to become a voting member of the Academy, performers, songwriters, producers, engineers, instrumentalists, and other creators currently working in the recording industry can apply to be invited to the Academy by submitting “two strong recommendations from music industry peers” and a career profile. Submissions are then considered by the Recording Academy’s Peer Review panel. If approved, the candidate will be invited to join the Recording Academy. 

What exactly is this peer selected group of members voting on? In the first round of voting, which this year was held from June 22 – July 6, they voted on qualified submissions released between September 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020 that they felt deserved nominations. In the final round of voting, which was from July 15-August 3, the voters selected which entries they thought should receive a GRAMMY award. This leads one to conclude that this year, a group of peer selected GRAMMY voters, looked at the entries from their peers, and decided that not one person of color released an album worthy of receiving a GRAMMY award. Just let that sink in for a moment. If you listen to children’s music, you know that over the years it has begun to reflect the children and families who are listening to it. So why aren’t the awards?

I don’t have an answer for that. In fact, I’m truly stymied. The Recording Academy has an entire section of their website dedicated to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at The Recording Academy, released the findings of the Recording Academy Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion in December of 2019 and chose Valeisha Butterfield Jones to be the Chief Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Officer in May 2020. Yet, in the very first season of GRAMMY award nominations following these efforts, an entire musical category’s nominees are white.

Something (many things?) are still very, very broken. Where does the solution lie? With the Recording Academy, the voting members, the artists themselves?? So many in society and in children’s music became mobilized this summer. Everyone wanted to do better. To be better. To be part of the solution, not the problem. Concerts were held. Discussions, and often heated debates took place with the hope that they would lead us to a better understanding. But then time passed, Other things like the election and the second surge of a deadly virus took up much of our emotional bandwith. And slowly as the months slid by, we knew that DEI (or EDI – Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) was still important to us, but it would be ok if we didn’t think about it ’til later. Then last week happened and we remembered that just because racial inequalities were not at the forefront of our minds, they are still occurring all around us. To our friends. To our families. And last Tuesday, to children’s musical artists that you know and love. 

Even though the voting membership failed its children’s music peers of color, the nominees did not. Within just a couple of hours of the announcement, The Okee Dokee Brothers posted a message on Facebook expressing their gratitude and also calling out the lack of diversity in the nominations, as did Dog on Fleas, Joanie Leeds, and Alastair Moock.  Over the next few days, artists from around the country added their support. In addition, on November 30, Family Music Forward, “an artist collective committed to transforming Family Music by supporting Black artists, children, and communities and dismantling individual, institutional, and systemic racial bias within the industry,” released a statement to the Recording Academy calling out a biased, discriminatory and anti-Black selection process and industry practices. 

In the past week conversations have begun again in the children’s music online communities. And that’s important, but at some point those conversations need to move to action. Because if the voting members of the Recording Academy won’t recognize their own talented, diverse peers, who will? 

UPDATE:

On December 11, Justin Roberts released a statement regarding the GRAMMY nominations. If you haven’t already, please take a few moments to read it. 

On January 4, NPR ran a piece on the controversy that included brief interviews with several of the GRAMMY nominees as well as a response from GRAMMY officials.

Best Children’s Album GRAMMY 2021 Nominees

The 63rd annual GRAMMY award nominations were announced on Tuesday. To be eligible for the award, a children’s album must contain at least 51% playing time of new musical or spoken word recordings and be released between September 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020. While there are glaring omissions from this list (which I intend to share more on next week), this post is to celebrate the well-deserved accomplishments of this year’s nominees. The GRAMMY Awards will be announced on Sunday, January 31.

All The Ladies performed by Joanie Leeds and special guests

Be a Pain: An Album for Young (and Old) Leaders performed by Alastair Moock & Friends

I’m an Optimist performed by Dog on Fleas

Songs for Singin’ performed by The Okee Dokee Brothers

Wild Life performed by Justin Roberts

2020 Best Children’s Album GRAMMY Nominees

The 62nd annual GRAMMY nominees were announced yesterday. To be eligible for the 2020 awards, an album had to be released between October 1, 2018 and August 31, 2019. This year’s selection of nominees for best children’s album includes a few familiar faces as well as the introduction of some newbies to the GRAMMY competition. (Special shout out to Kaitlin McGaw for being the only female lead performer in this year’s crop of nominees!) The GRAMMY awards will be announced on Sunday, January 26.

Ageless Songs for the Child Archetype performed by Jon Samson

Flying High! Performed by Caspar Babypants

I Love Rainy Days performed by Daniel Tashian

The Love Performed by Alphabet Rockers

Winterland Performed by The Okee Dokee Brothers

Best Children’s Album 2018 GRAMMY Nominees

This past year was another amazing one for children’s music. Whether you like the more traditional kids music, jazz, rock, folk, EDM, pop, world music and more, there was something for every family. To be considered for the 61st GRAMMY awards, albums had to be released between October 1, 2017 and September 30, 2018. Below are the five albums that are nominated for Best Children’s Album (click on the blue titles to see my reviews). The GRAMMY awards will be announced on Sunday, February 10.

All the Sounds performed by Lucy Kalantari & The Jazz Cats

 

Building Blocks performed by Tim Kubart

 

Falu’s Bazaar performed by Falu

 

Giants of Science performed by The Pop Ups

 

The Nation of Imagine performed by Frank & Deane

Children’s GRAMMY Award Nominees Benefit Concert 2017

Forget about Adele and Beyonce and the acts that performed during the prime time GRAMMY’s show. I want to talk about children’s music and the GRAMMYs. This past weekend I had the great privilege of attending the Children’s GRAMMY Award Nominees Benefit Concert in Los Angeles. All five of the performers/groups nominated in the Best Children’s Album category performed during a family concert to benefit the Symphony Jazz Orchestra’s music in the schools program. And what a concert it was!

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The show opened with Frances England performing songs from her album, Explorer of the World. Normally, I wouldn’t note what someone was wearing but since you can’t tell from the picture, I want to mention that Frances had on the most adorable dress that looked like maps of the world. Perfect. During her set, Frances brought onstage Carlos Aguirre to join her for “Ballad for a Beatboxer.”

 

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Following Frances England were three time GRAMMY nominees (and one time GRAMMY winner in 2013), the Okee Dokee Brothers. Their set of Americana songs from the album Saddle Up included “Jackalope” and “Somos Amigos” which included special guest and recent Latin GRAMMY winner for best children’s album, 123 Andres.

 

 

 

 

 

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Things got even livelier when Recess Monkey took the stage. And yes, that is a pink suit that Jack is wearing. 🙂 They played songs from their album Novelties. Four days later and I still find myself singing, “Time to Make the Donuts.”

 

 

 

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Then, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo took the stage. The room turned electric as all the kids were encouraged to get up and dance their hearts out to the unique hip hop sounds. The high octane performance contained songs from the album (which would win the GRAMMY the next day), Infinity Plus One.

 

 

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The final act of the concert, Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could, took the stage and kept the energy going with songs from their latest album to be nominated for a GRAMMY, Press Play. The concert ended with a finale featuring all of the performers gathering on stage for one final song.

 

 

What a concert! Can’t wait to see who will be taking the stage next year!!

GRAMMY Award Nominations Announced

The 59th GRAMMY Award nominees were announced today and, as always, they are fantastic. The Best Children’s Album category is filled with amazing artists, each with a unique sound. If you don’t own them, pick them up today. They all deserve a spot in every library collection.

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Frances England, Explorer of the World

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Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, Infinity Plus One

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Recess Monkey, Novelties

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Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could, Press Play

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The Okee Dokee Brothers, Saddle Up