Grammy Global Header

Grammy Hamburger Menu

Global Hamburger Menu

2024-grammys-66G_CBS_Tune_In_Logo_2045x793

Subscribe Nav

Subscribe Nav Newsletter Form

Be the first to find out about GRAMMY nominees, winners, important news, and events.

checkmark-gold

Subscribe Social Links

Join us on Social

The first thing you should know about the 2nd Annual GRAMMY Awards is that they weren’t actually “annual” at all. In fact, this awards presentation marked the only time in GRAMMY history that two awards presentations were ever made in one year, with both the 1st and 2nd GRAMMYs falling in 1959. Call it a slightly embarrassing case of premature validation.

The 2nd GRAMMYs did, however, mark another first: the first GRAMMYs to be presented on television as a taped “NBC Sunday Showcase,” which aired on November 29, 1959. Hosted by Meredith Willson—who wrote the Broadway show “The Music Man”—the television program offered performances by classical pianist Van Cliburn, comedian Shelley Berman, <a href="/grammys/artists/nat-king-cole">Nat "King" Cole</a>, Bobby Darin, folk singer Jimmy Driftwood, <a href="/grammys/artists/duke-ellington">Duke Ellington</a>, <a href="/grammys/artists/ella-fitzgerald">Ella Fitzgerald</a>, trumpeter Jonah Jones, the Kingston Trio and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Say this for the GRAMMYs—it always had range.

The award winners themselves were announced at private dinner ceremonies held in Los Angeles and New York. Following the awards presentations, the audience watched the broadcast of the first GRAMMY special. With the ’60s about to get underway and the times about to start a-changing, Darin and <a href="/grammys/artists/frank-sinatra">Frank Sinatra</a> emerged as the big winners. Darin was named Best New Artist of 1959—the first winner in that category—and he also won Record of the Year with his timeless version of “Mack the Knife.” Sinatra took Album of the Year for Come Dance with Me and Best Vocal Performance, Male, for its title track (which also won Billy May a GRAMMY for Best Arrangement).

Other winners included Jonah Jones’ Best Jazz Performance, Group, award for his very ’50s album I Dig Chicks, poet Carl Sandburg for narrating A Lincoln Portrait, and the iconic Ethel Merman for Best Broadway Show Album for Gypsy, which tied with Gwen Verdon for Redhead.

For all that, even in its earliest TV incarnation, there was never a shortage of critics both willing and able to take their shots at the young if not innocent GRAMMY show. Writing in the New York World Telegram, Harriet Von Horne noted, “But…the pandering to the primitive, uninformed taste that mars so much of TV fare, was on view here…Here was a costly show, brilliantly produced…and it had the whole range of music to choose from. So we had a reading by Shelley Berman instead of Carl Sandburg. We had the clanging, twanging Kingston Trio when we might have had Ethel Merman…”

Others were more understanding, even supportive. Variety said, “GRAMMY Makes Good In TV Bow” in a front page banner headline, and The Hollywood Reporter announced “GRAMMY Telecast Cut Above Average Award Programs.”

Through the good, the bad and the ugly, there would be many more cuts and many more kudos in the years to come.

The Three Bells

Mack The Knife

Like Young (Single)

High Hopes (Single)

A Fool Such As I (Single)

Record Of The Year

Victory At Sea, Vol. I (Album)

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 (Album)

More Music From Peter Gunn (Album)

Come Dance With Me

Belafonte At Carnegie Hall (Album)

Album Of The Year

The Battle Of New Orleans

Small World

I Know (Single)

Song Of The Year

Porgy And Bess

La Strada Del Amore

But Not For Me

Broadway '59

Alright, Okay

Best Vocal Performance, Female

Mack The Knife (Single)

Guess Who

Belafonte At Carnegie Hall

An Evening With Lerner And Loewe (Album)

Best Vocal Performance, Male

Sound Spectacular

Pops And Prado (Album)

New Sounds At The Roosevelt

For The Very First Time

Breakfast Dance And Barbecue

Anatomy Of A Murder

Best Performance By A Dance Band

Two Sides Of Winterhalter (Album)

Strings Aflame

Music From M Squad

Like Young

Just For Kicks

Best Performance By An Orchestra

The Stephen Foster Song Book (Album)

Kingston Trio At Large

Battle Hymn Of The Republic

Ames Brothers Sing Famous Hits Of Famous Quartets (Album)

Best Performance By A Vocal Group Or Chorus

Red Norvo In Hi-Fi

Ella Swings Lightly

Easy Now

Bobby Troup And His Stars Of Jazz (Album)

Best Of New Broadway Show Hits (Album)

Best Jazz Performance - Soloist

Red Norvo In Hi-Fi (Album)

I Dig Chicks

Ellington Jazz Party (Album)

Chances Are It Swings

Best Jazz Performance - Group

Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien; Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio Espagnol (Album)

Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture; Ravel: Bolero (Album)

Rossini Overtures (Album)

Debussy: Images For Orchestra

Beethoven: Symphony # 6

Best Classical Performance - Orchestra

Villa Lobos String Quartet (Album)

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3

Four Italian Sonatas

Beethoven: Piano Quartet In E Flat, Op. 16/ Schumann Piano Quartet In E Flat, Op. 47 (Album)

'Cello Galaxy (Album)

Best Classical Performance - Chamber Music (Including Chamber Orchestra)

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto # 1 (Album)

Mozart: The Marriage Of Figaro

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto In E Minor, Op. 64; Prokofiev Violin Concerto # 2 In G Minor (Album)

Brahms: Violin Concerto In D (Album)

Brahms: Piano Concerto # 2 (Album)

Best Classical Performance - Concerto Or Instrumental Soloist (With Full Orchestral Accompaniment)

Presenting Jaime Laredo (Album)

Pennario Plays (Album)

Bjoerling In Opera

Four Italian Sonatas (Album)

Danzas (Album)

Berg: Sonata For Piano, Op.1; Krenek: Sonata # 3, Op. 92 # 4; Schoenberg Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11 (Album)

Best Classical Performance - Concerto Or Instrumental Soloist (Other Than Full Orchestral Accompaniment)

The Art Of Song (Album)

Milanov Operatic Arias

Maria Callas Portrays Verdi Heroines (Album)

Beethoven: Sonatas No. 21 In C (Waldstein) And No. 18 In E Flat

A Brahms-Schumann Recital

Best Classical Performance - Vocal Soloist (With Or Without Orchestra)

Verdi: The Force Of Destiny (Album)

The Beloved Choruses (Album)

Saint-Saens: Sampson And Delilah (Album)

Rossini: The Barber Of Seville (Album)

Best Classical Performance - Opera Cast Or Choral

St. Lawrence Suite

Shostakovich: Concerto # 2 For Piano And Orchestra, Op. 101 (Album)

Prokoviev: The Overture Russe Op.72 (Album)

Best Musical Composition First Recorded And Released In 1959 (More Than 5 Minutes Duration)

The Nun's Story (Motion Picture) (Album)

The Music From M Squad (TV Show) (Album)

Pete Kelly's Blues (TV Show)

More Music From Peter Gunn (TV Show) (Album)

Best Sound Track Album - Background Score From A Motion Picture Or Television

For The First Time (Motion Picture)

Best Sound Track Album, Original Cast - Motion Picture Or Television

Redhead

Once Upon A Mattress (Album)

Gypsy

Ages Of Man (Album)

A Party With Betty Comden And Adolph Green (Album)

Best Broadway Show Album

Stan Freberg With Original Cast (Album)

Sick Humor

Look Forward In Anger (Album)

Inside Shelley Berman

Hamlet (Album)

Best Comedy Performance - Spoken Word

The Battle Of Kookamonga

Musically Mad

Monster Rally (Album)

Charlie Weaver Sings For His People (Album)

Best Comedy Performance - Musical

New York Taxi Driver (Album)

Mark Twain Tonight (Album)

Basil Rathbone Reads Sherlock Holmes (Album)

A Lincoln Portrait

Best Performance - Documentary Or Spoken Word (Other Than Comedy)

Neil Sedaka

Midnight Flyer

Makin' Love

Charlie Brown

Broken Hearted Melody

A Big Hunk O' Love (Single)

Best Performance By A "Top 40" Artist

Tennessee Stud

Set Him Free

Home

Don't Tell Me Your Troubles (Single)

Best Country & Western Performance

What A Diff'rence A Day Makes

A Big Hunk O' Love

Best Rhythm & Blues Performance

The Wilderness Road

The Wild Wild West

The Kingston Trio At Large

Best Performance - Folk

Three To Make Music/Cinderella

The Arabian Nights (Album)

Popeye's Favorite Sea Chanties (Album)

Peter And The Wolf

Hansel And Gretel - Original Soundtrack (Album)

Best Recording For Children

An Evening With Lerner And Lowe (Album)

Best Arrangement

Victory At Sea, Vol. I

Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien, Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio Espagnol (Album)

Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Ravel: Bolero (Album)

Doubling In Brass (Album)

Best Engineering Contribution - Classical Recording

The Bat

Supersonics In Flight

Orienta

Alvin's Harmonica

Best Engineering Contribution - Novelty Recording

New Sounds At The Roosevelt (Album)

Compulsion To Swing (Album)

Big Band Guitar (Album)

Best Engineering Contribution - Other Than Classical Or Novelty

The South Shall Rise Again (Album)

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5

For LP Fans Only (Album)

Anatomy Of A Murder (Album)

Best Album Cover

Best New Artist Of 1959

2nd Annual GRAMMY Awards

66th Annual GRAMMY Awards

65th Annual GRAMMY Awards

64th Annual GRAMMY Awards

63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards

62nd Annual GRAMMY Awards

61st Annual GRAMMY Awards

60th Annual GRAMMY Awards

59th Annual GRAMMY Awards

58th Annual GRAMMY Awards

57th Annual GRAMMY Awards

56th Annual GRAMMY Awards

55th Annual GRAMMY Awards

54th Annual GRAMMY Awards

53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards

52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards

51st Annual GRAMMY Awards

50th Annual GRAMMY Awards