Ron Hart is a Recording Academy/GRAMMY.com contributor.
Upon calling former Sepultura drummer Iggor Cavalera about the 25th anniversary of the Brazilian metal band's 1996 LP Roots, it's impossible not to notice the image that pops up on his WhatsApp profile. It's a tattoo of MF DOOM's mask; he recently got it to honor the beloved and enigmatic rap supervillain upon his passing this past Halloween. Talk swiftly turns…
In his memoir Remain In Love, Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz opens up the first chapter from the concert stage in Rome, Italy on the tour supporting the band’s fourth album Remain In Light, released 40 years ago this month. "I figured the book should start off on a really high note," he tells GRAMMY.com. "So I began with that particular…
Jerry Williams, the 77-year-old soul legend otherwise known as Swamp Dogg, had a funny thing happen to him a couple of years back when he scored his first Billboard chart hit since 1971 with his 2018 LP Love, Loss and Auto-Tune. "In fact, the album hit the chart with all kinds of numbers," Williams tells GRAMMY.com. "The greatest one was…
Aretha Franklin was just in her early 40s when she began working on her 29th studio album, Who's Zoomin' Who?, released 35 years ago this month. In 2020, a pop icon recording a hit record at that age would be no big deal whatsoever. Especially when you consider just how relevant the Queen of Soul herself remained until her final days upon her…
Coming up on the outskirts of the music scene in Austin, Tex., GRAMMY winner Christopher Cross spent the '70s gigging around locally in cover bands, playing the music of the Eagles, the Beatles and Billy Joel on a nightly basis on the bar circuit. By day, however, this young father would use naptime for his son as an opportunity to pen…
There's always been an undercurrent of beauty propelling the songs of Tom Waits across his five-decade career in music. Oftentimes, you gotta scour through the grime of that avant-garde kitchen sink from which the brilliant rhythmic clatter of the music accompanying his lyrics rises. Then there's Waits’ Howlin'-Wolf-gone-Kurt-Weill wail at full tilt, which has been a playground of sonic mud…
The two most enduring and unshakable attributes of "Sesame Street"'s 50 years on the air have been multicultural unity and education in the creative arts. And it was music that’s proven to be the quintessential conduit connecting these two primary factors in the program's half-century of success throughout its entire run on television. Whether it was the creative use of…
"I'm not, I'm not rich but, y'know, I've always had a few, some dollars in my pockets," declared Charles Mingus in the dialogue on the track "Coin In My Pocket," one of "raps" that capture some of the last bits of audio from the great jazz composer, who died 40 years ago on January 5, 1979. These five little samples of the bass…
