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Sheila E. 

Sheila E. on stage at "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince"
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

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62nd GRAMMY Awards & "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince" Earn Emmy Nominations

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Sheila E., Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis receive Emmy nods for their music director duties and Music's Biggest Night racks up three noms for production design, sound mixing and lighting design/direction
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jul 28, 2020 - 2:43 pm

The electricity from 62nd GRAMMY Awards is still buzzing even six months after the show, as today the hard work of the incredible technical professional behind Music's Biggest Night were recognized with three Primetime Emmy nominations. Additionally, "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince" scored an Emmy nod for its outstanding music direction.

Go Backstage For Tour Of The 2020 GRAMMYs

The three Emmy nominateions talied by the 62nd GRAMMYs, which broadcast live on CBS on Jan. 26, include Outstanding Production Design For A Variety Special, Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Variety Series Or Special and Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction For A Variety Special. The 62nd GRAMMY Awards were produced by AEG Ehrlich Ventures, LLC and took place at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. 

A truly unforgettable show, the 62nd GRAMMYs were special start to finish, from the opening with a performance from Lizzo and Sasha Flute to closing with Album of the year going to Billie Eilish, who swept the major categories, also winning Best New Artist, Record Of The Year, and Song Of The Year. Take a look at some of the show's many highlights in the official aftershow:

62nd GRAMMY Awards Wrap Up Show

"Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince" was filmed shotly after the 62nd GRAMMYs and earned its trio of music directors the Emmy nomination for Outstanding Music Direction. GRAMMY nominee Sheila E. and GRAMMY winner Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were nominated for their work orchestrating the quintessential tribute to the Purple One. 

Sheila E. Honors Prince's Unmatched Musical Legacy

"To be able to play his music, it's his legacy. It's what he left us. That's really important," Sheila E. said backstage. "To be able to share this with the next generation of people is just amazing. It's awesome."

Read More: From Foo Fighters To H.E.R., Chris Martin To Mavis Staples, Here's Who Rocked The GRAMMY Prince Tribute

The tribute concert special aired on CBS on Apr. 21 and featured a star-studded lineup of performers, including Earth, Wind & Fire, Foo Fighters, H.E.R, Juanes, John Legend, Miguel, among others.

Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis Talk Prince Tribute Medley

"It's totally emotional to be here tonight anyway, not just with our group, but with The Revolution...with ," said Lewis during the filming. "It's just an awesome feeling to get us all in the buiilding, in same room, on the same stage."  

Congratulations to all of this year's Emmy nominees - the winners will be announced Sept. 20 at the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards.

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Prince

Prince

Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

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Prince Estate Releases "Baltimore" Video & Handwritten Note Against Intolerance To Honor Freddie Gray & George Floyd

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On what would have been Prince's birthday, his estate unveils the lyric video for the 2015 song addressing Gray's death in police custody
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jun 8, 2020 - 12:48 pm

The Prince estate released a powerful lyric video for the late GRAMMY winners' 2015 song, "Baltimore," on Sunday. The video arrives on what would have been Prince's birthday and amidst nationwide protests against racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of the George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25.

Prince recorded "Baltimore" on April 30, 2015, at Paisley Park Studios after Baltimore's Freddie Gray died at age 25 of a severe spinal chord injury while in police custody earlier that month. “With everything going on there this week, I had a lot I needed to get out,” Prince said at the time. 

"Baltimore" addresses Gray by name, along with Michael Brown, who was fatally shot at age 28 by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. on Aug. 9, 2014, with the lyrics,“Does anybody hear us pray?/For Michael Brown or Freddie Gray/ Peace is more than the absence of war.”

“The system is broken. It’s going to take the young people to fix it this time. We need new ideas, new life...” -Prince

The estate also posted a handwritten note by Prince where he speaks out against intolerance. It reads, “Nothing more ugly in the whole wide world than intolerance [between] black, white, red, yellow, boy or girl. Intolerance.”

The Justice Department made the announcement in 2017 that the six arresting police officers would face no federal charges in Gray's death. The four Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd's death have all been charged. 

Want To Support Protesters And Black Lives Matter Groups? Here’s How

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Little Richard performs at the Apollo Theatre in 2006

Little Richard performs at the Apollo Theatre in 2006

Photo: Theo Wargo/WireImage for Consilium Ventures

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Little Richard Was The Lightning Storm That Awakened Rock

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The screamer-songwriter was like nothing America had ever seen, and his unbridled joy made rock 'n' roll come alive
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
May 10, 2020 - 10:21 am

In your mind's eye, picture a few rock superstars: Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Tina Turner, Elton John, AC/DC, Prince. Chances are you thought about one of them in the past week. Now picture none of them picking up an instrument, none of them writing a tune, none of them entering your life. If Little Richard hadn't been born in 1932, this would arguably be the world we live in—a passable, but perhaps joyless place.

Little Richard didn't just play the piano passionately, or sing about joyful subjects. He was like an alien dispatched from Andromeda to administer humanity a joy inoculation. Imagine 1950s America getting an eyeful of him: his circus-freak pompadour, his gender- and race-ambiguous makeup, his flash of sequins. Just as exotic was the tortured glossolalia he screamed as if he was on fire: "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom!" from 1955's "Tutti Frutti." But as the first chapter of nearly every rock biography will attest, pent-up girls and boys all around the war-torn world read him loud and clear.

The artist born Richard Wayne Penniman, who died Saturday (May 9) at 87, wasn't the King Of Rock 'N' Roll (that's Elvis Presley), and he wasn't its founding father either (that's Chuck Berry). Watch the 1931 film Frankenstein: If rock music is Promethean Man in the watchtower lab, then Little Richard is the electrical storm that animates him, and the terrified populace is ... well, the terrified populace. But while a mob eventually cornered Frankenstein's monster in a windmill and set it ablaze, Little Richard's impact was, and still is, uncontainable. 

Soon after Little Richard dropped "Long Tall Sally" in 1956, Paul McCartney decided it'd be the first song he sang in public. When asked to describe his life's aspiration in his high school yearbook, Bob Dylan wrote: "To join Little Richard." A pre-Ziggy Stardust Bowie took notes on his hairdo, among other things. Hendrix would join his band in a decade and form The Experience a year after he left. Tina Turner based her early vocal delivery on Little Richard's. Elton John heard him and closed the menu of life choices: "I didn't ever want to be anything else." AC/DC singer Brian Johnson once described him in Genesis 1:1 terms: "There was nothing, and then there was this." As for Prince, the "gestures vaguely at everything" meme will have to do. Little Richard was a bell nobody could unring, and his chime still resonates unceasingly.

Even among his fellow rock 'n' roll pioneers, Little Richard was something strange and different. While Presley was a humble country boy and Berry was a poet with a guitar, Little Richard was a living remix of Baptist and Pentecostal church and the minstrel shows, traveling circuses and drag revues on which he cut his teeth. Beginning when he was 18, he had a few false starts in the studio: Incensed by his flamboyance and perceived impudence, Peacock Records owner Don Robey beat Little Richard so badly, he required surgery. Undeterred, Little Richard sent Specialty Records a demo two years later; producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell described the tape as "looking as though someone had eaten off it." After Little Richard repeatedly called their staff begging them to listen to it, they relented and set up a recording date at J & M Studio in New Orleans. 

Read: Remembering The Life, Legacy And Music Of Little Richard: Rock Pioneer And GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient

Still, the recording session wasn't working; Little Richard was frustrated that his sound wasn't catching fire. He remembered "Tutti Frutti," a naughty song he had absentmindedly written while working as a dishwasher at a Greyhound station. He cleaned up the song's sexual references, and after a lunch break, he let it rip with that nonsensical, unforgettable refrain. The exuberant resulting single, which was a watershed for black vernacular in a pop song, hit No. 2 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Chart and was added to the Library Of Congress National Recording Registry in 2010. In 1998, "Tutti Frutti" was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame.

"I wrote 'Tutti Frutti' in the kitchen, I wrote 'Good Golly Miss Molly' in the kitchen, I wrote 'Long Tall Sally' in that kitchen," Little Richard later explained to Rolling Stone in 1970 about the bus stop gig; he followed up "'Tutti Frutti" with those just-as-exultant barnburners. The cover of his 1957 debut album, Here's Little Richard, featuring a close-up of Richard in mid-scream that would make Edvard Munch proud, is the ultimate truth in advertising: There's zero ambiguity about what the music inside will sound like.

And that sound was unbridled liberation—from whitewashed suburbia, from hellfire religion typified by the preacher in 1978's The Buddy Holly Story, from the anodyne pop on the airwaves. (The Billboard pop chart in 1954 was full of downtempo tracks by Rosemary Clooney, Kitty Kallen and The Crew-Cuts.) After Little Richard experienced a religious conversation and left secular music in 1962, coming back to a music scene dominated by the British boys who idolized him, like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, was no easy task. After flower power and Woodstock made his provocations seem quaint, he soon became a thing of the rock 'n' roll revival circuit.

A zip code away from his macho peers, Little Richard was a rock star that LGBTQ folks could look up to before coming out was the norm, and he galvanized Bowie and Prince to tear up the rulebook of gender expression. And his unspoken message, whether to those in a bind over their sexuality or not, was abundantly clear: No matter who you are, scream it out. That scream was one-size-fits-all for the human experience. When you hear Macca howling like a maniac on "I'm Down," "Hey Jude" and "Oh! Darling," understand that The Beatles' keyhole to jubilation—and therefore, everyone's—had a Little-Richard-shaped key.

The songs Little Richard co-wrote or interpreted all have the same feeling of anticipation, which is applicable to every stage of life: the last minutes of school on a Friday, the beginning of an unforgettable night out, the first blush of romantic attraction. He's ready to cause trouble, but the good-natured kind—the kind that doesn't put anybody down, but instead drags everyone off the couch and into a raucous block party. His songs exist at the perpetual "here we go" moment, the exhilarating flash on the rollercoaster when your stomach plunges.

We're gonna have some fun tonight. Everything's all right.

Remembering Elvis Presley: 5 GRAMMY Facts

Stephen Sondheim attends 2019 American Songbook Gala

Stephen Sondheim attends 2019 American Songbook Gala

Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

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Stephen Sondheim Virtual Benefit Concert To Feature All-Star Lineup: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Meryl Streep, Ben Platt And Many More Confirmed To Perform

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Taking place Sunday, April 26, the "Take Me To The World" tribute will honor the legendary Broadway composer and lyricist's 90th birthday and will raise funds for Artists Striving To End Poverty
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Apr 25, 2020 - 10:24 am

Stephen Sondheim, the legendary Broadway composer and lyricist and seven-time GRAMMY winner, will receive an all-star virtual tribute concert this weekend to honor his 90th birthday and celebrate his vast contributions to musical theater. The Take Me To The World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration event will feature a stacked lineup comprising artists and performers who appeared in his many musicals throughout the decades as well as current Hollywood and Broadway stars.   

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Meryl Streep, Ben Platt, Kristin Chenoweth, Josh Groban, Jake Gyllenhaal and Neil Patrick Harris are among some of the stars confirmed to perform. The night will also feature special appearances from Steven Spielberg, Nathan Lane, Victor Garber, Joanna Gleason and many others. View the full lineup of performers and guests on Broadway.com.

The event, which will benefit Artists Striving To End Poverty (ASTEP), will livestream for free on Broadway.com and the Broadway.com YouTube channel Sunday, April 26, starting at 8 p.m. EST. Watch the livestream below.

Hosted and produced by Raúl Esparza and directed by Paul Wontorek, the Take Me To The World tribute, which is named after a song featured in the score for the 1966 musical "Evening Primrose" for which Sondheim wrote the lyrics and music, will feature musical direction by Mary-Mitchell Campbell, who founded ASTEP. The event also coincides with the 50th anniversary of "Company," the 1970 musical comedy that garnered Sondheim his first-ever GRAMMY win. 

Read: New On-Demand Broadway Streaming Service To Launch Next Month

Sondheim, who turned 90 this past March, is one of the most celebrated composers and lyricists in American musical theater. He is best known for his work on classic and popular musicals like "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street," "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum," "Follies," "A Little Night Music," "Into The Woods" and several others. He also wrote the lyrics for the iconic musical "West Side Story." 

A near-EGOT winner, he has won seven GRAMMYs, with 17 overall nominations, an Oscar, eight Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and a Laurence Olivier Award. In addition to receiving the Presidential Medal Of Freedom in 2015, Sondheim received the Recording Academy's National Trustees Award in 2007.

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Chris Martin & Susanna Hoffs at "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince"

Chris Martin & Susanna Hoffs

Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS/Getty Images

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From Foo Fighters To H.E.R., Chris Martin To Mavis Staples, Here's Who Rocked The GRAMMY Prince Tribute

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Earth, Wind & Fire, St. Vincent, Beck, John Legend, Common, The Time, The Revolution and more also brought purple power to "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince"
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Apr 21, 2020 - 8:20 pm

"To me, Prince is music. To love Prince is to love music," "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Tribute To Prince" host Maya Rudolph said as the GRAMMY special aired on Tuesday, April 21. "He said so much, so well, for so long, and then was gone too soon."

On the fourth anniversary of the seven-time GRAMMY winner and cultural icon's death, the Recording Academy and some very special celebrity friends celebrated his life and musical treasure trove. The shimmering Prince tribute concert, "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince," featured powerhouse numbers from Foo Fighters, Beck, Common, Earth, Wind & Fire, H.E.R., Mavis Staples, St. Vincent, John Legend, Miguel, Coldplay's Chris Martin, the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs and many more. The latter pair sang a stripped-down piano rendition of "Manic Monday," the Bangles' hit penned by Prince, while Dave Grohl led the Foo Fighters in a rocked-up covers of "Pop Life" and "Darling Nikki," the latter complete with growls and shrieks.

GRAMMYs

Mavis Staples and The Revolution perform at "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince" | Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS/Getty Images

Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis and Sheila E. served as musical directors for the show, and all performed during it. Jam and Lewis, who got their start as part of Prince-formed act the Time, brought the moves with that classic group, while Sheila served up her epic drumming during the majority of numbers, as the bandleader of the powerhouse backing band. Prince's very own GRAMMY-winning backing band The Revolution also served up major purple realness during the show, performing "Delirious" with Rudolph and her duo Princess, "Purple Rain" with Staples and a joyful, star-studded finale of "Baby I'm a Star."

Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis Tease Morris Day & The Time's Prince Tribute Medley For "Let's Go Crazy"

In case you missed its airing on CBS/CBS All Access, or in case you couldn't Shazam some of the deeper cuts quickly enough, let's take a trip back to a time filled with "Purple Rain," before the coronavirus crisis stopped us all in our tracks (the show was safely and miraculously taped before the pandemic rocked the States).

H.E.R. Celebrates No. 1 Influence Prince

Opening the festivities were fellow GRAMMY winners and guitarists Gary Clark Jr. and H.E.R., who performed the night's titular bop, "Let's Go Crazy." The "Hard Place" singer rocked a fabulously shiny, iridescent white jumpsuit with a color-coordinating electric guitar, while the "This Land" artist stylishly contrasted her in a matte black suit and brown woodgrain guitar.

H.E.R. Celebrates Prince At "Let's Go Crazy" Tribute: "It's Gonna Be A Party!"

Miguel Praises Prince, Talks About Performing "I Would Die 4 U" For "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince"

Next up was R&B angel Miguel, who brought sexy, Princely swagger—complete with white lace and eyeliner—to Purple Rain track "I Would Die 4 U."

"He set the stage for all of us who follow," said EGOT-winner Legend, who wore a fierce, fitted dark grey suit. He sang a rousing rendition of "Nothing Compares 2 U," Prince's GRAMMY-nominated song originally performed by Sinead O'Connor.

GRAMMY-winning polymath St. Vincent followed, donning a lavender ruffled bodysuit and white go-go boots. Before she calmly slayed "Controversy," she told a story of Prince attending one of her shows, which "scared her to death." "Prince's music means so much to all of us," she added.

Juanes Takes Us Back To "1999" In Prince's Honor At "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince"

GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY winner Juanes, wearing a maroon crushed velvet top, rocked out with a lively rendition of "1999." The Colombian rock star was introduced by the Purple One's longtime friend, Naomi Campbell. He was followed by another song from H.E.R., this time with dancer and Prince collaborator, Misty Copeland. Her gorgeous dance moves brought a powerful energy to H.E.R.'s electric performance of "The Beautiful Ones." Sitting at a space-age white Roland piano, H.E.R. hit alll the high notes with a commanding, graceful power.

Naomi Campbell On GRAMMY Salute To Prince: "I Really Wanted Him To Have The Celebration He Deserved"

Next on deck during the show was another act featuring beautifully articulated choreography, this time by FKA Twigs and Usher, from their slick 2020 GRAMMY performance (watch above) of "Little Red Corvette," When Doves Cry" and "Kiss." Martin and Hoffs brought us back down to earth with lovely duet of "Manic Monday," with Martin playing the piano.

GRAMMYs

The Time perform at "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Tribute To Prince" | Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS/Getty Images

Not wanting to keep the audience in their seats too long, Morris Day, Jam, Lewis and The Time brought the energy back up with a medley of some of The Time's biggest bops written by Prince: "Jungle Love," "Cool" and "The Bird." They all still dance like it's 1984 and Ice Cream Castle just hit the airwaves—apparently an active diet of Prince music keeps you young and fresh.

Morris Day Pays Tribute To His Friend Prince At "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince"

Dave Grohl Tells The Story Of Jamming With Prince

Dave Grohl, meanwhile, shared a story (watch the clip above) about the time he jammed with Prince in an empty L.A. Forum. He also spoke about how Foo Fighters used to perform "Darling Nikki" in their early days. Their hard-rocking slayage of the sexually explicit Purple Rain track was the first time they'd played it in over 20 years. Host Rudolph then kicked it over to the legendary GRAMMY winning-soul group Earth, Wind & Fire for a rolicking cover of Sign 'O the Times cut "Adore."

GRAMMY-winning rapper/actor/activist Common followed with a modern update on the 1987 album's socially charged title track, "Sign O' The Times."

Next, GRAMMY-winning alt-rock stalwart Beck sang ubiquitous Prince catalog classic, "Raspberry Beret," complete with the music video's cartoon clouds dancing in the background. 

Clark Jr. returned to the stage for a special duet with Sheila E., of another Sign 'O the Times deep cut, "The Cross."

Gary Clark Jr. On His Admiration For Prince: "He's The Best Guitar Player In The World"

Gary Clark Jr. Sings Prince Deep Cut "The Cross"

Comedian/actor/musician Fred Armisen then took the stage to introduce the evening's true star, Sheila E., who'd already changed into another bold ook. She then led a medley of "America," "Free" and "The Glamorous Life," tracks she recorded with the icon himself.

Sheila E. Honors Prince's Unmatched Musical Legacy: "There's Only One Prince"

Armisen returned to introduce one his "best friends," Maya Rudolph, who'd also changed into another look for her performance with her Prince cover band, Princess, who slayed "Delirious" with The Revolution, Prince's powerhouse backing band.

The Revolution stuck around to rock out with the one and only Staples for a incredibly moving rendition of "Purple Rain." Finally, they lead a packed stage for a very star-studded, lively take of "Baby I'm a Star," bringing out all the amazing performers who channeled Prince's royal energy during the show.

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Dave Grohl Tells The Story Of Jamming With Prince, Talks Growing Up To His Records