Movies have their Oscars, Broadway has its Tonys, and in 1959, the music industry got their own award, the Grammy. But it was a totally different era of music, and one that would not give up its stranglehold on the popular tunes played by radio stations.
To say the Grammys were a conservative set-up would be an understatement. They started out honoring great vocal artists to be sure, but the nominees in those first 28 categories were staid in nature, with only tried and true favorites, and heaven forbid...no rock 'n roll.
But the times they were a changin' even before Bob Dylan (whose best records never won a Grammy) came along. By 1961, Chubby Checker had managed to pry one of the prized Victrola statuettes out of the hands of the Old Guard, for his hit "Let's Twist Again". But it would be 1967 before anything resembling a rock album even got nominated, and that honor went to the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".
Undeterred, rock music plowed on, followed in time by soul, hip-hop and rap. The 1997 Grammys passed out 91 awards, covering more categories than ever before. Bob Dylan, long past his heyday, rode the success of his album "Time Out of Mind" from 122 to 27th place on the charts.
The most nominations to be garnered by one artist, is the ultra-modern and easy listening composer Quincy Jones, with 77, which resulted in enough wins to rank him second on the all-time list. But old habits die hard. The most Grammys ever won, have been by a symphony conductor, the late Sir George Solti, with 30.
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