14th Annual Grammy Awards - March 14, 1972 Carole King, Tapestry Carpenters, Carpenters George Harrison, All Things Must Pass Isaac Hayes, Shaft Various Artists, Jesus Christ Superstar Carole King’s Tapestry was an enormous success, selling over 25 million copies worldwide. At one point, it was the highest-selling album of all time. So even if Carole King didn’t take home four Grammys, the sales figures alone would’ve made a satisfactory award. But enough stalling - is the album any good? Yeah, kind of. The thing about the term “singer-songwriter” is it doesn’t inherently require one to be excellent at both. If you wanted a great female songwriter in 1971, you’d go to Carole King. However, if you wanted a great female singer-songwriter, you’d go to Buffy Sainte-Marie, Laura Nyro, Bobbie Gentry, or Joni Mitchell (who, incidentally, sings background vocals on the album). Heck, by this point, Joan Baez had been writing her own songs, like the exquisite Sweet Sir Galahad. As for Carole King, compare her version of (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman to Aretha Franklin’s and you’ll see what I mean when I say King is better at writing songs than singing them. Tapestry is hardly an Ultron, but it does have one big flaw that keeps it from being great. Time to discuss the other nominees. The Carpenters are back with a self-titled album. The good news is that it won them Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. The bad news is that it was the only Grammy nomination out of four they won that year, which is a shame because I loved this album. No, really, every song is fantastic. Go buy this album. Now then, of the three remaining nominees, two of them are double LPs and one is a triple LP. These three albums run a combined length of four hours and twenty-two minutes, so if this Album of the Year project makes you want to do it yourself, you need to know exactly how much time you’ll be devoting. We’ll start with the shortest of the three: Isaac Hayes’ soundtrack to the 1971 blaxploitation classic Shaft. Hayes won a Grammy for the whole soundtrack and two for the theme song. I suspect they could have taken out the irritating chirps in Walk from Regio’s and it wouldn’t have affected that outcome in any way. Having said that, the soundtrack does have its moments. The nineteen-minute trip Do Your Thing is a highlight for me. I also like the bossa nova vibe on Cafe Regio’s, though the guitar sometimes plays a melody very reminiscent of The Girl from Ipanema, which tells me Isaac Hayes probably didn’t listen to a lot of bossa nova. It would be the equivalent of making a reggae song when the only one you know is No Woman, No Cry. The Shaft soundtrack is alright overall; I like to think it was so influential that the writers of Whitney Houston’s Saving All My Love for You “borrowed” from Shaft Strikes Again. Remember how Carole King’s Tapestry was an enormous hit? Tapestry was so big that on Billboard’s Year-End album chart for 1971, it ranked . . . second. Yes, folks, there was an even bigger album than Tapestry that year: Jesus Christ Superstar, a rock opera written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The album is credited to “various artists” because Webber and Rice got some other singers to play Jesus, Judas, Mary Magdalene and other characters who were relevant to the last week of Jesus’ life. Not sold on the premise? What if I were to tell you the guy who plays Jesus is Ian Gillan, the then-lead singer of Deep ****ing Purple? If that still doesn’t appeal to you, then you’re probably the British Broadcasting Corporation. It was initially banned by the BBC for being “sacrilegious.” But if I know anything about humanity, it’s that telling people they can’t have something often makes them want it more, which is likely why Jesus Christ Superstar sold so well. Anyway, this is, uh...quite the listening experience. Heaven on Their Minds briefly turns into a Tool song out of nowhere. The album isn’t an Ultron, but its length doesn’t make it an easy listen. Actually, that's not entirely true. It was probably something more than the length that brought it down for me. I say this because George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass is much longer but much more enjoyable. It’s as if the Beatles broke up and he went “Finally! I had so many songs they wouldn’t let me put on any of the albums.” Harrison impressively manages to keep the album from ever getting boring. As a gesture of appreciation for the effort it must’ve taken to accomplish such an impressive feat, I recommend this album. As great as Carole King is, I think Carpenters and All Things Must Pass were more deserving of Album of the Year. Oh, hang on, Merry Clayton also sang background vocals on Tapestry. She was the woman singing on the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter. You know what? If King had written the songs but had Clayton sing them, Tapestry would be an undisputed masterpiece.
It would've been cool, but... Hendrix - too strange and threatening Cash - too raw for the big award The Beatles - they were nominated for the album that most resembled their prior Album of the Year winner The Band - unfamiliar, no hit singles, their album peaked at #30 CCR debuted in 1968, but peaked at #52 Billboard; their big albums started coming in 1969. The actual group of nominees was fairly progressive for Grammy at the time: a Country winner, two folkie acts (ethnic types, even!), psychedelic pop, and a Broadway star singing the contemporary songs of Jimmy Webb. I would dig it if they had nominated some r&b and jazz, but that wasn't gonna happen, either.
Or, imagine Dr. John/ Gris-Gris up for Album of the Year for 1968. Maybe in some awesome parallel universe.
The Academy realistically wasn't going to nominate the debut album, but that would still have been nice. Cosmo's Factory is arguably the band's best album and even that didn't get any attention.
This is the year when Bill Cosby won a Grammy for Bill Cosby Talks to Kids About Drugs--which he'd later try in vain to scrub from the internet. James Taylor rode Carol King's coattails to win a Grammy of his own for singing "You've Got a Friend." McCartney won a Grammy for arranging the vocals on "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey"--it's like they were just looking for excuses to give him an award at this point. Sorry about "Yesterday," Paul. Thanks for showing up to the ceremonies. Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean fame won an award for designing the cover of Pollution by Pollution. A good crop of r&b and jazz this year: Aretha singing "Bridge Over Troubled Water"; Lou Rawls, "Natural Man" (I don't know if that has anything to do with Carol King); Bill Wither, "Ain't No Sunshine"; Ike & Tina, "Proud Mary"; Duke Ellington/ The New Orleans Suite; Bill Evans/ The Bill Evans Album.
I think that’s half a century of “Tapestry fatigue” talking. Personally I'd be willing to argue that Laura Nyro laid down possibly the greatest female vocals of all time, but I think even her fans would accept that both her dynamic and emotional range held back her wider popularity. The genius of Tapestry is that it took so many songs that people already knew and presented them in an attractive package: an album that you can spin over & over again. King's voice is pretty much perfect for those purposes and while she isn't quite in Karen Carpenter's league, she's better than merely adequate. (These considerations do make me anticipate a certain album that wins the best album in 1978 ...)
Someone wrote on RYM that Karen Carpenter is the voice of your teacher telling you that maybe everything is going to be OK. I love that. I think Tapestry sounds like just what you'd expect from looking at the cover. Carole is your music teacher, or maybe your mom/sister's good friend, who might invite you to sit, have some tea, pet the cat, talk awhile, and when the school puts on the big talent show, she sits down at the piano and it turns out that she's really, really good with these old songs.
Tapestry is the 1st album that I had and one of my friends mother had too. Previously the two never crossed. I enjoyed my parents Broadway casts lps but rnr was for the kids. Within a couple of years, after returning from college my father and his brothers would be asking me about marijuana. Then they went back to their martinis
Yeah, it would've been nice for something to take the place of The Age of Aquarius for '69, but Grammy couldn't resist giving a nod to another Broadway hit. I suppose that CSNY and James Taylor filled that "roots" niche for 1970. Maybe CCR's rock n' roll was just too plain and raw for the Grammy Awards. They kicked too much ass.
15th Annual Grammy Awards - March 3, 1973 Various Artists, The Concert for Bangladesh Don McLean, American Pie Neil Diamond, Moods Nilsson, Nilsson Schmilsson Various Artists, Jesus Christ Superstar (Broadway Cast Recording) I don’t want to waste time on a Bangladeshi history lesson, so here’s the abridged version. The Bengali people wanted independence from East Pakistan. There was a war and thousands of Bengalis were killed, but they won their independence in 1971. Unfortunately, there were also homeless Bengali refugees as a result of the war. Two charity concerts were organized in aid of said refugees. Some of the performances from those concerts were compiled into a live album uncreatively titled The Concert for Bangladesh. I assume most of the creativity went into finding the worst possible backup singers for My Sweet Lord. Overall, though, it is a solid album. George Harrison was famously fascinated with the music of that region, so his involvement was unsurprising but not unwelcome. Let’s see how the other nominees compare. First up is Moods by Neil Diamond. This won a Grammy for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording, but that’s a category you probably don’t care about. Not that audio engineering isn’t incredibly important; it’s just that the casual listener isn’t paying attention to that. Anyway, the album is alright. I don’t have much else to say about it, so let’s move on. Nilsson Schmilsson is the seventh and most commercially successful album by Harry Nilsson (or simply “Nilsson,” as he is credited). This album contains a cover of Badfinger’s Without You, for which Nilsson won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. It’s good, as is the rest of the album. Driving Along and Jump into the Fire are highlights. Coconut is a fun song. You know, “she put the lime in the coconut, she drank 'em both up.” Yeah, this is a really good album. I give it a thumbs up. Don McLean’s American Pie is a song that needs no introduction. However, virtually no one knows anything else from the American Pie album except Vincent (and maybe The Grave, if only because George Michael covered it). And you can forget any of McLean’s twenty other studio albums. Yeah, twenty-one albums and everyone only knows him for his second. I’m guessing that includes Carole King or else she would’ve known that his 1970 debut album was also called Tapestry. Heck, I bet you didn't even know McLean released a new album last year. But I digress. Some of the deep cuts on American Pie are just as good as the title track. Till Tomorrow and Vincent are beautifully written acoustic numbers. Empty Chairs is so great that, depending on which account you believe, it inspired Killing Me Softly with His Song. Everybody Loves Me, Baby is a bit on the silly side, though there’s still enjoyment to be had with it. The whole album is pretty good, but just know that most of it doesn’t sound like American Pie. Jesus Christ Superstar is back in the category, this time in the form of the original Broadway cast recording. At eleven songs, the OBC recording is half the length of the 23-track album that was nominated the previous year. There was a new song added called Could We Start Again Please?, but otherwise it’s basically the original album stripped down to just its highlights. Actually, “highlights” might not be the right word, given the Broadway production’s mixed-at-best reception upon release. Let me put it this way: if you’re not sure whether the original Jesus Christ Superstar album is worth the time investment, listen to the OBC recording first and decide for yourself. I’ve seen both Neil Diamond and Don McLean live, so part of me wants to give them a slight edge. But speaking as objectively as possible, this is another year where all of the albums are equally alright.
Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" won Record of the Year and Song of the Year, but its parent album, First Take, was not up for Album of the Year. Maybe because the album actually had been released in 1969, I'd guess. Of course the song became a belated hit in 1971 because Clint Eastwood featured it in his film, Play Misty for Me. Don McLean lately has had a little feud going with the comedian (and creator of Monk) Andy Breckman over his alleged mistreatment of Andy when he opened for Don in the early '80s. Judging by the tone of Don's response, it looks like Andy's story is probably close to the truth. Andy versus Don McLean Anyway, I'd pick Nilsson here, no question. Aretha's Young, Gifted and Black, which won an r&b Grammy, would've been a worthy contender.
I saw Don McLean live just last Saturday. He definitely didn't trash his opening act. But geez, talk about curious timing.
16th Annual Grammy Awards - March 2, 1974 Stevie Wonder, Innervisions Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon Roberta Flack, Killing Me Softly Bette Midler, The Divine Miss M Charlie Rich, Behind Closed Doors The winner of the 18th Annual Grammy Awards thanked Stevie Wonder in their acceptance speech for not releasing an album in 1975. Stevie did win a Grammy for Living in the City in 1975, but if he had released another studio album that year, he would still have gotten thanks for it because there are very few people if any who don’t like Stevie Wonder. I can personally attest to that, having actually seen him in concert. But I digress. 1973 was a good year for Stevie (and music fans in general). He won a Grammy for You Are the Sunshine of My Life, two for Superstition, and two for his album Innervisions. This is the album with Living for the City, Higher Ground, and Don’t You Worry ‘bout a Thing, in case you’re wondering what level of quality we’re talking about. As a weird aside, I actually heard Tori Kelly’s cover of Don’t You Worry ‘bout a Thing before I heard the original. However, as much as I love Tori, I doubt she thinks she could top Stevie Wonder. Innervisions is a great album that deserves all the praise it gets. Now for our first runner up: Paul Simon’s There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. Paul Simon, as you know, is one of the most influential songwriters in modern American music. It would be less time-consuming to list the artists and bands who weren’t influenced by him. We’ll go more in depth on that when we get to an album he released much later, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Someone was probably bothered by this Jewish guy from New Jersey doing a Jamaican accent in Was a Sunny Day. I mean, I’m not, but someone must’ve been. Beyond that, I don’t have much else to say about the album; it’s pretty damn good. Next is Behind Closed Doors by Charlie Rich. This was a number one Billboard year-end country album two years in a row. Unfortunately, it had to join West Side Story in the “didn’t win” group. It’s still quite good, though. Then we have Bette Midler’s debut album The Divine Miss M, a reference to her stage persona. Must’ve been a great act if this album is any indication. This album is a lot of fun. I admit I preferred the Carpenters’ version of Superstar to this one, but Midler’s version is still pretty good. Also, Barry Manilow worked on this album. There’s something to remember for your next pub trivia game. Anyway, highlights include Chapel of Love, Daytime Hustler, Leader of the Pack, and Delta Dawn. Finally, we have Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly. She won three Grammys for the title track, which may or may not have been inspired by Don McLean’s Empty Chairs. It’s a good song, but I personally think River is better. In fact, like American Pie, this album is known just for its title track, which leads to the rest of the album being unfairly ignored. These were all good albums, make no mistake; any one of them could have a solid pick for Album of the Year. Having said that, I don’t blame the Academy for giving the honor to Innervisions. They made a good choice that year.
In light of all these reports of The Beatles September 8, 1969 meeting and Paul's back handed comments about George's songwriting, this nomination must of felt pretty good.
17th Annual Academy Awards - March 1, 1975 Stevie Wonder, Fulfillingness’ First Finale Paul McCartney & Wings, Band on the Run Elton John, Caribou John Denver, Back Home Again Joni Mitchell, Court & Spark Remember when I said the Seventies would be more interesting than the Sixties? What I meant is that the Academy just kept nominating one classic album after another. That pattern continued with Stevie Wonder’s second album to win this honor, Fulfillingness’ First Finale. Stevie won three Grammys that year, two for the album and one for Boogie On Reggae Woman. And he also won this hot take: Innervisions was better. Please don’t cancel me, I’ll explain. The singles are both good songs, but I’ve never been a huge fan of Boogie On Reggae Woman and I always felt You Haven’t Done Nothin’ (a song about Richard Nixon released two days before his resignation) didn’t sound angry enough to be effective. Not in terms of the lyrics, but in terms of the song’s overall sound. Roger Daltrey of The Who actually covered it on a solo album he released just last year, and a British man in his mid-70s somehow did a better job at sounding angry than a black man in the mid-70s. I know what I said last time about topping Stevie Wonder, but that was more of a general statement. Again, please don’t cancel me. This is all personal preference. Fulfillingness’ First Finale isn’t an Ultron, but I wouldn’t call it great either. That isn’t going to help much, is it? How about I extend an olive branch and talk about an album we can all agree on? Band on the Run by Paul McCartney & Wings is an undisputed classic. I’ve listened to this album before, I’ve seen Sir Paul play songs from it live, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it. Don’t worry about it getting snubbed, though. The group did win two well-deserved Grammys that year: one for the album and one for the title track. I give Band on the Run a strong recommendation. Next up, the bitch is back. Starting with his brilliant self-titled album, Elton John had a run of releases that cemented him as the most successful recording artist of the 1970s (with lyricist Bernie Taupin’s help, of course). Caribou was Elton’s fourth number one album in the U.S. and both of the singles - Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me and The Bitch is Back - were certified gold. Not bad for an album recorded in about nine days. See, Elton and his band were under pressure to finish the album before going on a Japanese tour. Producer Gus Dudgeon thinks it showed, once calling Caribou “a piece of crap” and remarking among other things that “the lyrics weren’t that good.” I didn’t work on the album, so maybe my opinion doesn’t matter as much as his, but while the lyrics of The Bitch is Back are admittedly a bit weak, I challenge you to listen to Ticking and tell me with a straight face that Caribou is a piece of crap with bad lyrics. There are also some fun songs like Grimsby, Dixie Lily, You’re So Static, and Stinker. I’ve Seen the Saucers is a really good song about aliens. I found a music theory analysis of the song someone posted in a YouTube comment that I thought was very interesting, but for the sake of time, I’ll just link to it here. For now, I say you should give the album a chance. Then there’s John Denver’s Back Home Again, the number one Billboard year-end country album of 1975. Quick aside, I doubt John Denver would’ve had much success if he stuck with his real name; something about “Henry John Deutschendorf Jr.” doesn’t feel like it would sell records. But I digress. This is a pretty good album. Grandma’s Feather Bed is a fun, silly number about exactly what the title says. The one weak point is Cool an' Green an' Shady; it’s a good song but it sounds too much like Paul McCartney’s Junk (which Denver covered on a previous album). Finally, we have Court & Spark, Joni Mitchell’s most commercially successful album. Believe it or not, for as much as I’ve previously praised her as a singer-songwriter, this was the first I’ve ever heard Court & Spark. I’ve heard Song to a Seagull, Blue, and a few songs off Ladies of the Canyon, so I expected good things. Were those expectations met? Please refer to what I said about Fulfillingness’ First Finale. It’s okay, I guess. Raised on Robbery and the jazzy Twisted (featuring Cheech and Chong of all people) are great songs, and I won’t argue with Down to You winning Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s). Otherwise, I wasn’t as impressed by Court & Spark as I was by her first four albums. Also, fun fact: the guy who designed the album cover was the father of Slash. It isn’t relevant to the album itself, but it was worth sharing nonetheless. To conclude, I don’t think Fulfillingness’ First Finale was the best pick. I have a fondness for Caribou, but even I have to ask how Band on the Run wasn’t the obvious choice.
I'd pick Court & Spark. Joni in her heyday, and the arrangements and production are really wonderful. Five stars from me. But, Stevie is fine. Band On The Run is a good album, certainly McCartney's best solo album, but there are some dodgy bits. The Record of the Year was "I Honestly Love You" by Olivia Newton-John. Wikipedia says that the award was presented by John Lennon & Paul Simon, and accepted by Art Garfunkel, for some reason. So I guess Paul & Artie were hanging out? I wonder if John joined Macca's party, too. 1974/75 marked the arrival of Marvin Hamlisch (Best New Artist, Best Original Score for The Way We Were, Best Pop Instrumental for "The Entertainer") and Thom Bell (Best Producer, and "The Sound of Philadelphia" won Best R&B Instrumental). Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells'" won Best Best Instrumental. If it came down to the theme from Soul Train or the theme from The Exorcist, which would come out on top? Rufus rode Stevie's coattails to winning an R&B Grammy with one of his songs, "Tell Me Something Good." Honestly, tell me how this isn't a better record than the Newton-John? Grammy was not put off by the title of Richard Pryor's That N-----'s Crazy. Charlie Parker, dead for 20 years, won Best Jazz Performance by a Soloist. OK, it's Charlie Parker, but there actually were a lot of good, new jazz records out in 1974, starting with Grammy favorite Bill Evans' The Tokyo Concert. The next year, they apparently felt compelled to give the award to Dizzy Gillespie, but at least that was for a new recording.
18th Annual Academy Awards - February 28, 1976 Paul Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years Elton John, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy Linda Ronstadt, Heart Like a Wheel Eagles, One of These Nights Janis Ian, Between the Lines Right off the bat, there are two albums I love that didn’t win. We’ll get to those at the end. Remember when I said the winner of this ceremony thanked Stevie Wonder for not releasing an album in 1975? Stevie still won a Grammy for Living for the City, but the point is the guy who jokingly thanked him was Paul Simon in his acceptance speech for Still Crazy After All These Years. Simon also won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for the title track, which is also the album’s opener. The song’s kind of boring, to be honest. The next song, My Little Town, is better. It’s a Simon & Garfunkel song - Art Garfunkel co-produced and sang on it, and it was released as a single under the name “Simon & Garfunkel.” You know, for two guys with such a documented rocky relationship, they reunited quite a lot. Anyway, My Little Town has a nice quiet-loud dynamic, though it’s more like “quiet-sorta loud.” Most of the album is like the title track, in that it’s very mellow but also kind of boring IMO. There are some more energetic moments, the biggest ones being the singles. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover sounds like it was meant for the more upbeat There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. Gone at Last is a gospel-influenced duet with Phoebe Snow, a singer-songwriter who had recently hit the ground running with the success of her debut single Poetry Man. The way she sings here, you get the sense that Amy Winehouse probably loved this song, and I wouldn’t blame her for that. Then Some Folks’ Lives Roll Easy starts and you think the album will be boring again, but there’s a slight upturn with Have a Good Time and You’re Kind. The album closes with Silent Eyes and THAT’S when the album is boring again. I was tempted at first to call this album an Ultron since I liked only half the songs, but it didn’t do as well in sales or on the charts as There Goes Rhymin’ Simon and I can see why. There are still songs I liked, and I think they’d make for a solid EP. But my final word is that while Still Crazy After All These Years isn’t a bad album, it wouldn’t have been my pick for Album of the Year and There Goes Rhymin’ Simon is better anyway. Okay, let’s start with the nominee I haven’t heard already. Between the Lines by singer-songwriter and Bill Cosby survivor (look it up) Janis Ian won Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording. The album contains her biggest hit in the U.S., At Seventeen, which Janis performed on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live. That has no relevance outside of pub trivia games, but Janis also won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the song, beating out fellow Album of the Year nominee Linda Ronstadt (we’ll get to her in a bit). At Seventeen is alright, as is the album. Highlights include From Me to You, Bright Lights and Promises and the title track. Those last two have a bit of a theatrical, Broadway-like vibe to them if that’s your thing. The Come On is an acoustic heartbreak song I refuse to believe isn’t autobiographical. For real, you’re telling me Janis Ian, who has come out as a lesbian, wasn’t singing “Friends have their lovers, men on a string; there must be something terribly wrong with me” from personal experience? Either way, the album’s not bad. I give it a light recommendation. Next up is One of These Nights by The Eagles. I’ve seen this band live shortly before Glenn Frey passed away, so while they’re not always the best lyricists, I do have a special place in my heart for songs like Take It to the Limit and this album’s title track. Also on the album is Lyin’ Eyes, which won Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus. Right, that’s all the singles out of the way. I haven’t heard much of the rest of the album before, so how is it? Too Many Hands is great. I was not expecting The Eagles of all bands to make a song called Journey of the Sorcerer, let alone one that ran six minutes and forty seconds. That sounds more like a Moody Blues thing, but The Moody Blues were on hiatus at the time, so I guess this is the Eagles filling in for them. In all seriousness, though, it is a really good song. After the Thrill is Gone was included on the 2003 compilation The Very Best Of despite not being released as a single. I’m not in favor of the inclusion; it’s just kinda okay. As a whole, the album is okay, but there are moments when it’s great. Oh, and here’s another fun fact for your next pub trivia game: the album closer I Wish You Peace was written by Bernie Leadon and his then-girlfriend Patti Davis, daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. It’s true, look it up. Then we have Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, the first of the two albums I said I already loved. We’ve all heard Someone Saved My Life Tonight, and it’s a beautiful song for sure. But given the chance, I’d make a strong case for the title track, Tower of Babel, Bitter Fingers and Better Off Dead also being some of his absolute best songs. And to call the album closer Curtains “magnificent” would be a disservice. However, I did say there was another nominee I loved. That brings us to Heart Like a Wheel by Linda Ronstadt, the biggest-selling female recording artist of the 1970s. I think we’re all in agreement that Linda Ronstadt is awesome, right? I don’t love all of her songs, but whenever she sang, she never failed to knock it out of the park. It didn’t even matter what genre she sang. She won Best Female Country Vocal Performance for I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You). She won Grammys in pop, Latin, and even children’s music. I say all of this because all that started with Heart Like a Wheel. She’d already had a few hits by then (Different Drum with Stone Poneys and Long, Long Time and Silver Threads and Golden Needles as a solo artist), but Heart Like a Wheel was the album that made her a star. It’s really good, in other words. So to summarize, the award should have gone to either Elton John or Linda Ronstadt.
For once, a stellar line-up, all the nominees. I'm not a fan of Feliciano, but I can't deny his talent. Of the other four, I would have had a really hard time choosing.
