The first Grammys were held: May 4, 1959

image from themoneytimes.com

Frank Sinatra once described Elvis Presley, the man who in 1959 was responsible for nearly half the sales at RCA, as a “deplorable, a rancid-smelling aphrodisiac.” ^TO Apparently the Grammys agreed with Ol’ Blue Eyes. In 28 categories, Sinatra was nominated the most – 12 times. Elvis and his fellow rock musicians, received no nominations. As Variety magazine said, the complete absence of any rock titles was “a demonstrative brushoff to the prevailing trend in the pop field.” ^TO

The Grammy Awards were established in 1958 by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. The “Grammy” nickname is short for gramophone. The awards focused on “artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence instead of album sales or chart position.” ^LF “The award itself is a gold gramophone, symbolic of the first home record players, on a black base.” ^LF

525 people from the music industry attended that first ceremony on May 4, 1959 at a banquet ceremony at Los Angeles’ Beverly Hilton Hotel. Shockingly, there was no music on the program. The event was not televised. Paul Weston, the Grammy president, was still lining up presenters during dinner.

700 people filled out ballots. While prognasticators assumed Sinatra would be the big winner of the night, he was nearly shut out, only winning Best Album Cover for Only the Lonely. Instead, the night’s top honors went largely to non-rock-oriented pop titles. Domenico Modugno’s “Volare” won Record and Song of the Year. Henry Mancini’s television soundtrack The Music from Peter Gunn, which had topped the LP chart for 10 weeks, took the prize for Album of the Year. Mancini would become a Grammy regular, winning a total of 20 awards before his death in 1994.

Volare

Some of the other winners of the night included Ella Fitzgerald (Best Female Vocal Performance, Best Individual Jazz Performance) and Count Basie (Best Performance by a Dance Band, Best Jazz Performance Group). Despite Grammy leaders claim that the awards were about “artistic merit,” they handed out three awards to The Chipmunks. Check out a full list of the first year’s winners here.

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Resources and Related Links:

• DMDB Blog: Why the Grammys Are Hard to Take Seriously (2/12/2012)
• DMDB Blog: The Grammy Song and Record of the Year Winners Ranked (1/19/2012)
• DMDB Blog: Past Album-of-the-Year Grammy Winners Ranked and Revisited (12/4/2011)
• Grammy.com
• Grammy.com – first year’s winners
• Life123.com: A Brief Grammy History by Jennifer Flaten
• ^TO Thomas O’Neil The Grammys: The Ultimate, Unofficial Guide to Music’s Highest Honor (1993). Perigree Books: New York, NY. Pages 23-31.

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50 years ago: “Moon River” hit the chart

Moon River Henry Mancini with Audrey Hepburn

Writer(s): Henry Mancini (music)/ Johnny Mercer (lyrics) (see lyrics here) First Charted: October 7, 1961 Peak: 11 US, 5 CB, 7 HR, 11 AC, 44 UK, 14 CN, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 34.3 video, 76.11 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: This song, written for the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, ranks #4 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest movie songs. The movie, directed by Blake Edwards, was an adaptation of Truman Capote’s book Holly Golightly. Henry Mancini, hot off his success composing for TV’s Peter Gunn, was tapped to write the score. When he needed, as his wife Virginia said, a “haunting song that would depict Holly Golightly as a little girl from a small town who is trying to be very sophisticated in big, bad New York City,” SS he turned to Johnny Mercer, one of his songwriting idols. Like the movie’s main character, Mercer left his home in the south for “the glittering lights of a sophisticated New York.” TC He was “firmly established as one of the great American composers” TC and co-founded Capitol Records in 1942, but hadn’t had a hit in years. SS The result was a song which “neatly pivots on nostalgia for a lost youth and the romance of the future.” TC It “was both a little folksly and a little elegant.” JV The song won Grammys for Record and Song of the Year. Over the years, three different artists took it to #1 on three different charts. The original topped the adult contemporary chart, Jerry Butler took it to #1 in New Zealand, and Danny Williams reached the pinnacle on the UK chart. WK Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Morrissey, R.E.M., Frank Sinatra, Rod Stewart, Barbra Streisand, and Sarah Vaughan have also recorded the song. WK Mancini drew his musical inspiration from the script and Audrey Hepburn, the film’s star TC and “the reigning queen of Hollywood.” SS He said her “big eyes gave me the push to get a little more sentimental than I usually do.” TC After seeing the movie with Mancini’s score, Hepburn wrote him a letter, saying, “A movie without music is a little bit like an aeroplane without fuel. However beautifully the job is done, we are still on the ground and in a world of reality. Your music has lifted us all up and sent us soaring.” TC Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Henry Mancini TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Page 667. JV David Jenness and Don Velsey (2006). Classic American Popular Song. Routledge: New York, NY. Page 196. SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 475-6. WK Wikipedia First posted 4/10/2020; last updated 10/22/2022.

50 years ago: Henry Mancini hit #1 for 1st of 10 weeks with Music from Peter Gunn

First posted 3/25/2008; updated 10/2/2020.

Music from Peter Gunn Henry Mancini

Charted: February 9, 1959 Peak: 110 US, -- UK, -- CN, -- AU Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, -- UK, 0.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: jazz/ TV soundtrack

Tracks: Peter Gunn Sorta Blue The Brothers Go to Mother’s Dreamsville Session at Pete’s Pad Soft Sounds Fallout! The Floater Slow and Easy A Profound Gass Brief and Breezy Not from Dixie Total Running Time: 39:52

Rating: 4.304 out of 5.00 (average of 8 ratings) Quotable: “A key piece of jazz and pop music history” – Bruce Eder, All Music Guide Awards:

About the Album: This is “a key piece of jazz and pop music history.” AMG The television soundtrack for Peter Gunn was the first recipient of the Grammy for Album of the Year. In 1958, the show was “one of the unexpected hits of the new television season, capturing the imagination of millions of viewers by mixing private eye action with a jazz setting. Composer Henry Mancini was more than fluent in jazz, and his music nailed down the popularity of the series.” AMG The soundtrack did so well that RCA Victor released a second volume, More Music From Peter Gunn. The main title theme is “a driving, ominous, exciting piece of music” AMG “notable for its combination of jazz orchestration with a straightforward rock ‘n roll beat.” WK In his autobiography, Did They Mention the Music?, Mancini explained that he “used guitar and piano in unison…It was sustained throughout the piece, giving it a sinister effect, with some frightened saxophone sounds and some shouting brass.” WK As to other songs on the collection, “the music holds up: Session at Pete’s Pad is a superb workout for the trumpets of Pete Candoli, Uan Rasey, Conrad Gozzo, and Frank Beach, while Barney Kessel's electric guitar gets the spotlight during Dreamsville; and Sorta Blue and Fallout are full-ensemble pieces that constitute quintessential ‘cool’ West Coast jazz of the period. In other words, it’s all virtuoso orchestral jazz, presented in its optimum form.” AMG “This a doubly valuable addition to any jazz or soundtrack collection of the era.” AMG Notes: This was rereleased in 1998 with four bonus tracks (“Walkin’ Bass,” “Blue Steel,” “Spook!,” and “Blues for Mother’s”) originally featured on More Music from Peter Gunn.

Resources and Related Links: Henry Mancini’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry AMG All Music Guide review by Bruce Eder WK Wikipedia