The 65th Annual Grammy Awards took place on Sunday night and it was another year that I didn’t watch them. I used to enjoy them, but over the years, the nominations and the awards have become more and more of a joke to me. Rock and Metal categories never aired during the broadcast, performances only being the pop stars. I mean, remember the year that Nine Inch Nails was the last performance of the night and they cut them off early and ended the broadcast? If that had been Beyonce up there, they would have broadcast her whole performance. And let’s not forget the Metallica debacle in 1989.
But I digress. I was happy to see Ozzy Osbourne pick up two of his three. He scored for Best Rock Album with Patient Number 9 and Best Metal Performance with the song “Degradation Trip” with Black Sabbath bandmate, Tony Iommi from that same album.
So what does this have to do with the Tennessee State University Marching Band? Well, turns out, the TSU Marching Band was nominated for a Grammy. Yea, I had no idea either!
The Grammys include a multitude of categories, that also never see the light of the broadcasted program. In fact, there are 84 categories in all, so it’s understandable that a good chunk of those have to be given out before the broadcast.
One of those categories is for Best Roots Gospel Album which according to The Grammys website, is “for albums containing greater than 50% playing time of newly recorded, vocal, traditional/roots gospel music, including country, Southern gospel, bluegrass, and Americana recordings.”
While you might not know much about the category, looking at the nominees, the TSU Marching Band was up against some big names. Some I don’t know, like Keith and Kristyn Getty and Karen Peck and New River, but I am familiar with the Gaither Vocal Band (after years of stocking CDs in a Best Buy) and we all know Willie Nelson. (Yes, he and the Willie Nelson Family have a gospel album, Elvis did several, so…)
But to round out the five artists nominated, was the TSU Marching Band with their album The Urban Hymnal. And they won. Their first ever Grammy.
The album was put together by Dallas Austin, Sir the Baptist and TSU professor Larry Jenkins and of course the Aristocrat of Bands, which is how the TSU Marching Band is known.
While the band wasn’t able to be there to accept their award in person, TSU hosted a watch party and plenty of videos of them celebrating have made their way to social media.
Sir the Baptist spoke about the project saying that the band was “so deserving” and went on to elaborate about the cost of the project. In an interview with The Tennessean, he said:
I started working with TSU and we only had, I think it was $25,000 to pull this off. Then I had to go in and empty my savings to finish this…we are here with our pockets empty, but our hands aren’t!
Professor Larry Jenkins pointed out:
We all know we made history. But this is also February. We also made Black History
Pretty cool when you think about it. Most people think of big names when it comes to The Grammys and even the AMA’s, not a marching band from middle Tennessee.
So, big congratulations, Aristocrat of Bands. What a great honor and well deserved.
