When the Recording Academy confirmed that Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga’s Love for Sale, a collection of Cole Porter songs, was eligible for the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, other artists hoping to win for best traditional pop vocal album must have realized that their chances just became less “de-lovely.” Bennett has won 13 times in the category, including once with Gaga for their previous collab, Cheek to Cheek. He has lost in the category just three times.
Love for Sale has been announced as the final studio album for Bennett, who is 95 and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016.
If Love for Sale is nominated for best traditional pop vocal album, this would be the second year in a row that a Porter tribute is in the running. Harry Connick Jr.’s True Love: A Celebration of Cole Porter was nominated last year. The first Porter tribute album to be nominated in the category was cabaret star Bobby Short’s You’re the Top: Love Songs of Cole Porter (1999).
Porter would become the first composer to be the subject of three salutes that were Grammy-nominated in this category. Porter, the writer of such standards as “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and “Night and Day,” died in 1964 at age 73.
If Love for Sale wins on Grammy night – Jan. 31, 2022 – this this would be Bennett’s 19th Grammy won in competition; Gaga’s 13th. Moreover, Bennett and Gaga would become the first pair to win twice in this category.
But what will go up against Love for Sale in the trad pop category? And what exactly is this category meant to honor?
Let’s take the first question first. Willie Nelson, Josh Groban, Seth MacFarlane, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton, Pentatonix and Neil Diamond are among the leading candidates for nominations.
Nelson is likely to land his fourth nomination in the category for That’s Life, his second tribute album to Frank Sinatra. (His first, My Way, won in this category three years ago.) Nelson is a two-time winner in the category, for Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin (2016) and My Way. Should Nelson win, he would be only the second artist to win three or more Grammys in the category, which was introduced 30 years ago.
That’s Life would be the ninth tribute to Sinatra to land a nod in this category, following three Bob Dylan albums, the aforementioned one by Nelson and individual albums by Bennett (1992), Barry Manilow (1999), Keely Smith (2001) and Michael Feinstein (2008). No other artist has been the subject of so many tribute albums that received nods in this category.
Nelson’s album was mixed by engineer Al Schmitt, who died in April at age 91. Schmitt, a 20-time Grammy winner, was an Academy favorite.
Groban and MacFarlane could also be headed for their fourth nods in the category for Harmony (Deluxe) and Songs From Home, a collab with Liz Gillies, respectively.
Groban was previously nominated in this category for Noel (2008), Stages (2015) and Stages Live (2016). MacFarlane was nominated here with Music Is Better Than Words (2011), No One Ever Tells You (2015) and In Full Swing (2017). The versatile performer received his first Grammy nod for best comedy album for Family Guy Live in Vegas (2005).
Krall, who was nominated in this category three years ago for Love Is Here to Stay, a collab with Bennett, could land her first nod on her own with This Dream of You. (Krall’s husband, Elvis Costello, won two years ago for Look Now, on which he was backed by his band, The Imposters.)
Jones, a nine-time Grammy winner, is in the running with ‘Til We Meet Again (Live). Jones won album of the year and best pop vocal album for her 2002 debut, Come Away With Me.
Diamond is entered with Classic Diamonds, which he recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra. Diamond’s Grammy track record is surprisingly thin for a mainstream pop/adult contemporary star of his stature. He has won just one Grammy, for his 1973 soundtrack to a critically panned movie, Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Pop veteran Loudon Wainwright III is in the running with I’d Rather Lead a Band, a collab with Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks. Wainwright is the father of Rufus Wainwright, a two-time nominee in this category.
The Grammys don’t have a category for holiday albums, so such albums occasionally wind up here. Christmas albums entered this year include Underwood’s My Gift, Parton’s A Holly Dolly Christmas, Pentatonix’s We Need a Little Christmas, Tori Kelly’s A Tori Kelly Christmas, Jamie Cullum’s The Pianoman at Christmas, Goo Goo Dolls’ It’s Christmas All Over, Michael Ball & Alfie Boe’s Together at Christmas and Straight No Chaser’s Social Christmasing.
Besides Love for Sale and That’s Life, other tribute albums that are in the running include Ledisi’s Ledisi Sings Nina, a tribute to Nina Simone; Il Divo’s For Once in My Life: A Celebration of Motown; and Steve Tyrell’s Shades of Ray: The Songs of Ray Charles.
This category, once the province of old-guard adult contemporary stars, has somewhat changed in recent years: The last three winners are Nelson, Costello & the Imposters and James Taylor. Acts of that ilk who are in the running for nods this year include David Crosby (For Free), Moby (Reprise), Jennifer Nettles (Always Like New), Patty Smyth (It’s About Time) and Suzanne Vega (An Evening of New York Songs and Stories).
Other albums of note that are vying for nods include Paul Anka’s Making Memories, Shirley Bassey’s I Owe It All to You, Laura Benati’s Laura Benati, Engelbert Humperdinck’s Sentiments and Lea Salonga’s Live in Concert with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
And what exactly is this category meant to honor, anyway? Here, from the current Grammy rulebook: “This category is for performances of a type and style of song that cannot properly be intermingled with present forms of pop music. This includes older forms of Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the period between the [1920s] and the end of World War II, as well as cabaret/musical theater-style songs and previous forms of contemporary pop. This would also include contemporary pop songs performed in traditional pop style – the term “traditional” being a reference, equally, to the style of the composition, vocal styling and the instrumental arrangement, without regard to the age of the material.”
A total of 86 albums are vying for nods in the category this year, a jump from 71 last year.
There was a question about whether Love for Sale would be eligible for this year’s Grammys. The album was released in some configurations — including cassettes — on Sept. 30, the last day of the eligibility period, which enabled it to qualify. The album was released in all other configurations on Oct. 1. The eligibility period for the awards was Sept. 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2021.
Bennett, who was born Aug. 3, 1926, would be a shade less than 95 1/2 on Grammy night. Should he win that night, he would become the second-oldest Grammy winner ever. The record is held by blues legend Pinetop Perkins, who was 97 years and 221 days old when he won the 2010 award for best traditional blues album for Joined at the Hip, a collab with Willie “Big Eyes” Smith.
Source
