The 67th Grammy Awards are scheduled for February 2, 2025. I thought it might be fun in the run-up to the awards to take a few strolls through Grammy history and remember some winners, losers, and legends that have contributed to the fascinating, bizarre history of popular music in the USA. And I thought we’d begin with the very first year, 1958.
(Note: I’ll be mentioning both 1958 and 1959 in what follows. Sometimes, it will be intentional. Sometimes, I’ll just be getting confused. The only thing to keep in mind is that the actual Grammy ceremony took place in ’59, and it recognized music released in ’58.)
Since I split my time writing about music and sports, I’m going to steal – I mean, adapt – a popular sports template in order to recall that inaugural Grammy. Re-draft articles are popular on sports sites. The concept is simple. Pick a sport and a year – let’s just say the NBA in 2015. Go over who was drafted first, second, third, etc… Then, with the benefit of hindsight, choose who should have been drafted first, second, third, etc…
For this exercise, we don’t need to pick a sport. The “sport” is the Grammys themselves. All we need is a year. Today, it's 1958 -- or 1959, as explained above. We’ll run through the three major awards (there was no Best New Artist award given that first year), and then we will consider whether the winner would still win if we were making the awards today. Simple, no?
We’ll stick mainly to the songs and albums that actually were nominated back in 1958 because if we open it up beyond that, things could get messy. But I don’t mind a little mess, so for each category, I will make a suggestion or two about contenders who were worthy of a nomination as well. But I won’t belabor that. In fact, I will do my best not to belabor anything.
Therefore, after that intro, we move into the first verse…
SONG OF THE YEAR, 1959
The nominees were:
“Catch a Falling Star” written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss; performed by Perry Como
“Fever” written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell; performed by Peggy Lee
“Gigi” written by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner; performed by Louis Jourdan
“Nel blu, dipinto di blu” written by Domenico Modugno and Franco Migliacci, performed by Modugno
“Witchcraft” written by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh; performed by Frank Sinatra
And the winner was…
“Nel blu, dipinto di blu.”
If you don’t know that title, don’t worry. Few people today would recognize it. If you are old enough, you would know it by its alternate (parenthetical) title “Volare,” but even that may be iffy in 2024. It won the Sanremo Music Festival in 1958 and then became the biggest song of the year in the USA.
Amongst the five songs nominated, Modugno’s song strikes me as clearly better than the catchy, sing-songy “Catch a Falling Star” and the rather dull “Gigi.” “Gigi,” which is the title song from a 1958 film, did clean up at the Oscars that year. It won the Oscar for Best Song and its Film took Best Picture along with seven other awards. But if you remember Gigi, I’m fairly certain you’re doing your best, Maurice Chevalier, singing “Thank Heavens for Little Girls” and not the title song.
Either “Witchcraft” or “Fever” would have been worthy winners, but I’ve got to say, after careful consideration, I think the Academy got it right with this award. “Nel blu, dipinto di blu” blends a lovely melody with romantic lyrics about escaping into a lover’s paradise in the clouds. Dean Martin would have great success with an Italian/English version in 1958 as well.
If I understand the eligibility criteria correctly (and I am never sure of that when it comes to the Grammys), several popular songs from 1958 that would have been even better choices for the songwriting award were not eligible because they had been written and originally recorded earlier.
That would include numbers like Lloyd Price’s version of “Stagger Lee” and the Platters’ “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” However, I would have made room for the Brook Benton song “A Lover’s Question,” made famous by Clyde McPhatter, a model for subsequent R&B pop.
RECORD OF THE YEAR, 1959
Record of the Year is a production award. It considers all elements of production, including performance and arrangement. Though it often overlaps with Song of the Year, that is not always the case. However, in 1959 … well, you’ll see.
The nominees were:
“Catch a Falling Star” performed by Perry Como
“The Chipmunk Song” performed by Alvin and the Chipmunks and David Saville
“Fever” performed by Peggy Lee
“Nel blu, dipinto di blu” performed by Domenico Modugno
“Witchcraft” performed by Frank Sinatra
And the winner was…
“Nel blu, dipinto di blu”
As you can see, four of the five nominees for the record were also nominated for song, and the winner was the same. The one new entry here, Dave Saville’s “The Chipmunk Song” (AKA “Christmas Don’t Be Late”), is a novelty trifle. Though it may be heard more today than the other four songs combined, it is only heard between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and by the third time it comes on the radio, you go looking for an ice pick so that you can puncture your eardrums. It never should have been nominated for the most prestigious Grammy.
And “Volare” should not have won. You really don’t need to look any farther than Dean Martin’s version to understand Modugno’s arrangement is somewhat old-fashioned with its harp-centric orchestration. “Fever” or “Witchcraft” would have been worthier choices. Peggy Lee’s version of “Fever” is quite good, but as with Modugno’s “Volare,” Little Willie John’s original is at least equal. Nothing equals Sinatra. I would have voted for “Witchcraft.”
When you consider records like Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” Buddy Holly’s “Rave On,” and Ray Charles’ “(Night Time is) The Right Time” all came out that year, and all had outsized impact on what was to follow, you begin to question whether there should have been an entirely different slate of nominees.
ALBUM OF THE YEAR, 1959
The nominees were…
Come Fly with Me by Frank Sinatra
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook by Ella Fitzgerald
The Music from Peter Gunn by Henry Mancini
Only the Lonely by Frank Sinatra
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 by Van Cliburn
And the winner was…
The Music from Peter Gunn by Henry Mancini
Mancini’s slinky jazz compositions for the TV show Peter Gunn yielded one massive hit – the theme song – as well as a number of other first-rate instrumentals. “Brief and Breezy” and “Sessions at Pete’s Pad” are excellent tracks. But in hindsight, there were albums that perhaps had more to offer.
Amongst the nominees, I will recuse myself from discussing the Tchaikovsky because I know next to nothing about evaluating classical music. The Ella Fitzgerald album was one of a series of influential “songbook” albums she released in the ‘50s and ‘60s. It is outstanding, but I don’t like it as much as the ones she had for Cole Porter and Duke Ellington in 1956 and 1957.
That leaves Frank Sinatra battling against himself, and if anyone deserved such acclaim in 1958, it was Sinatra. This comes down to a question of whether you prefer light and breezy Frank, or darker, more troubled Frank. I’m in a good mood as I type this, so I'll opt for the former and give my award to one of the earliest concept albums of the modern era, “Come Fly With Me.
However, there’s a major caveat here. If rock & roll were being properly recognized, the list of nominees would have been very different. You could have had a couple of outstanding slates of album nominees simply looking at self-titled releases. Bo Diddley was inventing rock rhythm. Buddy Holly was inventing the modern rock song. Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Everly Brothers, Bobby Darin, and Wanda Jackson … all released major self-titled albums that year. Chuck Berry’s One Dozen Berrys wasn’t strictly self-titled, but it helped invent rock & roll guitar.
Any of them could have not only been nominated, but could have won.
So there’s your quick 1958 re-draft. Next time, we’ll jump ahead to some random year in the 1960s, when I am told there was some pretty decent music.