Just back from the 1998 Grammy Awards in NYC and want to report that a good...though not perfect...time was had by all. As most of you know, I was nominated for the third consecutive year for Best Musical Album for Children for "Bigger Than Yourself". The "competition" included Art Garfunkel, Arlo and Woody Guthrie, Taj Mahal and Linda Tillery & the Cultural Heritage Choir, and the late John Denver. Denver, of course, won...making me, a lifelong Green Bay Packer fan, the only person to get beat by a Denver twice in less than thirty days. Being as it's not only imprudent but impractical to go into such events expecting to win, the sting was not nearly so sharp as it might be. Grammy voters are a particularly sentimental lot...and while this year's results (that awarded statuettes to nearly every recently deceased nominee) might point to death as a solid career move I believe I'll wait my turn naturally...

Most viewers will remember the interesting and unexpected appearances by ODB from Woo Tang Clan and Soy Bomb during the telecast. However, it's appropriate to point out in this year of the Titanic, that the TV ceremony is the mere tip of the iceberg. Lots more went on than the public is treated to and I thought I'd offer a brief review...

Parthy and I arrived early Tuesday morning at the NY Sheraton Towers, the site of Grammy headquarters and the post-telecast wingding. Tuesday night, see, is a reception and party for nominees and, in my opinion, the most fun part of the festivities. I had arranged to rendezvous with fellow nominees Linda Tillery, the Dave Matthews Band (hometown pals and nominees in several different rock categories...ask your teenage kids who they are), co-producer Bob Dawson and his family, and the crew that did the amazing "Anthology of American Folk Music." After naps, workouts, and a brisk Central Park stroll we donned our gay apparel and headed over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the Lifetime Achievement Awards presentations and the nominees reception.

The Met is an amazing museum and we were in the Egyptian wing of the place. The Lifetime Achievement Awards are really my favorite part of the Grammys and it's an absolute shame they're not part of the televised portion. This year's honorees in the technical end of things were the fellow who invented the parametric equalizer and the folks who invented the compact disk. Easy calls. The trustees awards were presented to Holland, Dozier, and Holland (who wrote a bajillion Motown Hits...esp for the Supremes) and Frances Preston, the head of BMI. The most touching moments came during the artist Lifetime Achievement Awards. This year the Academy honored Bo Diddley, Roy Orbison, the Mills Brothers, and Paul Robeson. Probably the highlight of the entire Grammy event this year for me was the opportunity to meet and visit at length with Paul Robeson, Jr.

After the ceremony we repaired to the Temple Room wherein an entire Egyptian temple is reconstructed complete with candle encircled moat and live jazz (not part of the original installation, I suspect). During this Schmoozefest-par-excellance I managed to run into fellow nominees Paul Winter, Linda Tillery, Tracy Schwarz & Ginny Hawker, John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers, Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin, and newlywed Alison Krauss. An all-star high school big band and jazz choir entertained in a visually stunning but acoustically nightmarish nearby gallery, official Grammy portraits were taken, nominee medallions were dispensed, food and drink were consumed, and we all gradually made it back to our rooms at the amazingly early hour of 10:30. I not only felt like an interloper at this toney affair, I felt like a genuine short hitter.

Wednesday dawned to previously arranged breakfast rendezvous and more Central Park strolls. I took a brief walk over to the nearby AFM Headquarters to pay my respects and get info on grant programs to our Local 1000. Returned in time to throw on my rented tux and join the Smithsonian crew for the two block trot over to Radio City Music Hall. Last year's ceremony was held in the cavernous Madison Square Garden...an awful place for such a ceremony. This year assured that your fancy shoes wouldn't be sticking to the dried Coke on the floor from the previous night's Knicks game. We found pals Barry Poss from Sugar Hill Records and Guy Clark, Nick Forster of Hot Rize, and the Beausoleil boys all ready to take our seats for the "pre-telecast" awards ceremony. Only 14 Grammy are actually presented on TV. The remaining 80 or so come in the 1-1/2 hour "pre-telecast" event. This, of course, is when categories like Children's Music, Traditional Folk Music, all the classical, jazz, blues, etc. categories are presented. Think of it as the public radio portion of the ceremonies and you get the idea. Democracy on parade. It's a lightening-quick affair and, as they're trying to get through all these presentations, clear the hall, and prepare for the broadcast that bankrolls the whole party, you'd better be sprinting to the stage, waving your arms, and shouting out your name if you win otherwise they're on to the next category. Few of the big stars showed for this portion of the awards, though Sarah McLachlan, Puff Daddy, Trish Yearwood, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Charlie Haden & Pat Methaney, and Ry Cooder managed to make it down. My favorite moments during the pre-telecast were seeing the Anthology of American Folk Music win two Grammys and listening to Art Garfunkel read the nominees for the Heavy Metal category. My least favorite moment came seconds after the announcement of the nominees for Best Musical Album for Children.

Between shows we congratulated winners Beausoleil, Alison Krauss, and the Smithsonian crew, said howdy to the Rounder folks who were there and visited with fellow loser Garrison Keillor, who admitted that Midwesterners handle defeat much less valiantly than we're trained to do. We downed a prudently smuggled sandwich (no food or drink provided from 5-11 PM!) and headed back in for the Big Show.

We found ourselves seated with friend and fellow nominee Linda Tillery, the New Lost City Ramblers crew, and the legendary Ruth Brown...who we thought ought to be sitting front stage center. The show itself was pretty much as most of you saw it on the tube...though we got to see the techies running around and didn't have to watch the commercials. The show was not as musically lively as last year's (when Beck, Tracy Chapman, the Fugees w/Ziggy Marley and the Wailers, and 3...yes 3!...bluegrass songs by Vince Gill and Alison Krauss were highlights for me) though I thought Dylan was brilliant despite the wacky crowd scene around him. The show seemed to run out of steam about 2/3 of the way through and, by 11:00 everyone was ready to head to the party.

The post-ceremony party was back at our hotel where we managed to jettison coats, programs, etc. in our room and then head downstairs for the Do. Four ballrooms, four different bands (Latin in the main ballroom, Asleep at the Wheel in the next, jazz in a third, and remix/disco in a fourth), a mountain of amazing food and drink, and, luckily, fewer people than the wall-to-wall squeeze-fest of years-gone-by. Spent a lot of time catching up w/Greg Landau and his wife. I first met Greg in 1986 in Nicaragua where he played lead guitar w/Mancotal, the top Nica band of the day fronted by Luis Enrique Mej’a Godoy. He's since moved back to the Bay Area and records and produces lots of Latino music, notably Duo Guardabaranco and some great Cuban bands. A bunch of the AFM brass were in attendance. We missed our sons who could have provided us with a more informed list of the bands we didn't recognize. We mostly hung w/the Smithsonian crew, Beausoleil, and the Dawsons until we turned into pumpkins sometime mid-morning.

Thursday morning I turned back into a mild-mannered folk singer and hoped that I wouldn't be "found out" by the people who must surely monitor the kinds of folks that are let in to such affairs. The Grammys is a swell party and, so long as you realize that you're dealing with the music industry here and that your chances of winning as an independent artist are slim-to-non-existent and go in with such an attitude firmly in mind, you can have a truly fun time. I can honestly say I did and only wish I could sneak about a thousand of my friends and fans into the event as well. In the meantime, be assured that my hat still fits and that there is no empty place on my mantle or in my heart that waits for any more recognition than the warm applause and appreciation of the ordinary people who kept me going all those years before the Grammy voters discovered me...and who'll keep me going long after those same voters have forgotten me, as well.

Back to work. Back to the road.