WMNR Fine Arts Radio

The Grammy Awards were established in 1958 to recognize "good" music, elevate the taste in American popular music, and systematically ignore and neglect the tide of rock-n-roll, R&B, and young pop that threatened the fortunes and dominance of the music establishment.

The music establishment of the 1950's, made up of orchestra leaders, record producers, musicians and arrangers were worried about the enthusiasm with which American teenagers were greeting the new music they called rock-n-roll, Rhythm & Blues ("black" music), and young pop singers. They worried as they saw their fortunes start to be impacted and sales decline. In 1957 a group of those leaders in the music business created the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences*. Its first job was to establish an award, not unlike the motion picture industry, that would recognize and promote "good" music and ignore the new tidal wave of rockers through their new "Gramophone Award."

And so began the Grammy Awards. The first ten years of the awards clearly show how the Recording Academy tried to manipulate public taste. In many of the early cases the awards are laughable, even in the context of the late '50s and early '60s. By 1973 the Recording Academy established the Grammy Hall of Fame where they inducted many records annually, many of them overlooked when they were first released, others that pre-date the Grammys, as symbols of significant recordings.

On this edition of American Jukebox we look at the first 15 years of the Grammys and watch the evolution of American music, and include several Hall of Fame inductees. Surprises and a few loud gasps are sure to part of the audience reaction.

Spoilers: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir got the 1959 Grammy for Best Performance by a Group for their "Battle Hymn of the Republic." The Statler Brothers got the 1965 Grammy for the Best Rock and Roll Recording by a Group for their "Flowers On the Wall."

* Today called the Recording Academy.