All Ears on Grammy

by Shannon Maughan, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 2/12/2007

The outspoken Dixie Chicks and the freshly reunited Police were among the music superstars taking the spotlight on last night's broadcast of the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, but lots of offscreen winners took home gold. Audiobook recordings by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and actress Ruby Dee and her late husband, Ossie Davis, were both presented Grammys earlier in the day in a rare but not unprecedented tie in the Best Spoken Word Album category. Carter's narration of his bestselling book Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (Simon & Schuster Audio) and Davis and Dee's joint memoir, With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together (Time Warner Audio Books, now Hachette Audio), took top honors in the category. The Best Comedy Album Grammy went to Comedy Central's Lewis Black for The Carnegie Hall Performance (Comedy Central Records).

Storyteller and singer-musician Bill Harley, a favorite of kids, librarians, booksellers and teachers, nabbed the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for Children with his Blah Blah Blah: Stories About Clams, Swamp Monsters, Pirates & Dogs (Round River Records/Empyrean Records), and Catch That Train! by popular kids' rocker Dan Zanes (Festival Five Records) won Best Musical Album for Children.

The peer-determined Grammys are awarded by the Recording Academy in recognition of recording excellence in more than 30 categories. Eligible titles were released between October 1, 2005, and September 30, 2006. Only about one-tenth of the Grammy winners were actually seen during a star-studded event at the Staples Center in Los Angeles broadcast on CBS. Presentation of the bulk of the awards is a more subdued affair, taking place a few hours before the red carpet hoopla.