Grammy Winners You May Like

My annual selection. Plus: Why the film "The Voice of Hind Rajab" matters (and therefore few are allowed to see it).

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A little Bramhall to start your day:

As you may have heard, Trump is closing the Kennedy Center in July for two full years for a complete, no doubt gold-plated, incredibly costly, overhaul—not only to make it more of a tribute to himself but to get around the embarrassment of no one wanting to perform there and stupendous financial losses.

Kamensky looks to the future:

My annual Grammy musical highlights (which never come from the primetime show itself) down below, but first two of the rare topical quotes from acceptance speeches:

“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say, ‘ICE out,’” said Bad Bunny, fuelling even more interest (and fears from MAGAs) over his upcoming Super Bowl appearance. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens, we are humans and we are Americans.”

“No one is illegal on stolen land,” Billie Eilish pointed out. “We need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting.”

I posted yesterday that we hoped to see “The Voice of Hind Rajab” at one of the places screening the Oscar-nominated film, as it still has no major distributor due to….well, you know (it explores a U.S.-aided Israeli war crime involving the death of 5-year-old Hind and five relatives in a car plus two rescuers in an ambulance ). Well, we did see it on Sunday and it is a haunting, enraging, experience, surely one of the best and most needed films of the past year. The New York Times reviewer largely praised it but—not surprising given the paper’s track record—the editors failed to make it one of that week’s “critic picks” which they have no trouble lavishing on so much predictable mediocrity.

But at least the newspaper published an opinion piece last week by the girl’s mother, link here.

No child deserves to die like Hind did, just as no child should live under the constant threat of bombardment, starvation and displacement. My daughter was just one among tens of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza whose stories ended before they began. At least 20,000 children have been killed since October 2023. Twenty thousand futures erased.

And a few weeks back, another by the great M. Gessen.

What I didn’t realize when I resisted seeing the movie was that these deaths were not its subject. The subject of the movie is the moral injury inflicted on people who became implicated in these deaths, even as they tried to prevent them. Had I known, I might have been even more scared of seeing “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” because this focus hits even closer to home.

And here’s the recent appearance on Democracy Now! by the film’s director.

It was good to see the following choices for Grammys last night—if by “see” you mean finding it online in the listings of “all winners” who got their prizes in the little-viewed pre-show show. In the past year I have featured all of the following here at this newsletter.

Best American Roots Performance

“Beautiful Strangers,” Mavis Staples.

Best Recording Package

“Tracks II: The Lost Albums,” Meghan Foley and Michelle Holme, art directors (Bruce Springsteen)

Best Historical Album

“Joni Mitchell Archives — Volume 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980).” Below, solo demo for one of her greatest songs, “Amelia.”

Best Americana Performance

“Godspeed,” Mavis Staples

Best American Roots Song

“Ancient Light,” Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins, songwriters (I’m With Her)

Best Americana Album

“Big Money,” Jon Batiste. Below, “Lonely Avenue,” with Randy Newman.

Best Folk Album

“Wild and Clear and Blue,” I’m With Her

Best Musical Theater Album

“Buena Vista Social Club,” Marco Paguia, Dean Sharenow and David Yazbek, producers (Original Broadway Cast)

Best Regional Roots Music Album

“A Tribute to the King of Zydeco,” Various Artists (re: Clifton Chenier).

Best Comedy Album

“Your Friend, Nate Bargatze,” Nate Bargatze

From Tunes to Toons

Wuerker:

Telnaes:

Goris:

Matson:

Brodner:

Photo Finish

From my camera to thou. “Morning Rush, Grand Central, NYC”