Special Grammy Nomination Edition
With tributes to Brandi Carlile, Joni Mitchell & Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Allison Russell and Aoife O'Donovan, plus Leonard Cohen goes postal.
Don’t really care much about Grammys, and other awards shows, these days, but the nominees named yesterday at least give me an excuse to (almost) ignore the fact that it now looks like the Democrats are going to fall two or three seats short of holding the House, though one can still root for a Katie Porter win and a Lauren Boebert loss.
So, under the watchful eyes of Leonard above—these are three new stamps issued in his native Canada—let’s pay tribute to Bonnie Raitt, who snagged a surprising Best Song nod for “Just Like That.”
Next, one of our favorite emerging artists, Allison Russell, is part of a nomination for her vocals with Aiofe O’Donovan on the latter’s “Prodigal Daughter.” O’Donovan ‘s album also nominated, listen here.
Brandi Carlile is again up for some of the biggest Grammy awards, so let’s re-run my Profile in Music for her from a few months back. But before we get to that, here’s a rare and quite wonderful interview this month with Brandi’s pal Joni Mitchell by none other than Sir Elton John, with some song picks by Joni herself, some expected, others surprising. As some may know, thanks to Brandi, Joni is making her concert comeback next June.
Enjoy, then subscribe if you haven’t, it’s still free….
Brandi, You’re a Fine Gal
Usually for these profiles I provide a little more bio material. No time this time but you can find her stirring story online easily, and then there’s her recent best-selling memoir. Anyway, here’s a selection of some of her best, starting with her breakthrough, “The Story.”
“The Story”
“That Wasn’t Me”
“Hold Out Your Hand”
“The Joke” at the Grammys
“Folsom Prison Blues”
“Looking Out”
Doing Elton, “Madman Across the Water”
Doing Roy Orbison, “It’s Over”
And her new single, “Right on Time”
“Mainstream Kid”
Doing Joni, “A Case of You”
“Essential daily newsletter.” — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire
“Incisive and enjoyable every day.” — Ron Brownstein, The Atlantic
“Always worth reading.” — Frank Rich, New York magazine, Veep and Succession
Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His new film, Atomic Cover-up, just had its world premiere and is drawing extraordinary acclaim. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.