The real excitement and provocation of popular music happen somewhere on the outskirts, where artists who don’t call themselves “artists” are forcing something new out of what’s been handed to them. Music’s means of production are more readily accessible to individual creators than are, say, those of film and television. Because of this, music gives us more human activity in its raw forms. It’s one reason that music has a history as the megaphone through which we can hear voices from the margins.
But the Grammys, just often enough, celebrate individuals who began their careers out there on those outskirts. No matter that they picked up their awards in here. Bonnie Raitt, starting out as a young woman playing slide guitar in a blues culture that coded (very) male, was way out there. She’s been an us and a them, as have Lizzo and Mary J. Blige.
Ms. Raitt’s presence at the Grammys is worth celebrating. She proves that there is a connection, after all, between music like the punk rock that once mattered so much to me and an awards show that seems to exhale glitter.
I did eventually get a Grammy nomination, 34 years after my first record deal. I was among a team of producers nominated for the PBS series “Soundbreaking.” My eldest son, Lucian, attended the awards with me. I wore a tux, the designer of which no one inquired about. He wore a cheap black suit and bow tie. He was 14 and often hungry, so we stopped at a Chipotle close to Madison Square Garden before hitting the red carpet. At 52, my identity didn’t hinge on getting an award, but by the time we got to 34th Street that night, I had to admit: I saw the shelf where I could probably move a few things around to make space for the Grammy I would show visitors for years to come.
When the award for best music film went to “The Defiant Ones,” about Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, my son looked at me, making sure I was OK. I was. Kind of. We spent the rest of the night looking for Ben Platt, both my boys being great fans of “Dear Evan Hansen.” My consolation prize, sufficient in the end, was Lucian’s joy amid the madness of it all.
In 2014 I was lucky enough to sit at Tom Petty’s table the night he received the Founders Award at an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Pop Awards event. Jackson Browne and Paul Williams were also seated there. Just a few songwriters, but so many songs at that table: “Doctor My Eyes,” “Free Fallin’,” “An Old Fashioned Love Song,” “Running on Empty,” “Wildflowers,” “Rainbow Connection.” The list goes on. But my lasting memory was of watching Petty, Williams and Browne as they watched that year’s award winners. Songwriting teams that sometimes had more than 10 writers were picking up the big prizes. At one point, Petty said, not too quietly: “How do you even write a song with that many people in the room? That’s more like a block party than a writing session.”
Petty later made his way to the stage. Founders Award recipients are an illustrious bunch: Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Tito Puente, Patti Smith and — folks, it’s an awards show — Adam Sandler. Speaking to those gathered that night, Petty described himself as a musician from Gainesville, Fla., an arrival from the margins of American life. “Things have changed, music is different,” he said. But, “the ones that have something to say still shine through.” Eventually shine through. He should have added that. It was an awards show, and that’s how it is.
Warren Zanes is the author of the forthcoming book, “Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska,’” and “Petty: The Biography.” A former member of the Del Fuegos, he teaches at N.Y.U. and continues to write and record music, sometimes with the poet Paul Muldoon’s Rogue Oliphant band, sometimes on his own.
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