As usual, there weren’t nearly as many blues names as we would have liked when the nominations for the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards were announced yesterday, but here’s a look at the few lucky blues men, women, and projects that did make the list, with winners to be announced Feb. 15.
Buddy Guy‘s Born to Play Guitar received two nominations, for both Best Blues Album as well as Best American Roots Performance for its title track. In the former category, six-time Grammy winner Guy faces Cedric Burnside Project‘s Descendants of Hill Country, Shemekia Copeland‘s Outskirts of Love, Bettye LaVette‘s Worthy, and John Primer and others’ Muddy Waters 100, while Mavis Staples‘ “See That My Grave is Kept Clean” from her Your Good Fortune release is among Buddy’s competition in the latter category, along with tracks from Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, The Milk Carton Kids, and the Punch Brothers.
Other somewhat bluesy nominees include Jon Cleary‘s Go Go Juice for Best Regional Roots Music Album and Jeff Place for Best Album Notes for his work on Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection.
Congratulations to each of these nominees!