What is the trophy of Grammy Awards made of?
If you are a musician or a music connoisseur, you don’t need an introduction about Grammy Awards, one of the most coveted music awards in the world. Also called the Gramophone Award or simply the Grammy, it is presented by the Recording Academy of USA and was first conferred in 1959. It recognises outstanding achievement and contribution in the realm of global music industry. With the 2023 Grammy nominee list out, here are some lesser-known facts about it that will intrigue you for sure.
Grammy Award is made up of ‘grammium’
First things first. The Grammy Awards is a trophy looking like a gilded gramophone that weighs around 6 pounds. However, what’s interesting is that until 1990, the Grammy used to be made of lead with a fully gold-plated exterior, which was hand-made by Colorado-based manufacturing company Billings Artworks. But in late 20th century, Recording Academy wanted to change the design and also opt for a less soft alternative to the traditional lead. This is when Billings Artworks came up with a customised zinc and aluminium alloy with 24 carat gold outlines, that gave the trophy a much bigger and fancier look. They trademarked the special alloy and named it ‘grammium’ after Grammy. Interestingly, it was master craftsman John Billings who crafted the Grammy.
Not one but three US Presidents have won the Grammy
That’s right. While the world knows about US President Barack Obama’s two Grammy Award wins, we often tend to miss out that prior to him, two other American presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, too had received the honour.
While Obama received his first Grammy in 2006 for his album Dreams From My Father in the category Best Spoken Word Album, he also went on to win in 2008 in the same category. It was for the album The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. He had also received a nomination at Grammy Awards 2022 for his album “A Promised Land” for the upgraded category Best Spoken Word Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books & Storytelling).
Prior to Obama, his predecessor Bill Clinton too won two Grammy Awards. They were for the same category, Best Spoken Word Album and were for the albums Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf/ Beintus: Wolf Tracks in collaboration with Kent Nagano, an artist from Russian National Orchestra in 2004 and My Life in 2005. He also received two Grammy nominations in 2008 and 2013 in the same category.
The 39th US President Jimmy Carter too has been nominated as many as 9 times for the Grammy Awards, in the Best Spoken Word Album category, and managed to win 3 times. The first win was in 2006 for Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis. The next two were in 2015 and 2018 for A Full Life: Reflections at 90 and Faith – A Journey for All respectively.
Grammy Award could be called ‘Eddie’ Award too!
The Grammy Award was conceived when American recording executives realised that the music industry received no proper recognition in Hollywood. This is when, as part of their Hollywood Walk of Fame project, 1950, they decided to launch a music award similar to that of the Oscar and Emmys. The working title was suggested as ‘Eddie’ after Thomas Edison, the gramophone inventor. However, the Recording Academy still decided to conduct a mail-in contest to ask for public opinion. Guess what happened? As many as 300 people submitted the name Grammy. They intended to honour Emilie Brenier’s recent invention of gramophone record.