25 Apr Role Call: Grammy Winning Performers
This year’s SunFest lineup is full of winners — and that’s not an opinion.
With eight Grammy winners and multiple nominees slated to perform this year, here’s a list of all the artists performing this week who have at least one of those shiny, gold awards sitting on their mantlepiece (or in their bathroom, no judgement).
1. Alabama Shakes
Three is clearly a magic number because three of our SunFest16 acts have three Grammy awards each. One of which is Alabama Shakes — a raw, soulful, blues four-piece, led by powerhouse Brittany Howard. After receiving nominations in 2013 and 2014, Alabama Shakes came home winners at this year’s Grammy Awards, taking the W for the Best Rock Song, Album of the Year and Best Alternative Music Album categories.
2. The Roots
Known affectionately as the “legendary Roots crew” on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Roots have been scooping up awards long before its regular television appearances. The soul/funk/hip-hop band won its first Grammy in 2000 for Best Rap Performance By a Duo or Group. The winning track, “You Got Me,” featured Erykah Badu. Later in 2011, the band scooped up two more awards — including Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Album — for tracks they did with R&B artist, John Legend.
3. Train
Alternative California boys, Train, have also won three Grammy awards over the years. It all started in 2002 with one of the band’s arguably biggest singles, “Drops of Jupiter.” That feel-good piano ballad that gets everyone singing ‘na-na-nah’ by the end earned two Grammy awards — one for Best Rock Song and another for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s). Years later, in 2011, Train won its third Grammy for the ukulele driven “Hey, Soul Sister.” The song’s live version took the title of Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
4. Duran Duran
These English new-wavers made a name for themselves when they released their music videos on the newly formed MTV, featuring partial nudity and sexual themes. It resulted in the band’s videos getting banned from networks like BBC and censored in America. So it’s only fitting that those videos won awards, too. Duran Duran has received two Grammy awards in its span as a band and both were for the group’s videos. The first went to “Girls on Film” and “Hungry Like the Wolf” for Best Music Video, Short Form in 1984. The second went to “Duran Duran,” the band’s video album (Beyoncé wasn’t the first, guys) for Best Music Video, Long Form, the same year.
5. Evanescence
Say hello to the band that brought female-fronted goth rock to the mainstream world. Evanescence wasn’t the first band to ever feature a sultry goth girl on lead, but it was probably one of the first few to do so on MTV and VH1. People still remember that eery video for the band’s debut single, “Bring Me To Life,” featuring that gasp-inducing fall out the window. It obviously worked because within a year of the band’s debut album, “Fallen” being released, Evanescence won Best Rock Artist and Best New Artist at the 2004 Grammy Awards.
6. Meghan Trainor
After popping up on the scene in 2014 with her single, “All About That Bass,” Meghan Trainor received two Grammy nominations in 2015, but neither panned out all the way. A year later, redemption was hers. Just 12 months after losing out on Song and Record of the Year, the pop artist won the Grammy for Best New Artist. It’s easy to say the 22-year-old is doing well for herself, churning out single after single with songs like “Lips Are Movin'” and “No,” and becoming a Grammy winning artist within a year.
7. Rick Springfield
You know you’ve sung this song. Whether it was in your car or at a karaoke bar that shall remain nameless, I know you’ve belted out “Jessie’s Girl” at least once in your life. The 1981 anthem about wanting someone else’s significant other earned power pop artist Rick Springfield his first and only Grammy award. The category was Best Rock Vocal Male Performance and the competition was steep, including nominations to Rod Stewart and Bruce Springsteen, among others. Still, Springfield took the title, and we continue to celebrate for him, wailing the lyrics to “Jessie’s Girl” and remembering a simple time, consisting of leggings (the first time they were in style) and sweat bands being worn outside of the NBA.
8. Salt N’ Pepa
It wasn’t for “Whatta Man” or even “Push It.” When those songs by female rap group, Salt N’ Pepa were nominated for Grammy Awards in 1995 and 1989, they fell short. But in 1995, after three prior nominations, the ladies finally took home a title. It was for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group and the song was “None of Your Business,” an empowering women’s anthem against judgement. The track talks about how if a girl wants to take someone home, it’s no one else’s business but her own. In a 20 year track review, the Daily Life’s Sarah Oakes said “‘None Of Your Business’ is a fist-pumping, anti-woman-shaming anthem a solid decade before the term was ever used in the mainstream.” Not bad for a first win.