Could You Be Nominated for a Grammy? [Start Your Week]

 didn’t watch the Grammy Awards a week ago, but you couldn’t miss seeing the highlights of the night broadcasted by the news channels. Dozens of artists young and old received awards for their new, and most popular songs of the year. Although I’m not into all of the different genres, I am amazed by how much creativity it takes to write a new song. Every time I hear a new one on the radio, I think to myself, how many ways are there, to take a limited number of notes, and put them in an order that creates a sound people like but have never heard. That takes creative thinking, the kind that says to the writer, I need to write a song no one has heard that speaks to the listener. In addition, I need to do it in a way that gets peoples’ attention, so they get excited about hearing that song again. It’s been shown many times that you don’t have to have a great voice to have a hit. Some Grammy winners simply talked the lyrics instead of singing them.    

My dad was a good singer. He had an amazing voice and loved to sing. But he always said, there are a lot of people who have hit records who are not good singers. They just have a style that is different from everyone else’s and one that appeals to the masses. They can take a song one artist did not make popular and make it a hit by singing in a different way. A great example of that was the song, Gentle on My Mind, first sang by Felton Jarvis but the song went nowhere because, according to people in the know, he sang it too slow. Glen Campbell took the song, speeded it up and made it a huge hit. My dad would also name people like Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, and Ray Charles who in his opinion made themselves successful by being different from everyone else. They had unique voices and their own styles of how they sang songs. He said in his estimation, they weren’t great singers as you would normally think of what makes a great singer. Great singers have an amazing range and perfect voice control. He said that many successful recording artists don’t have great voices, but they have a way of singing their songs that people love and want to hear over and over again. I guess he was right about some artists...