Bowie, B.B. King tributes added
Awards show also lines up performance of ‘Hamilton’ opener from Broadway.
With the Grammy Awards just over a week away, the telecast’s roster of performers is beginning to take shape. In addition to a lineup of performers that includes hit makers Kendrick Lamar, the Weeknd and Adele, the Grammys have announced tributes to some recently departed Grammy favorites, along with a cameo from the smash Broadway musical “Hamilton.”
The Grammy Awards telecast typically pays homage to those who have died during the previous year, and this year it wouldn’t be hard to fill the three-hour time slot with salutes to the recently departed.
So far in 2016 the world has lost rock provocateur David Bowie, singer Natalie Cole, Eagles founding member Glenn Frey, Jefferson Airplane founder Paul Kantner, jazz musician Paul Bley and Motorhead frontman Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister, among others.
On Tuesday it was announced that pop chameleon Lady Gaga will be hon-
oring Bowie with a performance under the direction of one of his collaborators, Nile Rodgers, and now a tribute to blues great B.B. King has been revealed as one of the featured spots in the Feb. 15 telecast.
“It’s been a tough year,” Grammys telecast executive producer Ken Ehrlich told The Times this week. “We knew we wanted to do something for B.B. He was really one of our special Grammy guys.”
King collected 15 Grammys during his 89 years, plus a lifetime achievement award in 1987. He received his first Grammy in 1970 — for male R&B vocal performance — with the hit that made him known to the masses, “The Thrill Is Gone.”
That song that will be performed on the show by rising country star Chris Stapleton, blues singer-guitarist Gary Clark Jr. and another longtime Grammys show favorite, singer-guitarist Bonnie Raitt, who was a friend and disciple of King’s distinctive approach to the blues.
“So many of us were introduced to the blues by the British Invasion bands,” Raitt told The Times in May when King died. “The Beatles and the [Rolling] Stones turned a lot of us on to the more obscure American R&B and blues acts. You’d hear all those guys talk about their influences, people like Paul Butterfield and John Mayall, and B.B. King was their hero.
“After I got lucky enough to meet him, he remained one of the most gracious, humble, friendly and loving people I ever met in my life . ... I think he had an awareness of his own position and why everyone respects him so much, but he’s never been one to boast or be arrogant in any way, and that’s a very endearing quality in royalty,” Raitt said.
Ehrlich said he’d been planning to ask Stapleton to be involved in the show in some capacity and came across a performance of him singing “The Thrill Is Gone” on YouTube.
Ehrlich suggested pairing him with Clark, who has been a regular at Grammys telecasts in recent years, and Stapleton subsequently asked whether they might also invite Raitt.
“I also had thought about Bonnie for this,” Ehrlich said. “It’s hard to go wrong with her. But he brought it up and asked if that made sense. I knew he was going to suggest her before the words came out of his mouth.
“We asked her, she said she’d be happy to do it, and it was done. We had one phone call with everybody on, and it just felt right.”
“I can’t think of any artist who has had as much as an influence on modern rock ’n’ roll or R&B as B.B. King, and the blues as well,” Raitt said.
“His guitar playing has been a monumental influence on so many people who’ve gone on to become cornerstones of our musical legacies.”
Producers of the Grammy Awards telecast typically leave Broadway production numbers to the annual Tony Awards, but this year the opening number from the Grammy-nominated “Hamilton” will be among nearly two dozen performances slated for this year’s telecast.
“It’s such a radically innovative show because of the use of hip-hop music,” Ehrlich said. “I was reading things about it before I ever saw it. Credible writers were saying this show has changed the face of Broadway musical theater. I know we’ve all read that before . ...
“But when you see this show,” Ehrlich said, “even though you have a few references to what Broadway musicals have been, you’re basically wiping the slate clean and you’re looking at something so totally different than what you’ve seen. And it’s good different . ... We have opportunities to do a number from a Broadway show every year because there are always five nominated shows. For me, this one stood out a little more than others have.”
Rather than being adapted to the Staples Center stage in Los Angeles, where the majority of this year’s Grammy performances will take place, the “Hamilton” sequence will emanate via remote from the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, where it has been drawing big crowds since August.
“Hamilton” is nominated in the musical theater album category along with “An American in Paris,” “Fun Home,” “The King and I” and “Something Rotten!”
“This show’s real introduction to the television audience will be our show,” Ehrlich said. “I’m sure it will also be on the Tonys, and they’ll do a great number on their show. But ours is a music show, and aside from the staging and the brilliant choreography, the music in this show is unique, and it’s special. I’m thrilled we’re going to be putting it up first to millions of people.”