Alison Krauss’ chance to pull ahead
Much of the focus on this year’s Grammy Award nominations has been on the strong showing for hip-hop and urban music, and by artists of color and women who received most of the top nods over long-standing Recording Academy favorites.
Country and bluegrass musician Alison Krauss squarely registers in the favorites category, yet she wasn’t overlooked for her recent album “Windy City.” It earned her two nominations: country solo performance for the track “Losing You” and American roots performance for “I Never Cared for You.”
Significantly for longtime Grammy Awards watchers, it creates the possibility that she can break the tie she’s been in for years with esteemed producer, songwriter and musician Quincy Jones.
Each has collected 27 Grammys, second only to longtime Chicago Symphony conductor Georg Solti, whose 31 have long represented a Mt. Everest in the music industry.
Krauss tied Jones with her win in 2011 for “Paper Airplane,” which took home the bluegrass album award. Jones’ most recent Grammy came in 1996 with a spoken word award for the audiobook for “Q — The Autobiography of Quincy Jones.”
As things stand, Krauss is the most-awarded woman in Grammy history. She may be a long shot in the American roots category — she’s nominated with two artists likely to be sentimental favorites because they died recently: Leonard Cohen and Glen Campbell.
In the country solo performance category, Krauss is nominated alongside Sam Hunt, Miranda Lambert, Maren Morris and Chris Stapleton.
The Grammy Awards will be announced Jan. 28.