Evanescence

The White Stripes

Goth-rock band Evanescence picked up two awards, including the coveted Best New Artist Grammy as well as Best Hard Rock Performance for their breakthrough hit, "Bring Me To Life." A pair of posthumous awards went to the late Warren Zevon, whose children accepted statuettes for Best Rock Performance by Duo or Group (with Bruce Springsteen) and Best Contemporary Folk Album for his final recording, The Wind.

Michael Brecker

Alison Krauss & Union Station

Rapper Eminem's Oscar-winning theme song "Lose Yourself" from the movie 8 Mile earned him the Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song titles; songwriter Jeff Bass also earned a Grammy as co-writer on the track.

The Neptunes

Wayne Shorter

Other winners included The White Stripes and jazz greats Wayne Shorter and Michael Brecker, who earned two nods each, as well as Café Tacuba, Christina Aguilera, Vince Gill, Sam Cook, Pink, Foo Fighters, and The Neptunes, who were crowned as Producers of the Year.

BMI's Grammy Award Winners

Christina Aguilera
Best Female Pop Vocal Performance

Audio Adrenaline
Best Rock Gospel Album

Jeff Bass
Best Rap Song

Steve Berkowitz
Best Historical Album

The Blind Boys of Alabama
Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album

Michael Brecker
Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album
Best Instrumental Arrangement

Randy Brecker
Best Contemporary Jazz Album

Caf� Tacuba
Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album

Michel Camilo
Best Latin Jazz Album

Ry Cooder
Best Pop Instrumental Album

Sam Cooke
Best Long Form Music Video

Chick Corea
Best Jazz Instrumental Solo

Ani DiFranco
Best Album Package

Reggie Dozier
Album of the Year

Eminem
Best Rap Song
Best Male Rap Solo Performance

Evanescence
Best New Artist
Best Hard Rock Performance

Foo Fighters
Best Rock Album

Aretha Franklin
Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance

Vince Gill
Best Male Country Vocal Performance

Jimmy Gonzalez y El Grupo Mazz
Best Tejano Album

Buddy Guy
Best Traditional Blues Album

Rich Harrison
Best R&B Song

Bishop T.D. Jakes
Best Gospel Choir or Chorus Album

Etta James
Best Contemporary Blues Album

k.d. lang (SOCAN)
Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

Alison Krauss
Best Country Collaboration with Vocals
Alison Krauss & Union Station
Best Country Instrumental Performance
Best Bluegrass Album

Donnie McClurkin
Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album

Pat Metheny
Best New Age Album

The Neptunes
Producer of the Year, Non-Classical

Pink
Best Female Rock Vocal Performance

Neal Pogue
Album of the Year

Eugene Record
Best R&B Song

Don Rollins
Best Country Song

Wayne Shorter
Best Jazz Instrumental Album
Best Instrumental Composition

Sting (PRS)
Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals

Jimmy Sturr
Best Polka Album

"Weird Al" Yankovic
Best Comedy Album

Jack White (The White Stripes)
Best Rock Song
Best Alternative Music Album

Warren Zevon
Best Rock Performance by Duo or Group
Best Contemporary Folk Album

Warren Zevon

Evanescence

The White Stripes

Rock band Evanescence also topped this year's list, picking up five nominations including Best New Artist and Best Rock Album for their multi-platinum breakthrough release, Fallen. Other five-time nominees were rapper Eminem and the late Warren Zevon. Also receiving multiple nods were Willie Nelson, Jack White of The White Stripes (three with his band and one individual), and classical composer Jose Serebrier with four each and Christina Aguilera with three, including Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her smash hit, "Beautiful."

Willie Nelson

Eminem

Warren Zevon

The 46th Annual Grammy Awards will be held on Sunday, February 8, 2004, at Staples Center in Los Angeles and will be broadcast on CBS from 8-11:30 p.m. on the East and West Coasts.

BMI's Grammy Nominees

SIX NOMINATIONS
Pharrell Williams

FIVE NOMINATIONS
Eminem
Evanescence
Chad Hugo
Warren Zevon

FOUR NOMINATIONS
Willie Nelson
José Serebrier
The White Stripes

THREE NOMINATIONS
Christina Aguilera
Jeff Bass
Michael Brecker
Chick Corea
Anthony Hamilton
Alison Krauss
Lil' Kim
Shania Twain

TWO NOMINATIONS
Audioslave
Black Eyed Peas
Jorge Calderón
Ry Cooder
Foo Fighters
Fountains of Wayne
Aretha Franklin
Rich Harrison
Heather Headley
Bishop T.D. Jakes
Toby Keith
R. Kelly
k.d. lang (SOCAN)
The Matrix
Martina McBride
Aaron Neville
Nickelback (SOCAN)
Pink
Neal Pogue
Earl Scruggs
Wayne Shorter
Snoop Dogg
Sting (PRS)
Union Station
Doc Watson
will.i.am
John Williams
Lucinda Williams

ONE NOMINATION
Mirwais Ahmadzaï
Akwid
Allman Brothers Band
Audio Adrenaline
Marcia Ball
Luther Barnes & the Sunset Jubilaires
Buju Banton (PRS)
Mark Batson
Steve Berkowitz
Eddie Blazonczyk's Versatones
Carla Bley Big Band
Blind Boys of Alabama
Blue Highway
Michelle Branch
Randy Brecker
Brooks & Dunn
David Bowie (PRS)
Joe Budden
Jimmy Buffett
Martin Buttrich (GEMA)
Café Tacuba
Michel Camilo
Cam'Ron
Caribbean Jazz Project
Rosanne Cash
Stanley Clarke
Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater
The Crabb Family
The Crusaders
Sam Cooke
Adrian Cosentini
Diamond Rio
Ani DiFranco
Reggie Dozier
Jimmy Douglass
Eagles
Fred Ebb
Kurt Elling
Scotty Emerick
The Flaming Lips
Floetry
Bill Frisell
Kenny G
Vince Gill
Gorillaz (PRS)
Percy Gray, Jr.
Buddy Guy
Eddie Gonzalez
Jimmy Gonzalez y El Grupo Mazz
Pat Green
Stephan Haeri
William Hamilton
Roy Hargrove
Faith Hill
Dave Holland Quintet
Eric Idle (PRS)
India
Intocable
Jane's Addiction
Etta James
Keith Jarrett
Jars of Clay
Norah Jones
The Jordanaires
John Kander
Peter Kater
John P. Kee
Garrison Keillor
Kitaro (JASRAC)
Korn
Dave Koz
Nathaniel Kunkel
Patti LaBelle
Amel Larrieux
Glenn Lewis
Mark Levine
Linkin Park
The Light Crust Doughboys
Lonestar
Irving Lorenzo
Patty Loveless
Luis Miguel
Timo Maas (GEMA)
Marilyn Manson
Masters at Work
Donnie McClurkin
Del McCoury Band
Tim McGraw
Sarah McLachlan (SOCAN)
Jim McNeely
Joel McNeely
Pat Metheny
Bette Midler
Ismael Miranda
Molotov
Joel Moss
Newsboys
Bob Norberg
Les Nubians (SACEM)
The Oak Ridge Boys
Walter Ostanek (SOCAN)
Joe Pace
Dolly Parton
Nicholas Payton
Ray Price
Queens of the Stone Age
Eugene Record
Relient K
Don Rollins
Roomful of Blues
The Roots
Scott Rouse
David Sanborn
Pete Seeger
The Sensational Nightingales
Thomas Z. Shepard
Brian Setzer Orchestra
Sean Smith
Luciana Souza
Los Straitjackets
Micheal Strange, Jr.
Jimmy Sturr
Howard Tate
Susan Tedeschi
Télépopmusik (SACEM)
Jacky Terrasson
Los Tigres Del Norte
Los Tucanes De Tijuana
Caetano Veloso
Rhonda Vincent
Redd Volkaert
Muddy Waters
Charlie Wilson
Gerald Wilson Orchestra
Kim Wilson
Vickie Winans
George Winston
Wayne Wonder
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Yerba Buena
Maury Yeston
Yellowjackets

Given only three months to live, Zevon passed up initial cancer treatment and headed to the studio to complete what would be his final album, The Wind. Infamous for his dark humor and fascination with death and dying, he faced his own mortality by writing the critically-acclaimed album as a goodbye to his friends and family. Released this August, The Wind debuted at #16 on the Billboard Top 200 chart and featured guest appearances by friends and admirers including Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Dwight Yoakam, Joe Walsh, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne and others.

Born in Chicago to Russian immigrants, the classically trained pianist turned to pop music and the guitar, making his mark in Los Angeles as a commercial jingle writer, a bandleader for the Everly Brothers and songwriter for the Turtles when his 1969 debut album, Wanted Dead or Alive, failed to pay the bills. Although he was not well-known to the general public, Zevon was big on the LA music scene and his second album featured long-time friend and producer Jackson Browne, as well as guest stars such as Stevie Nicks, Don Henley and Bonnie Raitt. The self-titled record also included the song "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me," which Linda Ronstadt later covered and made a hit in 1977. His next and most commercial success was 1978's Excitable Boy, which peaked at #8 on the Billboard charts. He continued to record throughout the years up until his final release this summer.

Zevon, who was the sole guest last October on the "Late Show With David Letterman," was asked if he had learned anything about life and death since his diagnosis, to which Zevon answered: "How much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich."

Zevon is survived by his son Jordan, his daughter Ariel, and recently born twin grandsons.]]> 2003-09-09T18:00:00-05:00 http://www.bmi.com/musicworld/entry/233771 Burnett, T-Bone, Harris, Emmylou, Henley, Don, R.E.M., Thornton, Billy Bob, Yoakam, Dwight, Zevon, Warren, Pop, Rock, Feature As a songwriter, Warren Zevon is one of the most articulate and witty observers of the vicissitudes, absurdities and ironies of modern life. He's given us glimpses at the "Werewolves Of London, the "Excitable Boy" and "Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner." He has called for "Lawyers, Guns and Money, done time in the "Detox Mansion, and shown us what it's like to be "Poor Poor Pitiful Me." And now the man who sang "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" is giving us all a lesson, tragic as it may be, in how to die with dignity and purpose.

Diagnosed with incurable lung cancer in August of 2002, Zevon promptly set out to do what he has done all along: take the tragicomedy of existence and fashion it into musical art. Given three months to live, he has already stuck around for close to a year in order to give us The Wind, likely his final album. "I was more prolific than I'd ever been, notes Zevon. "I had this goal and it kept me going." As a measure of the esteem his peers feel for Zevon, the set includes guest appearances by Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Dwight Yoakam, Billy Bob Thornton, Ry Cooder, T-Bone Burnett, Tommy Shaw, David Lindley and John Waite.

Such admiration is the just due for one of the bravest songwriters of his day, maybe ever. Zevon explored the dark side in song like a film noir private eye — and became friends with such crime fiction masters as Ross MacDonald and Carl Hiaasen — which seems only natural for a Los Angeles-reared artist who reveled in complexity and contradiction.

Trained as a classical pianist, Zevon first made his mark writing pop songs for The Turtles and playing with The Everly Brothers. The 1976 release of Warren Zevon brought him immediate critical acclaim, and '78's Excitable Boy album hit the Top 10. His stature was such that in the late 1980s, members of R.E.M. played on Zevon's Sentimental Hygiene and formed a side group with him, The Hindu Love Gods. In recent years, Zevon continued to prove his ongoing creative fire with the ironically titled albums Life'll Kill Ya and My Ride's Here (his ride being a hearse).

Being at death's door has taught Zevon "to value every moment, and do so with typically dark humor and aplomb. When David Letterman recently devoted an entire show to the singer/songwriter, Zevon noted how facing his own mortality showed him "how much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich."

And as he presciently noted in 1983, "If you're lucky, people like something you do early and something you do just before you drop dead. That's as many pats on the back as you should expect." But thanks to his music and indomitable spirit, Zevon's legacy shall no doubt live forever.

"The thing about making records is you take the songs and whatever you are interested in, whatever the songs ask for, and you bring it to a boil and see what floats to the top," says Prophet of the process of bringing a song to fruition as a recording.

Prophet grew up in Southern California and was turned on to music by his older sister's record collection and AM radio in the early 1970s. By the time he hit college in San Francisco, punk rock had also caught his ear and Prophet started playing in bands. When a group he played with opened for a outfit from Los Angeles called Green On Red, Prophet was knocked out by what he heard, and soon after was drafted into the band.

After playing with Green On Red over the course of eight albums and much of the 1980s, Prophet struck out on his own when the group disbanded. Yet he has also continued to collaborate with such varied others as Cake, The Silos, Bob Neuwirth, Warren Zevon and the ad hoc band Raisins In The Sun, as well as with his singer/songwriter wife Stephanie Finch.

When Prophet discusses the process of songwriting, he employs a cinematic approach: "You write a song and you do end up casting it like a movie in your mind," he observes. "You cast these songs with these characters in mind, and sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't. A lot of it's deliberate, and a lot of it's by staying open minded to the random elements that might happen. You get lucky too."]]> 2002-10-15T18:00:00-05:00