Last night in New York City, The Rolling Stones were awarded a Grammy for ‘Best Traditional Blues Album’, for Blue & Lonesome, at the 60th Grammy Awards in Madison Square Garden!“All of these songs have antecedents. We’re paying our respects, but we’re taking the blues forward and hopefully introducing them to a whole new generation of fans.” Mick Jagger
Prior to winning the statue for Best Traditional Blues Album for "Blue & Lonesome" on Sunday night, only 1994's 'Voodoo Lounge" notched a win for Best Rock Album. Prior to that, it was the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1986.
"Blue & Lonesome" is a stunner. Here's what I had to say about it when I wrote up a bunch of releases last year for the dinosaurs of rock:
This might be my favorite Rolling Stones album ever, and I'm a student of their vaunted run of records from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s that featured "Sticky Fingers," "Exile on Main Street," and "It's Only Rock 'n Roll."
"Blue & Lonesome" consists entirely of blues covers, so in a sense it's a true back-to-the-beginning effort from Mick, Keith, Ronnie, and Charlie. The Stones started out as a cover band, determined to preach the gospel of American blues, as Keith once put it.
So, last night, The Rolling Stones received their third Grammy ever, not counting the Lifetime Achievement Award they pulled down in 1986. One of these three was for a music video in the ’90s, which really has at least as much to do with the talents of director David Fincher as it does with the band itself.
Hosted by Paul Shaffer, the Premiere Ceremony had placed at the Theater at Madison Square Garden and is being streamed live on the Grammys website. Music is being provided by Shaffer's The World's Most Dangerous Band, and it's the first time the ensemble has performed together since The Late Show With David Letterman went off the air in 2015.
