Ricky Skaggs and Gretchen Wilson
NASHVILLE NOMINEES CROSS ALL GENRES
Each year at the Loew’s Vanderbilt Plaza hotel, a bevy of local artists, musicians, songwriters and producers gather for a celebration and they all just so happen to have one thing in common - being nominated for a Grammy award. This year’s guest list proved that Nashville excels in many genres other than just country music.
Hayley Williams, who was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for her work on B.o.B.’s “Airplanes” and bassist Jeremy Davis of Paramore, which was nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group, arrived to the event with smiles on their faces despite recent turmoil within the band that led to two members bailing out. They avoided the bulk of the press line as did multiple Grammy nominee Patrick Carney of The Black Keys who talked his buddies Jared Followill and Nathan Followill of Kings of Leon into attending the event. Nathan arrived sporting a sling on his arm due to a recent shoulder injury with his beautiful and talented wife Jessie Baylin. But not to worry, Nathan told me that the sling will be coming off in just a few weeks in plenty of time to get back out on the road in early March.
But it wasn’t just Nashville’s rock community that made a strong showing. Christian and gospel acts Fireflight, Jeff & Sheri Easter and Sarah Hart came out to celebrate with the nominated bluegrass acts including Dailey & Vincent, Austin’s Bridge, Del McCoury and Sam Bush. And even The Nashville Symphony is up for five Grammies. Music director Giancarlo Guerrero joked with Metromix on the red carpet that the entire orchestra should take the stage to accept any awards should they be lucky enough to win.
Then, of course, a slew of country’s brightest stars were on hand as well including Lady Antebellum, Dierks Bentley, Little Big Town, The Band Perry, Jett Williams, The SteelDrivers, Gretchen Wilson, Diamond Rio, Marty Stuart and Ricky Skaggs, who has a whopping 14 Grammies and confessed that he loves to show them off in his office.
It was a particularly exciting event for first time nominees like Chris Young and David Nail who are nominated in the same category for Best Male Country Performance and the red carpet seemed like the perfect place, at least to me, to stir up a bit of friendly rivalry between the two. You can check out that fun exchange in the video from that event.
