The Grammy Awards, or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the music industry worldwide. It was originally called the Gramophone Awards, as the trophy depicts a gilded gramophone. The Grammys are the first of the Big Three networks' major music awards held annually, and is considered one of the four major annual American entertainment awards, alongside the Academy Awards, the Emmy Awards, and the Tony Awards. The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4, 1959, to honor the musical accomplishments of performers for the year 1958. After the 2011 ceremony, the Recording Academy overhauled many Grammy Award categories for 2012.
The 28th Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 25, 1986, at Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year, 1985. The night's big winner was USA For Africa's "We Are The World", which won four awards, including Song of the Year which went to Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. It marked the first time in their respective careers that they received the Song of the Year Award. For Richie, it was his sixth attempt in eight years. The other three awards for the latter single were given to the song's producer, Quincy Jones.
Daniel Roland Lanois is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter.
James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III and Terry Steven Lewis are an American R&B/pop songwriting and record production team. They have enjoyed great success since the 1980s with various artists, most notably Janet Jackson. They have written 31 top ten hits in the UK and 41 in the US. In 2022, the duo were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Musical Excellence category.
Maurice White was an American singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was best known as the founder, leader, main songwriter, and producer of the band Earth, Wind & Fire, and served as the band's co-lead singer with Philip Bailey.
Tobias "Toby" Gad is a Los Angeles-based German music producer/songwriter, best known for co-writing John Legend's biggest hit, "All of Me," the fifth-highest certified single in RIAA history, and for co-writing and producing "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie and "If I Were a Boy" by Beyoncé. Other notable works include "Skyscraper" for Demi Lovato, "Who You Are" for Jessie J, "Untouched" for The Veronicas, "A Year Without Rain" for Selena Gomez & the Scene, "Don't Hold Your Breath" for Nicole Scherzinger, "Love You More" for JLS, and "I Do" for Colbie Caillat.
Richard Preston Butler Jr., better known by his stage name Rico Love, is an American record producer, songwriter, singer, and rapper. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, but split his childhood between Milwaukee, Wisconsin and New York City's Harlem neighborhood. He attended Florida A&M and, while visiting Atlanta, Georgia, worked his way into the music industry through connections with Usher, who would become one of Love's frequent collaborators.
Comedy Central Records is a record label based in New York and owned by Paramount Global. The label specializes in stand-up comedy albums and is distributed by Alternative Distribution Alliance, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Stand Up! Records is an American independent comedy record label founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by Grammy-winning producer Dan Schlissel. It has been called "the country's most respected indie comedy label." Stand Up! has released more than 200 comedy albums and videos since its founding in 2000, including albums by Lewis Black, Patton Oswalt, Greg Proops, David Cross, Maria Bamford, Hannibal Buress, Judy Gold, the Sklar Brothers, and Eddie Pepitone. Comedian and actor Marc Maron, who released his first three albums on Stand Up!, described Schlissel as "a guy who loves comedy, and is very attentive to the process of recording comedy," and, referencing the large number of noteworthy comics who were given important exposure in their early careers by the label, joked that "you've done everybody's first two records."
Ledisi Anibade Young, better known simply as Ledisi, is an American R&B and jazz recording artist, songwriter, music producer, author and actress. Her name means "to bring forth" or "to come here" in Yoruba.
Michael Brooks was a British-born music historian, archivist, consultant, and producer.
Jim Scott is an American record producer and audio engineer, best known for his large body of work as an engineer, and his work as a producer with American rock bands Tedeschi Trucks Band and Wilco.
Chris Dugan is an American Grammy-winning audio engineer, cinematographer, record producer, musician, and singer, best known as the drummer of the Effection and as an audio engineer for Green Day. In 2018, along with Green Day members Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt, guitarist Jason White, and tour manager Bill Schneider, he formed The Coverups, for which he plays drums.
-ismist Recordings was a Lincoln, Nebraska-based independent record label founded in 1992 by Dan Schlissel. Over the 1990s, -ismist released nearly 80 albums and singles by bands including Killdozer, Season to Risk, and House of Large Sizes. It is most widely known for comedy albums by Lewis Black and Doug Stanhope, as well as Iowa metal band Slipknot's 1997 debut/demo, Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat. By the early 2000s, after Slipknot had moved on to major label Roadrunner Records and Schlissel had found greater success with comedians like Black and Stanhope than with indie rock, he changed his focus to comedy albums on a new, Minneapolis-based label, Stand Up! Records, which eventually replaced -ismist entirely.
John Would is a Grammy award-winning American musician, songwriter, record producer, audio engineer, and mixer, who was born in Vallejo, California, United States. He has recorded and performed extensively as a multi-instrumentalist and works mainly out of his own studio, Stanley Recordings, in Los Angeles, California.
Graham N. Marsh is an American record producer, recording engineer and multi-instrumentalist from Georgia. He has helped produce four Grammy Award-winning albums from sixteen nominations. He is also half of the Brooklyn indie pop duo CLAVVS with singer-songwriter Amber Renee. Marsh began releasing songs from his instrumental project Draigh in early 2019.
Qmillion, is an American record producer, mix engineer, composer, and songwriter based in Los Angeles, California, United States. Qmillion's achievement for recording and mixing recording artist Robert Glasper's critically acclaimed Black Radio album, gained him a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 55th Grammy Awards in 2013. and most recently nominated for Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for Black Radio III by Robert Glasper on the 2023 Grammys.
Woody Allen is a live 1964 comedy album by the American comedian and later notable film director Woody Allen. This was Allen's debut recording, and was recorded at Mister Kelly's nightclub in Chicago. It was the first of three comedy albums released by Allen, the three albums were issued in a 2014 boxset, The Stand-Up Years: 1964–1968.
Joshua Robert Rawlings is an American pianist, songwriter and record producer. His band, The Teaching, wrote and recorded a song "Bom Bom" for the Macklemore album The Heist, which became the most successful instrumental single on that multiple GRAMMY winning album. Josh earned his first GRAMMY nomination for his contributions on that album.
Dan Schlissel is an American record producer from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and founder of the record labels Stand Up! Records, which specializes in comedy, and -ismist Recordings, which focused on punk and alternative rock from Nebraska and nearby Midwestern states. Schlissel won a Grammy as producer of Lewis Black's 2006 album The Carnegie Hall Performance, and was nominated for his work on Black's two Grammy-nominated albums, Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center Blues and Anticipation. He is known for his work with Black and other comics including Doug Stanhope, Maria Bamford, Marc Maron, and Mitch Hedberg, and helping release the debut record of Iowa metal band Slipknot.
