Standup comics

For me the prototypical Grammy moment was in 1977. Stevie Wonder was coming off of a run of owning the Grammys for several years. He was in Nigeria for a huge African music event, a concert that brought together the biggest African music names of the time. The plan was for him to do a song as a live remote during the award show. The first attempt he made, they had an excellent picture but the sound was completely garbled, so they cut away. Tried again, it still wasn't right. On the third attempt, the sound was fine but the video out of whack. IIRC, the feed from the U.S. was out and the Nigerian feed was meh, visible but of poor quality.

Andy Williams was hosting the show. (It's the Grammys in the 70's) He'd been introducing Wonder on the failed attempts, and on this one they had sound going in both directions. "We've got good sound now, Stevie, I can hear you just fine but the picture isn't very good. Can you see me, Stevie?" There's an audible intake of breath from the audience, Wonder's forehead creases as he's visibly thinking "Did he really just ask me that?", and Williams, oblivious, once more goes to commercial voicing the hope that they'll have it fixed when the show came back.

So after the commercial, cue Andy Williams nervously at the podium apologizing and saying that he knew that Wonder was blind, and that what he meant was "Was the video feed working?". A truly stupid and uncomfortable moment in Grammy history.

 

Probably my favorite Grammy winning comedy record of all time was Richard Pryor's "That Nigger's Crazy", an album that would tie today's Grammy voters into knots. It's pee in your pants funny, but good lord, it's blue and chock full of race jokes. You'd have to go to a Red Foxx or Moms Mabley live record to find a comedy record that was as filthy.