Fired Piano Player, Charlie Peacock

Or, there will be no GRAMMYS® in the afterlife

Before I dive into my subject—Greensboro, NC? Is that you? Check out Jemar Tisby’s Substack HERE. There’s an event this Sunday the 13th you won’t want to miss. And, I’ll put flyers at the very end of this post—click for Eventbrite registration.

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If you’re following anything I’ve written here or posted on social media, you’ve picked up on this being GRAMMY® nomination season.

More accurately, what you’re seeing with these For Your Consideration (FYC) graphics and posts are GRAMMY® approved submissions or entries by registered entertainment companies and Recording Academy members.

I’ve had lots of kind folks congratulating me. I don’t want to rob them of their hopeful enthusiasm, but these are not nominations. Not yet, anyway. What you’re seeing are the approved submissions that make up the First Ballot—which is an all-skate comprised of thousands of entries. Voting members of the Recording Academy have a short window of time to familiarize themselves with eligible submissions. Who and what have been submitted for my consideration? What does the project or song sound like?

Just like citizenship and voting, being a Recording Academy voting member means preparing to make good decisions. The former is very serious stuff, the latter definitely consequential. But trying to remember the name of a candidate for State House of Representatives that your daughter told you is “super sharp and on it” is simple compared to responsibly listening to all the music you’re voting for. The cool thing is that there really are people who actually try to listen to some or all of what they are considering.

What I love about the Recording Academy community is that everyone gets a shot on this First Ballot of entries. And all the FYC graphics? Those are our yard signs telling voting members to find our needle in the proverbial haystack of music. I know I missed a chance for a turntable allusion there, but moving on.

My FYI bit about FYC is not the teacher in this 68-year-old, amply-affirmed musician needing to wax didactic. Nah. If you know me well, you know there’s gonna be a philosophical “why” in this mess somewhere. Like “Why does this matter?” Well, Andi and I wrote a book about why everything matters—hope you picked one up.

Specifically, why does this GRAMMY® convo matter, though?

I tackled this very topic in another book, my upcoming memoir, ROOTS & RHYTHM (02.02.25).

Shameless plug:

"What makes a great memoir is not just stories from a person’s life, but how those stories are told. Charlie Peacock’s fluid, free-form narrative is infused with earnestness, poetic style and heart. Most rewardingly, it reveals how his relationships, faith, and philosophical ideas have fundamentally shaped his unique and fascinating life in popular music."

— Scott Derrickson, Director, producer & screenwriter: Doctor Strange, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and the series, Snowpiercer

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Thank you Scott. Now let me give you a first-time sneak peek of the book. Come on, you gotta get SOME perks for signing up for this newsletter!

Here’s the setup for what you’re about to read: I’d been working on a film with several Nashville recording artists including Vince Gill, Peter Frampton, and Opry legend, Whisperin’ Bill Anderson. I tell that story and tease out similar and dissimilar artist trajectories between the four of us. Vince and I are peers and nearly the same age. Peter, 6 years older, and a former teen pop star in the UK well before his American fame. Bill is 86 now, the longest running member of the Grand Ole Opry, ever. And, a rara avis of a songwriter with hits in seven decades.

We, Peter, Vince, Bill, and I, have backstories that don’t make it into the bios and blurbs. You never hear or read headline descriptions like “Fired Piano-Player Charlie Peacock,” “Broke with a New Baby Vince Gill,” or “Difficulty Matching Prior Success Peter Frampton.” If you did, a publicity firm would likely be fired. No, we’re all “Grammy Award–Winning Charlie, Vince, and Peter,” with “Grammy Award–Nominated Bill.” That’s the way we choose to roll and rock. There’s a practical reason for this.

There are significant life stories written long before the shiny objects appear. Objects that are effectively yearly awards from a trade association (could just as easily be a Century Breeder Award from the American Hereford Cattle Association). Type any award name and capitalize each word. It’s just name-making with fonts masquerading as gravitas. But it still matters for personal reasons mostly associated with untold, prior stories.

When Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell came to record with me and Joy Williams in 2013, he made a frank but surprising comment: “Hey, you have all your awards up.”

Wondering what was implied but not said, I stumbled into a reply. “Yea, I didn’t use to, but years ago, my good friend Maggie chastised me, saying, ‘Put ’em up, enjoy the fruit of your labor—you’re not taking them with you.’”

Chris told us, “I keep mine out of sight.”

I can’t speak for Bill, but having been to Peter and Vince’s studios, I can tell you they don’t. And I consider them fully affirmed, self-aware, humble people.

Excerpt courtesy of Eerdmans Publishing ©2024 PREORDER HARDCOVER NOW

In the excerpt above, I make the claim that there’s a practical reason for artists/producers/engineers etc. to want GRAMMY® Award-winning (or nominated) to precede their names. It is peer recognition that you have done good work, and because of that, you just might be championed to continue doing good work. In short, it can be a symbol for potential sustainability.

My sustainable career makes a case for this. First GRAMMY® nomination was in 1990, my last in 2024. Note though, two things can be true at once. Grammys are not the only, or the highest and best indicator of good work. ✔️

Still, I’m hoping for another shot or two come February 2nd, 2025. It would be especially meaningful if I could share a nomination or a win with my son Sam Ashworth. Or, both Sam and his wife Ruby Amanfu. Bring it on! You can bet Lebron would love a Lakers championship with his son Bronny on the roster.

I also put awards in perspective generally with my zinging Century Breeder Award—making the point that sometimes this stuff matters for personal reasons mostly associated with untold, prior stories. To which I would add the word, private. Even, painful. Again, there are significant life stories written long before the shiny objects appear.

For example, some of us, who grew up in performance-based homes, who have believed that nothing is ever good enough, think we need the award. For those of us who’ve had to prove our artistic worth to a radically mercurial industry over and over, year after year, we might need the gold (“Who are you? Should I know you? Are you on the charts? When was your last hit?” How old are you now?).

You see the reality is, if you’ve been working in the music industry your whole life as I have—50 years now—it’s all For Your Consideration. Every last bit of it. Always has been.

Yet, we frail humans, walking wounded as we are, have deeply embedded sociological and psychological reasons for how we choose to make meaning (tacitly and intentionally). For example, I once knew a musician who worked to succeed by the world’s standards of success simply to prove his father wrong. Then continued for decades even after the father was in his grave. True story.

Nominations and Winning GRAMMY® Awards often brings artistic and financial freedom. It can give the artist the ability to pause and wisely reflect on what moving forward looks like—including the financial option to decline funding from corporations in order to avoid any unnecessary artistic, marketing, or legal meddling. In short, a little gold leverage can be good business leading to good music and better health.

Still, sometimes you have to get the thing you think you need to find out how to live with it, or without it. Then you’ll know true freedom, artistic or otherwise.

While I put up my yard signs, I’ll keep this thought front of mind.

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One of my all-time favorites among the many artists I’ve produced is the singer-songwriter Kris Allen. You can revisit our work together HERE. What I want you to see is that Kris has a new album out, Pole Vaulter, and he is getting a jump on the FYC graphics for next year. Enjoy. A giant talent, who is also apparently, very funny.

GREENSBORO, NC — SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13 — BE THERE!

TEMPE, AZ — SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20

More information avail from our speakers and fellow Substackers:

https://substack.com/@dianabutlerbass

https://substack.com/@jemartisby

https://substack.com/@kkdumez

https://substack.com/@robertpjones