Music Blog

The following is a full list of 2007 GRAMMY Award winners from the 49th Annual GRAMMY Awards show:

Record of the Year - Not Ready to Make Nice (The Dixie Chicks - Track from Taking the Long Way)

Album of the Year - Taking the Long Way (The Dixie Chicks)

Song of the Year - Not Ready to Make Nice (The Dixie Chicks - Track from Taking the Long Way)

Best New Artist - Carrie Underwood

View the full list of 2007 GRAMMY Award Winners.

I just wanted to officially welcome Bryce Westervelt as one of the Music Section's newest feature writers. Westervelt is an experienced tenor, and has jumped right into his articles, blog, and discussions... so stop by his site to say hello.

I met Bryce several months ago through his "Ask the Tenor" blog (which he's now moved to Suite101 by the way), and I feel very lucky to have someone with his background joining our team. I can personally assure you that Bryce's writing will both educate and amuse, and has a nasty habit of becoming addictive! So stop by Suite101: Opera, and ask our resident tenor a question or two of your own.

I'd just like to introduce myself. My name's Jennifer Mattern (call me Jenn), and I'm the new Music Editor for Suite101. Despite my "new" status, I'm neither new to Suite101 or new to music. I've spent most of this past year as Suite's Technology Editor (and still serve that role), and in my "other life" I'm very heavily involved in independent music in music publicity work through my PR firm and a growing network of independent music websites that I own and run.

While changes can always be a little bit unsettling, I'm hoping to work with Suite101's Music team to bring you bigger and better material, form relationships with industry insiders, and more. Over the next several weeks, we'll be joined by at least a handful of new writers to help us grow and make this a better resource for you: our readers. :)

If you have any questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact me at music@suite101.com.

I look forward to working with our current and new writers, and our Music readers in the months to come!

James Brown, "Godfather of Soul" who died of heart failure on Christmas day at 72.

June Pointer (The Pointer Sisters) died of cancer on April 11.

Buck Owens, legendary country singer, died on March 25.

Ali Farka Toure, Famed African musician; two-time Grammy winner, died on March 7.

Etta Baker, was an influential blues guitarist who recorded with Taj Mahal and was awarded a 1991 Folk Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. She died on Sept. 23.

Syd Barret, co-founder of Pink Floyd died in his English home around July 11th.

Wilson Pickett, soul legend anc compose of In the Midnight Hour and Mustang Sally died of a heart attack, Jan. 19.

J Dilla or Jay Dee, member of Slum Village and esteemed producer for several popular Hip-Hop acts, died of lupus at 32 on Feb 10.

The good news for new artists: You no longer have to play crummy bars and spend tons of money on mailing out your demos to get attention from record labels.

Despite the fact that 130 milllion people worldwide have their own page, artists - both new and established musicians who want to reinvent themselves to a younger audience - are using MySpace to communicate with fans and to introduce themselves to potential ones. As MySpace has a blog tool, most artists are eschewing software like Wordpress, Blogger and Typepad to communicate on this free website. The only problem is that as a newbie, you have to do a fair bit of work to find new artists, scanning the thousands of music-related pages.

So what happens to the music industry? According to an interview with the CEO of MySpace, Chris DeWolfe, it is consumer demand that decides why artists use the site. Also, with the surge of independent record labels popping up, they are also using Myspace to promote their company, highlight their new artists and market themselves though their 'friends' lists. This mechanism makes it easier to see who is checking out your site and the opportunity to share links on other people's pages. For a great example, check out the site for MC Guru (Gangstarr, Jazzmatazz) who has started his own label, 7 Grand.

With the release of Jay-Z's Kingdom Come and tracks were leaked online before the Nov 21st release date (which is pretty good, BTW - not his best, but worth a listen), record companies are becoming more paranoid about providing promotional copies of anticipated albums before they are released to the public, which might explain the lack of promo copies I have been receving this year! Apparently - since I don't use Ebay - people are selling yet-to be released copies, which is way more profitable than taking them to your local second-hand CD shop. According to The Guardian, a representative from Jay-Z's label personally flew in a copy to the London offices of the newspaper and then flew back after they had a listen. Strange.

Some artists leak new tracks online to promote buzz, fearing that their album needs that extra "push.' Tracks from Beyonce's B Day were available way before the album was released. Usually, it is someone from the label that leaks the tracks. So what's the problem?

Artists like Country artist Willie Nelson have been deeply involved fund raisers like Farm Aid for decades but this year, more and more musical artists are donating their time for a good cause.

Green Day has partnered up with the The National Resources Defense Council, an environmental organization and started a web site, http://www.greendaynrdc.com.

MTV will be airing a documentary they produced with Jay-Z tomorrow night (Nov 24th) entitled :"The Diary of Jay-Z - Water for Life." After travelling to Africa this summer, Jay -Z has donated money to the U.N initiative that is dedicated to reducing the number of people who do not have access to clean drinking water by half, by the year 2015.

Well known for his charitable causes, U2's Bono, his wife and Oprah Winfrey have partnered up with Apple Computers, Motorola, Converse, The Gap and Emporio Armani to launce (Product) Red, a line of merchandise. Proceeds will go to The Global Fund, which fights AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

So instead of giving gifts to your loved ones this season make a donation to one of these organizations.

KOCH Music is looking for CD donations for the Canadian Music Therapy Trust Fund. The non-profit charitable organization purchases hearing aids for children. For the PLAY IT FORWARD initiative, the CD's will be donated to the Trust Fund, which will in turn distribute them across Canada for music libraries for music therapists, music therapy centres. Primarily geared to newspapers, record labels and magazines, I'm sure that they would really appreciate donations from individuals. So instead of trying to collect $2-5.00 for each disc at your nearest second-hand record store, donate them for a great cause.

The fundraiser will run until December 31, 2006. You can send your donations to:

Eric Alper

Director of Media Relations and Label Acquisitions

KOCH Entertainment Distribution

2010 Ellesmere Road, Unit 8

Toronto, ON M1H3B1

I promise, this will be the last news bit about K-Fed, but thought this was quite interesting: While his album, Playing With Fire was just released last week, Federline figures that people will want to know more about him and what it's like being married to Britney Spears, so he's planning to write a book about his life. But don't expect the book to be written by him - he's hiring a ghostwriter.

As he wrote in an article for the Oct 31st issue of the New York Post, it's hard being K-Fed and he feels that if people know about his life before meeting Spears, they might have more empathy towards him - i.e. increase the sales of his album. I'm thinking people will a) hate him even more than they already do, or b) be incredibly envious at how lucky he is. Do you really think that he would be able to produce and sell an album without his wife? After all, how do you think he was able to close out the Teen Choice Awards?

Stating that the documentary is "disparaging to president Bush" NBC declined to promote the fim, which looks at the events that cumulated after Maines said to a London audience "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." Perhaps it was the timing, as it was on the eve of America invading Iraq, or that it signified that the world wasn't supportive - or sure - of Bush's motives.

The documentary not only shows the bond between the members, singer Maines and sisters Martie Maquire and Emily Robinson, but the ugly backlash that ensued by Texans and other people who supported the war. If it was a man who offered those sentiments, would the outcome have been different?

Regardless of your own personal opinions about the top-selling female artists of all time, it must be noted that television networks are not supposed to be partisan. While I'm not that big of a country fan, I think that the film not only highlights the talented trio but also looks at the political and social climate of our times.