I got an email the other day from Compass/Green Linnet Records congratulating their artists Liz Carroll and John Doyle for a GRAMMY nomination for their album Double Play. This is generally no big deal – I get an email like this from a lot of music labels when they have a nominee. However, in years past, I was not a Community Blogger for the GRAMMY awards, and this year it started me thinking, because I didn’t see their names in the list of categories that I cover. It turns out that they are nominated in the Best Traditional World Music Album category.
So, I’ve been pondering for the last couple days the fact that it didn’t even really occur to me that, despite the incredible popularity of Celtic music in America that there is no category in the GRAMMY awards for Best Celtic Music Album.
Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus (where I live), holds an annual Irish Festival featuring three days of Irish culture and several stages of Celtic music attended by over 100,000 people. According to Pollstar, 3 of the top 100 grossing North American music touring acts through mid-year 2009 were by Celtic music acts:
- Riverdance (#21) , 324,451 tickets sold
- Celtic Woman (#54), 106,492 tickets sold
- Michael Flatley’s “Lord of the Dance” (#62), 104,337 tickets
Let me put this into perspective by listing some other artists and their place on the list:
- Leonard Cohen’s mighty comeback tour (#27)
- Elton John (#32)
- Taylor Swift (#43)
- Aerosmith (#56)
- Diana Krall (#85)
- Bill Gaither and Friends Homecoming (#87)
This week, The Very Best of Enya debuted on the Billboard “Top 200 Album Chart” at #55, followed by her Christmas CD, And Winter Came at #57. Celtic Woman’s A Christmas Celebration is #65.
People who don’t cover or listen to this music really have no idea how unbelievably popular this music is in America, which is why I’m throwing out sales numbers and chart positions. There is an Irish or English-style pub in every burgh of any size in America where you can hear a local, regional, or maybe international Celtic band play live every Friday and Saturday night and sometimes throughout the week. According to the American Community Survey of 2007, a total of 36.5 million people in America claim Irish heritage. To put that in perspective, the total estimated population of the United States by the Census Bureau in 2007 was 301.3 million, so an estimated 12.1% of the population claims Irish heritage.
I fully realize that every genre wants its own categories and NARAS is not in a position to give one to every group that asks. Hawaiian and Cajun/Zydeco are natural categories precisely because of their American origin. Yet, it seems more than a little dismissive to shunt so many genres into World music to let them fight it out, especially considering that Latin and Reggae have been recognized with their own categories.
It’s time to broaden the horizons in the World music category and recognize some additional music styles of music popular throughout the world. Best Traditional Celtic Music Album and Best Contemporary Celtic Music Album would be a good place to start. And why not soukous or mbalax to put Africa on the global pop music map? Flamenco/Spanish-style guitar has also become a worldwide phenomenon (Ottmar Liebert and Rodrigo y Gabriela, anyone?).
