Grammys 2020: Gary Clark Jr beats Sugaray Rayford to win Best Contemporary Blues Album for 'This Land'
Bluesman Gary Clark Jr has claimed a major honor for himself by claiming the coveted Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album for 'This Land' at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony telecast live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. This was the singer-songwriter's third Grammy win on the night as he also clinched an award for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song on the night for the politically charged album 'This Land' that fiercely tackles racism head-on.
"When I found out I was nominated, I got to be honest with you, I felt like I could breathe a little bit," said Clark of his Contemporary Blues Grammy nomination. "I was confident in myself, obviously, because I love doing it. I didn’t care what anyone thinks, but I was trying to make a life out of it and kind of be a rebel with a cause—or without a cause, depending on who you are. People were like, 'I don’t know what to do with you. I don’t know who that is or who you’re trying to be.' And here I was."
The history of this Best Contemporary Blues award has been a bit start-and-stop when it comes to the Grammys committee. It was originally awarded from 1988 to 2011 at the Grammys, then taken out of the eligible music categories for a while, and finally remerged as a Grammy award again from the year 2017 onwards. From the year 2012, this category was actually merged with the Best Traditional Blues Album category to make a new (combined) Best Blues Album category. However, after 2016, the Recording Academy decided to go back to the 1988 to 2011 formula, with two separate categories once again being created for both "Traditional" and "Contemporary" blues recordings.
Interestingly enough, from 1988 till 1992, this Grammy award was known as Best Contemporary Blues Performance - this loophole in the terminology meant that in 1989, Robert Cray was awarded the Grammy for his song 'Don't Be Afraid of the Dark', instead of the honor going to a complete blues album. After that anomaly, however, full-length albums or recordings were once again only considered for the Best Contemporary Blues Grammy award, which Gary Clark Jr has ably sewn up this year with 'This Land'.
Previous acclaimed blues artistes to have picked up the celebrated award in the past have included Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, J. J. Cale & Eric Clapton, and The Derek Trucks Band - you definitely know you're a world-famous bluesman once you've picked up your golden Grammy award!
The other nominees for this year's best contemporary blues albums were, as you'd expect, significantly populated by extraordinary blues talent.
'Somebody Save Me' - Sugaray Rayford
'Keep On' - Southern Avenue
'Venom & Faith' - Larkin Poe
'Brighter Days' - Robert Randolph & The Family Band