Courtesy of GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi
Most of us will never get to walk the red carpet with our musical icons, but GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi might just offer the next best thing. One of its current exhibits, “And the GRAMMY Goes To...” offers a peek behind the Hollywood glitz and glamour, letting visitors explore displays, artifacts, and details of the sort that catapult the GRAMMY Awards from a rote presentation to the riveting performance we see every year.
The exhibit features items such as award winners' dresses, instruments used in performances, and backstage interviews, all of which give a tantalizing up-close-and-personal look at memorable moments many of us have witnessed from the other side of a television screen. But one of the real treasures of the curation is the examination of what goes into the GRAMMY itself.
Visitors to the exhibit can walk the “Road to Gold” that leads up to an artists receiving the GRAMMY, from recording to nomination to the moment of winning. They also discover how the little statue that brings such a life-changing moment is a work of art in itself, with a feature on the “The GRAMMY Man,” John Billings, who handcrafts each award in each category. There's also a blown-up diagram of the GRAMMY and all its parts, as well as a display of Henry Mancini's complete collection of GRAMMY awards—twenty in all! Finally, there's a telecast of the 60th GRAMMY Awards in its entirety, to bring all these fascinating details back together.
Executive director Emily Havens is proud of the exhibit's collection and the fact that it highlights the many, many players beyond the artist that make everything work together. As an educational nonprofit, the museum tries hard to engage its many student visitors in new and exciting ways, and emphasizing all the connections necessary to make the music world what it is helps the next generation see the many, many roles they themselves might play one day.
“And the Grammy Goes To...” is on display through February 3, 2019, at GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi.
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